The Stand - Stephen King

The “complete and uncut” version of Stephen King’s “The Stand” is quite possibly the single longest book I have ever read. My paperback version amounted to very nearly 1,500 pages (punctuated by the occasional illustration which didn’t serve to add very much to the story for me!) which, even at my relatively fast reading pace and frequency, takes a fair while to plow through. Luckily I was in the midst of exams whilst reading it so I was often in ...
...give a brief summary of the plot of a book this long, but thankfully the tale is fairly linear in structure. Somewhere in the American desert in 1990, in a secret Government research installation, a deadly virus which comes to be known as “superflu” or “Captain Trips” escapes into the population. The effects are devastating, with almost the entire population of the States (and by implication the world) killed. But some people, for unknown reasons, ...

Drooboy 16.06.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

...novels but I thoroughly enjoyed The Stand it is an excellent book. In 1978, before the "complete and uncut" edition, before the miniseries, before the author became known as the "King of Horror!!!" (emphasis on triple exclamation), Stephen King's The Stand hit bookstores. It was a monster of a book, weighing in at 823 pages (the general public had no way of knowing that almost a quarter of the book had been cut prior to publication), in Doubleday's ...
...King's best-loved book, but at the time, the novel shocked many. Previously, King had only released three other novels, the relatively short Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, and The Shining, and a short story collection, Night Shift. The biggest question was this: was the book's length justified? It was. The Stand begins its narrative in a quiet Texas town known as Arnette. There, we are introduced to one of our main characters, Stuart Redman, a quiet, downtrodden ...

robin_best 03.09.2001 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

...for this, his contribution to the "Disaster Novel" genre. (NOTE: This review applies to the ORIGINAL release of the novel, not the "Special Edition") It begins innocuously enough, with an army officer running away from his base. But he has left it too late, and he carries a new disease into the world. Over the next months people begin to die, in small numbers at first, then in their hundreds, thousands and finally millions. The survivors, a disparate ...
...a choice; to join with the forces of evil, personified in Flagg (one of the best fictional villains in living memory) or to take a "Stand" for good, personified by Aunt Abigail, an old wizened black woman with a fundamentalist approach to her faith. Soon all the survivors are lined up on one side or the other, and the final battle for their future destiny is set up when the main characters must take their own "Stand" The questions of faith posed ...

williemeikle 31.08.2002 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

...all-time greatest, but I think The Dark Tower series is peaking that now. The thing about ‘The Stand’ that makes it such a great book is not the actual plot itself – but the very possibility of the plot. What is even more frightening is that King wrote this during the 70’s – today it is even more possibly with our technology…think about that for a while, eh? ‘The Stand ‘ is probably one of the greatest ...
...to study – effectively emptying the entire world bar a few people and seeing how they fare. The plot – The government has created a virus – a very deadly virus to be exact – and in the words of Harold Lauder, a character in the book: “…Then one day some bright spark said: ‘look what I made...it kills almost everybody isn’t it great?’” This virus, soon to be known as ‘Captain Trips’ ...

phoenixcage 15.04.2002 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

...written some really tedious ones, The Stand is most definitely the former. I had mixed emotions about this, my favourite book of all time, reaching the top 100 books list in the UK. I was delighted, because it meant that the Brits don't just read trash and books that they think they should read because they're 'classics'. But on the other hand I was disappointed at how predictable my taste must be!!! I had never met anyone who had read it before! ...
...read The 'uncut' version is even thicker but, if you can face it, it is definitely worth it. In the uncut version the characters are explored a great deal more and the story contains even more depth. As this is quite an 'old' book now you would have to buy it at a bookstore or on the web, I doubt supermarkets would stock it however it does seem to be a favourite at airports! For those of you who have never read the book, allow me to 'tickle your ...

Mini_Minx 27.07.2003 (06.08.2004) · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

...mystical figure which is called the DARK MAN, an embodiment of the absolute evil. In the desert Nevada there will be the decisive battle and the fate of mankind is at stake. THE STAND, Stephen King's vision of the last battle between good and evil was so far only as an strongly abridged version available. This published uncut edition makes new and old readers acquainted with the extent of his apocalyptic model. Many people call this novel Stephen ...
...happen if about 99.4% of the population gets wiped out by a plague? How do the survivors organize themselves again? A lot of post-apocalyptic science-fiction has been written but from all books offering this subject THE STAND is without doubt one of the most excellent ones, which is mostly due to Stephen King's talent to create interesting characters, of which you will find dozens in this amazing book... It begins as a sudden severe epidemic wiping ...

Ronny 13.05.2001 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

...became devoted to books in the fantasy genre, I was hooked on horror fiction, with Stephen King being the master in this field. In fact it was due to Stephen King that I took up reading fantasy fiction in the first place, when I read Eyes of the Dragon, a fairy story that he wrote for his children. I have read all of King's novels upto and including Insomnia, but the one that I believe stands head and shoulders above all is The Stand. To put it ...
...Evil, at a time when the world has been devastated by mankind's own stupidity. The basic premise is that in a secret facility in the USA, scientists have been messing around with bacteria and virii, and unwittingly create a super-flu, which manages to be released into the wild. Because of the germs very nature, it cannot be cured and quickly devastates the world's population, with only a few people surviving, due to their natural immunity to the ...

