The End Has Come

The Apocalypse Triptych

By: Hugh Howey, Jamie Ford, Jonathan Maberry, Seanan McGuire, Nancy Kress, Carrie Vaughn, Ben H. Winters, Scott Sigler

Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Gabrielle de Cuir, Justine Eyre, Roxanne Hernandez, Alex Hyde-White, Emily Rankin, Stefan Rudnicki, Judy Young

Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Famine. Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the end of the world. In science fiction the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.

But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. In the midst there are heroes who fight against it. And after there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild.

The Apocalypse Triptych tells their stories.

Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and best-selling author Hugh Howey, The Apocalypse Triptych is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. The End Is Nigh focuses on life before the apocalypse. The End Is Now turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And The End Has Come focuses on life after the apocalypse.

The End Has Come features all-new, never-before-published works by Hugh Howey, Seanan McGuire, Ken Liu, Carrie Vaughn, Mira Grant, Jamie Ford, Tananarive Due, Jonathan Maberry, Robin Wasserman, Nancy Kress, Charlie Jane Anders, Elizabeth Bear, Ben H. Winters, Scott Sigler, and many others.

The end is nigh is about the match.

The end is now is about the conflagration.

The end has come is about what will rise from the ashes.

©2014 John Joseph Adams & Hugh Howey (P)2014 John Joseph Adams & Hugh Howey

What happened!?

If I had just listened to this book alone without listening to the previous collections I would have given this book a much better rating.
The quality of this final book went way down, or maybe it’s better to say that it was different. The first two books had sound effects and notes on each story, and while the readers for this book were good they were not the same readers in the first two books. Something must have happened with the producer between recordings. As for the stories, the stand Aline’s were very good and so were some of the continuation., but many of the final resolutions were unsatisfying, either they left many questions unanswered or the future worlds they depicted were so different it was hard to figure out which story they continued from.

course, in a collection of stories some are better than others but these were all pretty good with som

Some really great stories that draw you in...best is to start from book one and listen all the way through!

Some really great stories that draw you in...best is to start from book one and listen all the way through!

Entertaining, Thought-Provoking, & High Quality

Any additional comments?

Most of the returning authors finish their triptychs with engaging flair, while newcomers deliver some great post-apocalyptic stories. Marathoning all three books, back-to-back, might not be recommended. Inundation of depressing themes and zombies (maybe too many derivative zombie centric narratives) could wear on some readers. That being said, ‘The Apocalypse Triptych’ is the best collection of sci-fi short stories published in recent years: continually entertaining, thought-provoking, and high quality storytelling.

Oh, and the audio books are an amazing listen throughout, though format abruptly changes to a more minimal, still enjoyable experience with ‘The End Has Come’.

The final book of the Apocalypse Triptych

Not as strong as the End is Nigh, but on equal footing I feel to the End is Now; but then again it's harder to review a collection of stories, as some will always resonate with us better than others.

There were a few stories in the End is Now that I was disappointed to find didn't have a sequel in this one, the End has Come. But there were also a lot of delightful stories that didn't have a prequel in the End is Now, as well. In fact, there were several (if not most of them) stories that were stand alone--having no prequel in either of the first two books. However, some of them ended up being the most powerful of all, since all you saw was the aftermath and were left to wonder about the catalyst (rather than the usual, other-way-around).

Anyway, if you enjoyed the first two books at all, you'll definitely enjoy this one, but maybe to a greater or lesser degree depending on which of the individual stories really captivated you.

If you've not read the End is Nigh or the End is Now, that's okay---none of the stories that are sequels need to have their prequels read first in order to understand.

Weakest of the triptych

While still entertaining, I consider this to be the weakest in the series. One thing it does properly is concluding many stories that started from part one (The End is Nigh). Whether the ending is satisfactory is a different matter. Some new stories (the Disneyland one stands out here) are really beautifully written. But unfortunately, this volume is a continuation and conclusion of the triptych, and cannot stand on its own.

Reading the End as End or as Beginning?

This apocalypse triptych was conceived as three parts: Coming, Here, and Post. Or, as the teasers suggest: matchstick, conflagration, and ashes. And, true to conventional Western story mechanics, follows it's centuries old formula. J. J. Adams admits in the Introduction that of all, he likes the Post-Apocalyptic part best because it shows us another world ranging from the cosy catastrophe to the hellish, neverending nightmare.

But I think there are actually two viewpoints. The post-apocalyptic world itself as beginning or end. I think we like the former because it sets the stage to present the compelling question: so, what do we do now? But the latter seems to throw up figurative hands to state: well, that's it; might as well mourn, turn out the lights and go to sleep.

Much of this book's content and performance felt like The End. It didn't have the energy, consistency, or production as the first. There were good stories and great narration, but the spirit of the end, the final act, the denouement felt more like a barrier wall than a doorway or even a detour sign. A period, not a question mark. We don't need a pretty bow or Hollywood ending where the world ends up "back to normal but now wiser and with cleaner streets" which is even worse, but maybe if there was more attention given, I would have found this Audible book something to go back to regularly.

Enjoyed it, but a few is the authors didn't stick the landing as a project.

I wish all of the authors would have finished their third stories. Also, hard to tell which stories were connected to the stories from the prior books.

Some great payoff, some not so great.

Would you listen to The End Has Come again? Why?

No. Of the stories that started in the first book in this series and were concluded here, several of them were quite good. Others of them read as though each chapter had been written by a different writer-- one who hadn't read the previous chapters. The overall production feel was different in this third and final installment, too, leaving me with the lingering feeling that this book was an afterthought and was put together long after a long hiatus.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The End Has Come?

Hugh Howey's "Wool" adjacent story wraps up in chapter 23 and it's a total gut punch; I wish I hadn't experienced it, honestly, and if I had it to do over again I'd skip that story completely. If you're a fan of the Wool omnibus, be warned.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

The narrators were all very good, though there wasn't as many as there were in the previous books in the series. Thus numerous back-to-back stories were read by the same narrator whereas in the previous books the stories were distinctly broken up by the emergence of a new narrator for each one.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

"Makes a predictable nuclear winter look like a spa day."

some good, most just OK

skipped a few of them as just unlistenable. bought it mainly for the Jonathan Mayberry story which was great. a couple others were good, most just OK and a few were lousy. not really worth the $ except that it was a discounted credit so I don't feel cheated.

New Narrators After Two Previous Books

I wish the previous narrators had returned, I had journeyed with them in first two.