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

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

Great series

A good ending to the triptych series. Many of thr stories took very unexpected twist and turns which helped to keep the reader engaged. There was an u expected logic to many of the stories that was inspiring to me.

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!

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

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.