The End of the World As We Know It is an absolute gift to anyone who’s ever been haunted, inspired, or flat-out obsessed with The Stand. Officially authorized by Stephen King (yes, really) and curated by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene, this anthology brings together some of the sharpest storytellers working today—and they nail the eerie, post-pandemic vibe of King’s apocalyptic world.

I was maybe 12 or 13 when I first cracked open The Stand. It wasn’t my first King—that honor belongs to Pet Sematary—but it was the one that rewired my brain and showed me what fiction could do. The scale. The characters. That primal, epic clash of good versus evil. It left a mark.

So when I heard about this anthology? Immediate nerd-flail. More stories from that world? Inject it straight into my veins.

The good: These stories belong. The voices, the atmosphere, the heartbreak and hope—all of it fits. The characters feel real, even in the space of a few pages, and each story adds a new layer to the world King built.

The only bad part? They’re short. Just when I got attached to a character or story, bam—the end. A few of these could easily anchor full-length novels and I’d read the hell out of them.

Bottom line: I loved this book so much I don’t have the vocabulary to do it justice. It’s eerie, emotional, and deeply human. If The Stand ever got its own cinematic universe, this would be its Rogue One—essential, heartbreaking, unforgettable.

Five giant, end-of-the-world-sized stars.