Edmonton author Premee Mohamed featured in anthology based on Stephen King classic

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The Stand, the post-apocalyptic universe where good and evil clash, will soon get an entry for Alberta.

A new short-story anthology based on the popular Stephen King book is coming later this month, and one story is set near Edmonton. The End of the World as We Know It, out Aug. 19, features local author Premee Mohamed.

In the 1978 book, a deadly influenza kills 99 per cent of all humanity. Some survivors follow a man of pure evil while others fight for good. The book was turned into two television mini-series, the last one running in 2020 at the height of the COVID pandemic.

Mohamed was asked to add her own spin to the universe, with the freedom to do whatever she wanted, set it before or after the events of the book and place it wherever it fit best. There were, of course, a few restrictions she had to abide by when dealing with such a popular source material.

“Obviously if you’re writing something based on someone else’s book you can’t write something that contradicts the book. You have to write something that stays within canon,” says Mohamed.

With that freedom, she set her story set in Alberta, just outside of Edmonton. In her story, a small group of survivors are visited by a young girl, but not everything is as it seems. Erratic animal behaviour and some very troubling hallucinations make the characters questions what they experience.

They look for a rational explanation to what’s happening, a way to explain what they are experiencing through science. It’s a device Mohamed’s used in other writing, a sceptic character to pull the story to the rational, to explain what’s happening through science.

“There has to be a rational explanation for this, we just have to be modern and scientific and use some logic. What I love is that often there are no good explanations for what’s happening until you turn outside,” says Mohamed.

While The Stand is an American story, Mohamed wanted to show the knowledge gap that exists in communities that wouldn’t have witnessed the actions in the original. With society collapsing and the Edmonton survivors so far from the action in Las Vegas, they have no reason to believe there was an epic battle or that a nuclear device was set off. Given everything that happens, how do they know what to believe, and who to trust?

Mohamed will be at a book launch for The End of the World As We Know It at Audreys Books on Aug. 19 at 7 p.m.

But it’s not the only post-apocalyptic universe Mohamed is working in. The First Thousand Trees is the final novella in the trilogy she started with The Annual Migration of Clouds.

The story is  set in Alberta at a time when climate change has decimated the world and a mind-altering fungus known Cad runs rampant. Reid and Henryk live with a group of survivors at the University of Alberta Campus where they eke out a meagre existence.

The first two novels deal with Reid, her struggles at home and her desire to leave and start a new life at the prestigious learning institution in the mountains. The First Thousand Trees picks up with Henryk after he also leaves campus, travelling for a month on foot for a new start with his uncle in Sprucedown.

“Henryk comes out of the first book very traumatized. Feeling guilty and ashamed over the big disaster in the book, the part he played in it,” says Mohamed. “I thought maybe that would be interesting to delve into. Does his community forgive him? Do they rally around him? Do they ostracize him, push him out? He has no one left if Reid is gone. What if he goes off and has his own adventures?”

Sprucedown was also an opportunity to explore a new community in the universe Mohamed created, a place different from both the Edmonton survivors and the institution Reid lives at in the second novella. It’s a harsher place with high expectations for residents, a much different place than Henryk was familiar with.

Like any good post-apocalyptic story, it’s about the human interactions of the survivors, seeing how they deal with the pressures of the new world and new surroundings, new pressures and the difficulty of a changing world.

“For Henryk and Reid, the big disasters were kind of over 60 or 70 years ago. Now they are living in a world that’s rebuilding. They only know what it’s being built to, they don’t know what existed before. That’s the context the reader brings,” says Mohamed.

The Last Thousand Trees will be released Sept. 30.

With her new work reaching wider audiences, Mohomed’s previous releases are being recognized with major awards. The Siege of Burning Grass was named best novel and The Butcher of the Forest was named best novella as part of the 2025 Aurora Awards. Both publications were released in 2024. The awards are organized by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association and were handed out Aug. 10.

For more information about the author, visit her website premeemohamed.com