The Stand

When I was in high school, they released a TV miniseries if The Stand that I watched. I always thought it was the best end of the world/virus take I’d seen. Not because it’s realistic or gritty, but because it frames the story with great characters battling good and evil.

When I read the book, I wondered how closely it would follow the miniseries. Turns out the show was a near scene for scene recording of the book (one of the bonuses of making it 6 hours).

What’s amazing to me about The Stand is that it follows so many characters storylines so well. It would be easy to get lost with that many characters, but somehow they fit together in a way that I didn’t feel overwhelmed. Add to that a story that had me on the edge of my seat and I see why this is considered one of the best sci fi books of all time.

M-O-O-N, that spells TOO DAMN LONG, GOD DAMMIT! Laws, yes! Everybody knows that.

Where to start? Characters? Story? Setting?

Characters are standard SK business, however at least half of them are just deus ex machinas that are, on top of it, sometimes even underutilized. 1 300 pages is way too many. I cared about some of the main characters, whether I loved them or hated them, but in the end I was just glad it was over.

Story is set in 1990 USA and we witness what seems to be the end of human race. A new flu virus is killing 99% of the population. And here comes the first WTF - the rest of the people (that is one 1%) has weird dreams about a man in black and an old woman. Randall Flagg, The Walkin' Dude as they call him, is embodiment of evil, Satan's spawn, the last magician of the rational thought.
Mother Abigail is herald of God. But not the god some of you may pray to before the bed. This is the Old Testament God, the jealous son of a bitch that requires human sacrifices and total obedience. He's still “the good guy” in this conflict, though.
People either go to Mother or to Randall. Depends on how good/evil and brave they are.

Personally, I was a bit dissapointed when I found out about this. Battle between good and evil is the basic fantasy trope but to make it this bluntly obvious and on top of that religious was kind of a lazy move. It allowed for some “miracles” = deus ex machinas to happen and overall degraded the story a little. I like complexity. When you put divine miracles like in this book before me I'll just yawn and wave them away with my hand. But maybe that's because I'm spoiled with Steven Erikson's take on divinity in Malazan Book of the Fallen.

The book is divided into three... well... books. You could call them acts, of course. The second WTF comes in here. The first two acts are long. That's a huge understatement, though. King knows how to write characters, that's his biggest talent. However, when the story just drags and drags and drags and drags and drags and drags and drags and drags and drags and drags... See what I mean? It gets annoying!

The first two acts have a total of 1060 pages out of 1325. When you get to the climax, “the final stand”, if you want me to be punny, it's more of a relief than anything else. Actually, it can't be anything else. Despite the fact that the moment is epic the way we get to it is still very underwhelming even if I ignore the thousand and some pages that led to it. And have I mentioned the fact that it was obvious from a thousand miles (pages) away?

As if that wasn't enough, the book continues another 50 pages! What a drag, dammit. I'm never reading it again. The characters were good, the setting was great, but the page count is insane without any comprehensible reason. The book suffered on behalf of its length and it's a god damn shame. If it was 700-800 pages long it would've been perfect novel, one of his best. But with it being 500 pages longer I can't recommend it. There are other, shorter, better works out there that deserve more attention that this one. Go read The Shinning.

P.S.: Have I mentioned that this is extended version? Yeah, he published “only” 1200 pages long book back in the 70's because technology wasn't there to handle bigger paperback. The hundred pages are a bonus from more recent era. Thank you very much...

P.S.S.: You might wonder why I read it if I didn't like it. Well... the truth is I liked it at the beginning and by the time I found out it's a never ending story I passed the half mark. So I figured I'd finish it to see the story to the end.

This must be the fourth or fifth time I've re-read it and it seems even more timely. Not just related to the current situation with Coronavirus but the polarization of humans to charismatic leaders, each promoting fear of the others. We may not all be having dreams about our leaders that make us feel an affinity for one or the other, but we're still taking in information - a shared subconscious, if you will, made up not of dreams but of social media posts.

I read this in college when the unabridged version was re-introduced. It really shook me up in a way. It seeded my mind with the what-if horror factor of our existence on this planet. It's fiction, and yet, it seems completely plausible especially now that we are experiencing a H1N1 flu epidemic.

Great characterization interwoven with a modern-day setting and mythical/spiritual creatures. Tends to be a bit ‘wordy' but I loved every word of it.

This book is worth reading, if, like me, you have always wondered about the story. I wish I had read it as a kid; I think I would have enjoyed it more when I was going through my Stephen King phase at age 12 or so. My book club read it, and there are a lot of things I think we can discuss: How dated is this book? What is wrong with Stephen King's post apocalyptic vision (I just think the social structure is farfetched), how has this book affected stories in its wake (Lost, for one seems heavily influenced by it). And is he saying he believes in God and the Devil as portrayed in this book? Overall, however, it was a disappointment. So many people have read it; I just thought it was going to be a more captivating story. Instead it mostly dragged.

