TORONTO, ONTARIO – SEPTEMBER 06: Stephen King attends the premiere of “The Life of Chuck” during the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival at Princess of Wales Theatre on September 06, 2024 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Mathew Tsang/Getty Images)
Getty Images
It’s been quite a year for Stephen King. More specifically, it’s been quite a year for the author’s famously edgier dark half: Richard Bachman.
Before 2025 is done, Hollywood will have released two major film adaptations of novels King wrote under the pseudonym: The Long Walk and The Running Man. The non-de-plume, which has been inactive since the 2007 publication of Blaze, is officially being resurrected (kind of) after all these years for Benjamin Percy’s The End Times.
Taking the form of a post-apocalyptic newspaper that will be released in weekly installments over the course of the next year by indie publisher Bad Hand Books, The End Times “essentially takes place in the world of The Stand,” Percy told me over email. “A contagion has wiped out most of the population, and people are trying to rebuild.”
Part of that reconstruction takes the form of the titular paper, overseen by editor-in-chief Mary Poole, who discovers a printing press in the Minnesotan town of North End (based on Northfield) a decade after civilization collapsed.
While initially hesitant to bother the king of literary horror—no pun intended—Percy had a nagging hunch that Stephen King, who is no stranger to serialized novels (see: The Green Mile) or “big experimental swings” (à la The Plant and Riding the Bullet) would not be able to resist “the risk of this epistolary novel.”
And he was right. The man who gave us Pennywise the Clown, Roland Deschain, and Holly Gibney accepted the invite “almost instantly,” Percy recalled. “He loved the idea and said he would be happy to help and contribute. For being such a literary and cultural force, he’s a very down-to-earth, kind, and generous man.”
When asked what byline he’d like to use for the paper, King suggested Claudia Inez Bachman, the wife of Richard Bachman, to whom the apocryphal writer dedicated Thinner. In addition, Claudia is credited as author of the unsettling children’s book Charlie the Choo-Choo in the fifth Dark Tower novel, Wolves of the Calla.
“It opened up many, many more imaginative doors for me,” Percy said. “Because now The End Times was shouldering up to King’s universe. I’m grinning like an idiot just thinking about it. I’ve been a constant reader my whole life, so to be able to join forces with my hero is beyond belief.”
Percy and Bad Hand Books were generous enough to share an exclusive first look at King—ahem—Claudia’s first articles.
“Her initial reporting concerns scarecrows with big-button eyes, dead rats, and a minister hung from the rafters of a barn,” Percy explained. “That’s a Stephen King special right there—served piping hot! But know that she’s an outsider in the community of North End. She traveled here from out East, and she has secrets she brings with her…”
Exclusive first look at Stephen King’s contributions to The End Times under the name Claudia Inez Bachman
‘The End Times’ article written by Stephen King under the name Claudia Bachman
Courtesy of Bad Hand Books
“If you look to The Running Man and The Long Walk, they’ve never felt more relevant,” Percy said of Bachman’s cultural resurgence over the last year.
“In the former, you have a voyeuristic, empathy-proof nation entertained by the pain of others. In the latter, you have an authoritarian government and an underclass that’s ground down and sacrificed. They’re funhouse mirrors we can see ourselves in. Hopefully, The End Times resonates in much the same way. But despite the thrills and chills it will offer, the newspaper is ultimately a story about hope. Because in these turbulent times—when national and global news can be so overwhelming— a small-town paper reminds us that we CAN make an impact in our own backyard.”
The End Times launches Wednesday, November 19 (a significant number across King’s works). Physical and digital subscriptions are available for pre-order here!