The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand

by Christopher Golden

Worse, there were predictions that the VHS tape was on its way out. But what the hell could replace that kind of technology, some little spinning disc of some sort?

This is the dumbest kind of joke.

He was dark with a pus-filled infection.

What are you even trying to convey here?

Jett Marsh.

Definitely a real name.

The survivors began to form gangs.

This line actually prompted some interesting consideration on my part. "The Stand" makes it a point of how empty the U.S. would be after 99.4%+ of the population died off, but if you do the math, that's still ~1.5 million people. In the New York city area, that's ~44,000 people. You could definitely still have gangs. Whether it's likely you'd have one in some jerkwater town in Mississippi I'm not convinced.

When they ran out of dogs and cats, rats and mice, they killed one another for a food source.

This rings false to me. The population has been reduced by >99%. Even with the loss of perishable food due to spoilage, there should be tons of canned goods. Plus there's apparently decent hunting available nearby.

then would serve as a delectable meal after they fattened her up with whatever they had.

I know that we're meant to think these people are idiots, but I think even idiots would know that it makes more sense to eat whatever they'd use to fatten her up themselves.

I couldn’t believe that idiot Gene, who couldn’t find his ass with both hands, was within an ass hair of having me again.

Nice work using the word ass twice in one sentence.

“That thing you’re on, it’s comin’ down. Steered by hands you don’t wanna comprehend, it’s aiming to spread its poison all across this place around me, the farm and all of Nebraska beyond. And if that happens, well… it’s done before it’s begun.”

This is deeply stupid and feels completely contrary to the spirit of the source, where the final battle between good and evil is waged by four guys on foot with no weapons beyond their faith.

(Heck had also started smoking up several grams weekly—a practice that Elise opined could only end badly for him.)

Shut up.

“You’ll live,” Elise said.

I mean, no, almost certainly not, because you've just shot her in the knee and in the thigh, which means she'll probably be dead of blood loss very quickly. If not, presumably infection will do the work.

Nadine

What a weird choice to use a name that already has so much baggage in this world.

What you need to know about Art and me is that we were best friends and then we had a calamitous falling-out the summer before.

It's amazing how many of these stories involve people who knew each other before the plague even though 99.4% of all people died.

superflu.

It feels anachronistic to use this in a scene set in the past.

Even in the darkest hours, God still listened. Abagail

This isn't necessarily worse than the religious bullshit in 'The Stand,' but it's still awful, toxic shit to which I offer a firm "go fuck yourself."

“The book was published about two weeks after Captain Trips escaped that Department of Defense facility in the desert.

Which you know about how?

“Now close your eyes, kid. Close them. We’ll be done soon.”

So, you're going to hammer her head in, and then hammer yourself to death?

Ravager

Be more derivative, if you can.

It had taken five years for a coherent narrative to trickle up from the States, assembled from the testimony of survivors and a team of investigators who had crisscrossed the country looking for any evidence not destroyed by the perpetrators. A lab accident, then deliberate releases elsewhere (as if the flu could not move fast enough on its own); and something else, something unscientific: some terrible disaster both natural and supernatural, culminating in a single atomic explosion that had ended whatever it was for good. Val knew about the dreams and the sides chosen; people had written books about it.

What fucking nonsense.