I do wonder if reading the uncut version may have hampered my enjoyment here. Many people seem to site the Stand as being one of King's best works. Undoubtedly, parts of this book are brilliant. The first part, Captain Trips, is a gorgeous study of a plague of apocalyptic proportions. This first third of the book was definitely the highlight and was a joy to read. The sense of loss and end of the world was amazingly captured, and with recent events worldwide felt very on the nose. The denialism of figures in power was remarkably prescient.

The book begins to lose its way after that unfortunately. The next large chunk is largely based on the politics of trying to build a new society. It works well enough but doesn't have the power or emotional impact of the first part. It also drags a bit - it is a long section of not a huge amount happening. When the book is as long as this one, that does feel a bit indulgent.

The final part dealing with a supernatural evil seems unnecessary and pointless. The big bad here is ultimately very underwhelming and the quasi religious nature of everything related to him was all a bit meh for me. Unfortunately this mean the book doesn't stick the landing with the ending.

It is a mighty tome and at places an interesting study in human response to disaster. The first third is brilliant, the second third is pretty good, the last third is a mess. A lot of promise, but the pay off is not quite good enough for its length.

When I was in high school, they released a TV miniseries if The Stand that I watched. I always thought it was the best end of the world/virus take I'd seen. Not because it's realistic or gritty, but because it frames the story with great characters battling good and evil.

When I read the book, I wondered how closely it would follow the miniseries. Turns out the show was a near scene for scene recording of the book (one of the bonuses of making it 6 hours).

What's amazing to me about The Stand is that it follows so many characters storylines so well. It would be easy to get lost with that many characters, but somehow they fit together in a way that I didn't feel overwhelmed. Add to that a story that had me on the edge of my seat and I see why this is considered one of the best sci fi books of all time.

Feels good to finally knock this one off the ole bucket list!

While this is undeniably an epic, I do have to dock a star because at 1,152 pages it feels a bit bloated. The first quarter of the book was very repetitive, to the point that I almost gave up before the story even got rolling. I'm glad I stuck with it, though, because once the wheels began to turn this became a fascinating read, crawling with wonderful characters and that signature Stephen King storytelling. The book has its flaws, but it also has some of the best King writing I've read so far.

It would be King's best book, hands down, if it wasn't for that ending. I felt completely betrayed by the ending of the book. I know it's King's weak point (go read the reviews for the Watchtower series - there are a lot of crabby readers who felt that he had wasted years of their lives on how he ended that one), but this one really felt like “well, I've got all my characters to this point, I've really built this plot up, now what?” At least there weren't any giant spiders......

This had been on my to-read list for years but I kept putting it off due to its size and time commitment. Well a few months ago I finally got round to it and although I enjoyed it I was left a little disappointed. As with all King books the world was expertly drawn and the characters were relatable but given the praise and length of the book I was expecting a lot more from the plot. In retrospect I wonder if this is a case of a story being ground-breaking upon its release but over the decades of other books/films/series taking inspiration from it and telling very similar stories it becoming standard and straightforward. I'm glad I read it but won't be rushing to recommend it to anyone. My favourite King book still remains 22/11/63.

Wow. This was very, very, very good. One of my very favorite King books I've read so far.

The world building, the character development, and the slow build up were quite a ride. This was such an interesting and intriguing premise and mixture of a medical thriller with the flu epidemic, good vs evil, and a study on society as a whole and how we rebuild. While also gory and very disturbing at parts, it didn't have the hopelessness like “Under the Dome” and for that, I am very grateful.

Looks like I am definitely not done going through Stephen King's works.

I used to enjoy reading Stephen King a lot. I find his tales to be gripping and well written. I chose this book for my review of personal reading that formed part of my higher English exam. The theme was conflict. That was in 1991.

I just listened to it again and enjoyed it once more. It's quite an appropriate tale for the current swine flu climate actually! It follows a bunch of survivors of a superflu virus, devised by the US Government, that wipes out the large majority of the US population (no other part of the world ever gets mentioned, a shortcoming of the book in my opinion; it could at least have been glossed over). The survivors split into two groups, the first gathering around Mother Abigail, the goody, and the Dark Man, the baddy. So you see the margin for conflict?

Of course the goodies win, but it's SK's style and skill at character building and dialogue that makes the book worth reading. He's an astute observer of the human psyche and the characters are easy to relate to, even if they are all from a completely different culture to my own.

Finally finished the book... It was reeeaally long, maybe the longest book I've ever finished (1421 pgs). Really enjoyed it though, especially Harlod Lauder's character, maybe because I can identify with the character myself. I also found myself empathising with quite a few of the characters. This loses a star from me for the ending, it was a bit of a let down for me. But overall, really solid epic post apocalyptic fantasy novel. Next up, The Lord of the Rings :

This book, which I most recently read for The Grand Stephen King Experiment on TannerWillbanks.com, has been a favorite of mine since I was young. I read it for the first time when I was in 8th grade and have returned to it multiple times over the years. This is the first time I've read it in over a decade and was impressed that it still resonated as deeply as it does. I adore this book.