The Stand was first published in 1978 and is regarded among Constant Readers as King’s seminal work. Ask any true King fan for their thoughts on The Stand and settle in for the response. From the original published version vs the complete and uncut edition, the miniseries vs the ill-fated remake, Frannie (oh dear god that woman…), the “magical negro” stereotype… People have Opinions.
Then, 2020 happened, and we all lived through a real super-flu. Sure, it wasn’t nearly as fatal, but it did seem to divide the populace into the righteous and the rebels – eerily echoing King’s apocalyptic vision.
Enter The End of the World as We Know It, a collection of 34 stories centred around Captain Tripps, the virus that set the stage for the epic battle of good vs evil in The Stand.
For my part, I made it to story #25 before deciding to give up on this collection. It’s a mixed bag of wildly varying quality, and I spent months mustering the willpower to get through it. Finally, I’ve admitted defeat, and this book now falls into the extremely rare DNF category for me. As a completionist, and a Constant Reader, it pains me to say it.
For every decent story in this collection, there are twice as many turds. I think it was around the sexual-mermaid story that I lost hope, and never recovered. (And no: the sex mermaid had nothing to do with the pandemic.) What a mess. I’m not familiar with the editorial prowess of Golden and Keene outside of this work, but if this collection is anything to go by, they may need to rethink their approach.
If you peruse Goodreads, you’ll see which stories readers did appreciate. The African Painted Dog by Catriona Ward was a standout, and I enjoyed the storytelling device used in Paul Tremblay’s The Story I Tell Is the Story of Some of Us. Lenora was heartbreaking and engaging. But the rest… yikes.
Suffice to say: I wouldn’t recommend this collection, am given I couldn’t even finish it, am giving it 1 perverted detective out of 5.