Buttmunker

I'm on my nth reading of The Stand, and I came across a passage where Frannie Goldsmith is reading a western novel to a dying parking lot attendent named Gus. This is in 1985, and Gus is dying from Captain Trips - as is 99.9% of the world's population.

The western was written by Roberta Anderson, King's character from The Tommyknockers, written in 1988.

Now here's the problem, as I see it. There are two versions of The Stand: the 1978 version, and the 1990 version. The 1978 version didn't have this particular passage in it because it had been edited out due to the enormous length of the book. In 1990, King added the chapter as he was re-releasing the novel the way he had originally intended. Okay. Obviously this mention of Bobbi Anderson was something he added in 1990, and there's no way it could have been among the pages from the cutting room floor in 1978 because he hadn't even thought her up yet. Fine and well. But, by 1990, Bobbi Anderson was dead.

Is it possible Fran didn't know about what had happened to Anderson in Haven, Maine, just a few cities away from where she lived all her life? Anderson didn't die with the superflu, that's for sure.

I know that King does this a lot in his books, but the only other time I can remember this occurring was in Misery. Annie Wilkes made mention to Paul Sheldon about the crazy caretaker who blew up the Overlook Hotel. Wilkes lived in Sidewinder, Colorado. Now, it was okay to mention this because it didn't cause any conflictions between the two novels.

Was it careless of Stephen King to make reference to
The Tommyknockers in The Stand, considering the circumstances?

Liver&Onions

There are other worlds than this. So what may be pop culture in one, may not be in another...and little bits sneak in...like Charlie the Choo-CHoo and Blain the Pain.

renaldow

You've also go to think that authors create characters on their own many times, not just to fit into a book. They keep them in their files and pull them out when necessary. Elmore Leonard is a prime example of this, and talks about how he creates characters on their own, and instead of trying to make a character to fit a book, he'll pull some interesting ones out of his files and then sculpt the novel around them.

What I'm saying is, you don't know when King thought up Bobbie Anderson, or how long that character had been sitting in a file waiting to be used. It could easily have been written in 1978 with no idea of what would happen to the character in Tommyknockers.

And, like L&O said, there are different worlds that the stories take place in. (I think mainly because of his inconsistent use of recurring characters, but he's turned it to his advantage.) A good example of this is are 2 staple characters he's used over and over, Ace Merrill and Henry Bowers. Both appear throughout his short stories and in some novels, either in person or in name alone. There's been no real consistency with either of them aside from some basic facts. I believe both have died at least twice in his writings.

Buttmunker

While it's true that Ace Merrill has appeared in more than just The Body (Ace Merrill was mentioned in Needful Things), I've never come across Henry Bowers outside of the novel It.

If Bobbi Anderson was indeed a character King knew about in 1978, then it ruins the whole premise behind The Tommyknockers because, by 1988, Captain Trips would have killed her and Jim Gardener - or they would have survived, and have been called to Mother Abigail or to Flagg. The whole thing with Anderson finding that in her backfield never would have happened.

renaldow

Ace and Henry appear in a couple of other short stories that escape me, and get mentioned quite a bit more by name. Sometimes together, sometimes not.

As for the rest, you've really got to stop trying to fit everything into the same universe. It doesn't work, and that's what it appears your trying to do. By the logic you're using then everything he's written had to have taken place before The Stand, which it didn't.

I am curious why you aren't as picky about Desperation and the Regulators, as they are a paradox unto themselves.

Michael Corvin

I think Ace was mentioned in Four Past Midnight. The last story. Red Dog maybe? His son is one of the main characters.

Then again I read it almost 8 years ago, my memory may be bad.

Buttmunker

Henry Bowers lived in Derry, Maine, and Ace Merrill lived in Castle Rock, so their paths could never have crossed. Bowers got incarcerated at the age of 12 or so, and didn't get out until he was a grown-up.

Desperation and The Regulators are a different story - mainly, I don't really get either one. The character David was a small boy in Desperation, and he turned out to be the hero who bested the villain. In The Regulators, David was a fat adult who quickly got picked off at the beginning of the story. These were pararel universes, and while I don't know which story came first, I do think that the creature in The Regulators killed David right away because he was afraid not to, as David had a special gift in the other universe.

Josh-da-man

"The Stand" takes place in a different "universe" than King's usual Castle Rock/Derry haunts.

King has pretty much built up a "multiverse" that spans all of his stories, so any inconsistencies between "The Stand" and "Tommyknockers" -- or any other King work -- is irrelevent.

Buttmunker

How convenient.

Kevin M. Dean

And following on that I believe it's been said that both versions of The Stand took place during their respective time periods just in different alternate universes. We come across a version of The Stand universe at one point in the Dark Tower series too. Now whether it lines up with one of the existing versions or is representative of yet another version remains to be seen if ever....