cjkace 18.05.2001 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

...1987 when I was in the states. My brother lent me this book - well actually I borrowed it without asking - some time ago, and when I started reading, I couldn't put it down and had to finsih it! It was that good! It is a huge book, being 800+ pages - but you wouldn't know (apart from getting cramp whilst trying to hold the book up!) - the length is fully justified. Apparantly, the book shocked a lot of people when it was released - this couldn't ...
...and quickly introduces one of the main characters, Stuart Redman. He is a quiet, down-beat kind of man who likes to hang with his buddies. Then a recklessly drives into the pumps of the local Texaco station, knocking several of them over. When Stu investigates, he discovers that Campion's wife and child have died of some strange disease inside the car, and that Campion is on his last legs. What Stu doesn't know is that what Campion has is extremely ...

mrnasty10 24.08.2002 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

The title says it all! I've always been a Stephen King fan, and like many others I rate The Stand as by far his finest moment. But it's more than that, it's simply the best book I've ever read. Those expecting an out-and-out horror story however will be disappointed. It's a kind of crossbreed between horror, thriller, a story of man's will against adversity, a love story and of good conquering evil. Ok, so it's a long book... a VERY long book. But ...
...I find it hard going. The only problem is that it's so hard to put down! Nearly cost me my fiancee!! The story is split into 3 separate books, the first of which introduces us to the main characters in separate stories which will eventually entwine. Far from being difficult to follow it enables the story to progress easily, bringing the characters to life so that you can almost 'see' them. The story commences in Arnette, Texas and the affable Stuart ...

daddycash 06.05.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

..."Captain Trips" and Stephen King's The Stand as we approached the year 2000. All the "doom and gloom" of Y2K made me think about King's prediction of the end of the world. Once you've read The Stand you will never think of the end of the world in any other way. You will become paranoid during cold and flu season, too! There are some very colourful and memorable characters in this book. Of course, Mother Abigail and The Dark Man represent the good ...
...eyes that glow red in the dark, and he can change himself into animals (his favorites being wolves and ravens). He has a powerful and evil hold over his people. Mother Abigail is also a timeless soul; she has been around for 108 years. She has a maternal nature, the wisdom of her years, and a belief that good can defeat evil, on her side. There is Nadine and Harold who team up and create a lot of stress and chaos for the other characters. They go ...

whoareyou5 21.02.2001 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

...a secret army base in the USA. One man escapes from that base with his wife and children, and manages to make it half way accross the country before he crash lands at a service station in East Texas and dies. His wife and child are also dead. Everywhere they stopped along the way they passed on the virus, which spreads like wildfire. The small East Texas town is cancelled by the government, and its inhabitants are taken away to a medical facility ...
...Redman. He is immune to the disease, along with a handfull of other Americans, while the rest of the population is entirely wiped out. The survivours slowly start to emerge, and meet up with other survivours. They all have dreams, either about an old woman called Mother Abigail who is "106 years old and still bakes her own bread", or an evil "man" called Randall Flagg. The ones who dream about Mother abigail are told in their dreams to make their ...

samileo 25.10.2002 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

The Stand is the funniest book i've ever read, at certain points throughout the endlessly brilliant hike of the complete and uncut edition i was forced into hysterics on many occasions. don't get me wrong i'm not a sick wierdo, the book is in some points profoundly disturbing and the plot itself is not exactly a comedy. King makes the carachters come to life so well and as the book is so long you grow to love them all, he then goes onto describe ...
...so as not to spoil the story for future readers you'll have to e-mail me if you want to find out what parts i'm talking about. The Stand is set in the good old US of A but in some areas does comment on the rest of the world, a plauge then comes forth and probably, at a guess i would say wipes out 97 percent of the global population. The book focus's on certain survivors of the flu and goes into great detail about there former lives as well as whats ...

Dilan_Spike 25.02.2001 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

This is a review on the complete unabridged version. The first third of the book is a fairly fascinating and well written account of how most humanity dies due to a mutant flue bug created by the military. You really wonder how the remaining people are going to survive and rebuild civilisation. But, poof, King takes the easy way out. He divides the survivors into good and evil and creates a leader for each group. The survivors then congregate in ...
...third of the book is a detailed account of the two groups rebuilding their societies. The last third is the climatic confrontation between good and evil. Things go really bad for the good, and it looks like good is finished. You wonder how good could possibly triumph, and then, poof, the hand of God swoops down out of the sky and wipes out the bad. I didn't read 1100 pages just to have everything wrapped up in one page by the hand of God. This is ...

mookielidl 18.02.2001 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

...reviewcentre.com* I first read the Stand when I was in hospital for a few days and the book lady came round. Up until that point I had never read any of his books, but I thought I would give this a try and from that moment on I was a massive Stephen King fan - to the extent I now have every book he has ever written. The Stand is still, for me, the best book he has ever written though. The plot concentrates on an apocalyptic plague that hits America ...
...half of the book deals with the aftermath of the plague and the subsequent fragmentation of society after 99.8% of the people are killed. The few surviors eventually coalesce into two societies, one led by the charismatic (but evil) Randall Flagg and the other by the benevolent (but errr...old) Mother Abigail. The second half of the book deals with the growing threat of war between the two sides and ends in a cataclysmic confrontation that leaves ...

fryera2 10.03.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King

...King's body of work over the last 20 or 30 years will know that the master's touch is, just very slightly, moving away from the visually or mentally horrific to a more acute sense of the human condition and the various cracks in everyday lives (the same ground explored by comedians, which is why some of King's work is so unexpectedly laugh-out-loud funny). This move is best seen in what is arguably one of his transitional works - "The Stand". Although ...
...through the novel (especially near the start), far more of the book is devoted to the mechanics of far more ordinary, human concerns - just how would you make a power plant work without any engineers? And in those circumstances, is the state/group with the most engineers the most powerful? This book is Stephen King still knowing how to make an audience jump, but increasing his powers to make his audience face more basic questions about their own ...

sherlock 02.08.2000 · Read full review
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Review of The Stand - Stephen King