Welcome back for another October Spooky Spotlight, Readers! This year we’re talking an anthology novel combining the talents of – count ’em – 36 horror writers tackling the world and themes of Stephen King’s 1978 magnum opus, The Stand. Each of these stories is set in that world and takes place during the initial outbreak, during the events of the novel and all the way through to decades later. None of these stories center on the characters of The Stand itself, but these new additions to the lore do sometimes cross paths with those characters. And Mother Abigail and The Walkin’ Dude do show up a lot.
The Stand holds a special place in my heart, as I know it does for many King fans. My first exposure to it was the 1994 television mini series and I only read the book some years later as I was a child and our local library would not loan me a copy at the time. (Never mind that I’d already managed to snag copies of IT, the Tommyknockers and several others by that time.)
This is all to say, I was pretty excited to get my hands on this book. But did it live up to my expectations?
Some spoilers for The Stand lie ahead, just so you’re aware! The book is nearly 50 years old, now, but in case you haven’t read it yet, you’ve been warned! And to be entirely fair, I wouldn’t read this book if you’re not at least somewhat acquainted with The Stand.
Book Stats
- Author: There are 36 of them. Wikipedia has a comprehensive listing Here.
Formats: Hardcover, Kindle, and Audible.
Price: $20.81 for Hardcover, $16.99 for the Kindle and $26.24 for Audible, or one Credit on Audible.
Length: 800 pages or 27 hours 12 minutes in audio format
Narrator: Sean Patrick Hopkins and Adenrele Ojo.
Number of books in the series: This is a standalone work but follows the continuity of The Stand.
Basic Premise
Look, I generally like to go through and do a little blurb for each story in these anthology or collected work type books but there’s so many of them that it seems a bit ridiculous to do so here. Instead, let me paint you a picture in broad strokes; The Stand takes place in a fairly narrow apocalypse and as such, there’s only a few simple, but compelling, elements to really play with once 99.8% of the world’s population has departed. Those elements are comprised of, primarily, the very few people who are left, though, some animals do come into play.
A lot of these stories are centered around people trying to survive one another. Because there are so few people left, this might sound easy but in most of these stories, the people who ARE left band together for good or ill and they generally come into conflict with one another. Many of the people who are still chugging along after the super flu devolve into complete and utter lawlessness with all social niceties thrown out the window. I will state here that if you are triggered by sexual assault, cannibalism, torture of people or animals or just the ever escalating feeling that your neighbors are just waiting for permission to be the absolute worst that humanity has to offer, you may find that this isn’t the book for you. (But then again, you probably would not have been a fan of The Stand in the first place so… y’know.)
So. How do things shake out after a pandemic wipes the world clean of most people? You’d need to read it to find out.
My Take
I think where I didn’t gel with this one so much was that The Stand was so in-depth with its characters. And it better be, right? At over 1100 pages, you’re spending massive swathes of time with these people. I still remember feeling so damned bitter when Nick Andross died, ill to my stomach when Rita checked out of her own accord and equal parts tantalized and sickened by Nadine and her eventual fate. I felt like if Harold had just had better friends from the start, he might have come out alright. I didn’t really have any of those same intense feelings here because, while these are all skillfully written stories, they’re short by necessity. You’re not spending hundreds of pages learning the ins and outs of each character and as such, it’s an extremely different experience. Many of the characters are likable enough and I’d be down to read a novel where they featured prominently. And most of it feels pretty bleak. There’s a great amount of despair here that was, in part, mitigated in the original novel because between Nebraska and Colorado you had a sense of purpose and capital-G Good that was being worked towards that it’s a little harder to find here.
Your narrators are Sean Patrick Hopkins and Adenrele Ojo who both do fantastic work, each reading male and female centered stories, respectively.
All in all, if you’re a big fan of The Stand, you should definitely give this a read!
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