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کینگ تو شخصیت پردازی و داستان سرایی خارق العادس
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در مورد ترجمه ی نرسی خلیلی هم بگم که به لطف پایگاه شیطان صفت ارشاد کتاب پر از سانسور و تغییر جمله ست
البته جناب مترجم تا جایی که تونسته بوده منظور رو رسونده
اگه قصد خوندن نسخه ی فارسی دارید، نسخه ی انگلیسی رو هم کنارش داشته باشید چون تا جایی من فهمیدم نزدیک دو صفحه ی مهم کامل حذف شده

1,348 pages.

514,827 words.

Not one of them superfluous.

I've just spent two weeks living in a world decimated by the flu. And I loved every minute of it.

Stephen King, you are my idol!

4ish stars.

Feb. 2020: Begins reading
Mar. 2020: Viral pandemic similar to book ravages world; stops reading
Aug. 2020: World has not ended; resumes reading
Sep. 2020: Finishes reading

What a ride. Stephen King knows what he's doing and he has since at least 1978 when this book was originally published. The only other King books I've read are ones written in the last three years and this did feel dated in comparison, but it's also 40 years old. Which shows that his writing has changed and stayed relevant over the decades.

King has a knack for dialogue that makes his characters feel genuine and full-bodied. Again, some of it feels corny, but I wasn't around in 1978 to be familiar with the vernacular. While the characters are believable, not all of them are particularly likable. I can name two characters that I truly connected with: Nick Andros and Frannie Goldsmith. I was sympathetic to several others and recognized the growth of many of them, but those two are the only ones I loved.

This was a grand mythic fable about the battle between Good and Evil, and I was a little surprised that King emphasized so many Christian elements to illustrate his points. Of course he never stated outright whether there was actual divine intervention, agnostic fate, or whether the residents just convinced themselves there was one or the other. The differences between Mother Abigail's people and Randall Flagg's actually seemed very arbitrary. Neither group seemed to exclusively represent Good or Evil, and indeed, there were some viciously Evil inhabitants of the Boulder Free Zone, and who knows how many Good people were over there in Las Vegas.

(Spoilers) The culmination of the actual Stand-off was honestly underwhelming. I expected a giant LOTR-level battle of bloody hand-to-hand combat. Sending a few guys over to distract and unnerve Flagg before one of his own men blew everyone up seemed like wasted potential.

Something I really appreciated was an actual denouement, which is something I feel many contemporary books forgo in order to build the climax to the last possible page.

Posted in Mr. Philip's Library

I spent nearly 48 hours listening to an epic tale of the struggle of good against evil ... There were moments I felt helpless, and moments I felt scared, and moments I felt envious of the courage some characters had to sacrifice themselves in order to conquer the dark force ...

Uno de mis favoritos de mi autor favorito, y uno de los más complejos y mejor elaborados. No voy a escribir 1000 palabras para convencerlos de que lo lean, solo confíen en estas pocas líneas y en mi calificación perfecta. Cuando digo que es de lo mejor de lo mejor, lo es. Fantástico trabajo de King. Lectura impostergable, conmovedora, emocionante.

One of the reasons why I would never club Stephen King together with any of the other best-selling writers of his generation (Grisham, Archer, Patterson, Sheldon and so on) is this :-
None of them match King's calibre as a story-teller. They don't even come close.

If somebody spins an intriguing tale, his characters get in the way of my enjoyment of it.
If somebody excels at characterization, his plotting is rather unconvincing.
If somebody plots a story well, then his writing turns out to be flat.
(And if you're unlucky enough, some of them mess everything up.)

But Stephen King possesses that rare talent of getting everything right - the story, the unraveling of the plot, the imagery, the underlying implications, the characters, the backdrop, the world-building, the writing - down to the very last detail.
He can grasp your attention at the onset, reel you in slowly but surely, give you nerve-wracking moments of pure anxiety, make you visualize a scene exactly the way he must have imagined it, feel for the characters in his story as if they were people of flesh and blood you were familiar with and, at some point, render you completely incapable of discerning between reality and the make-believe world of his imagination. And you're caught in the same nightmare as the characters of his book are plunging deeper into with every passing moment.

The Stand is one such Stephen King creation. Arguably known as his best written work yet, The Stand, I'm happy to inform readers, deserves every bit of the praise and adulation it continues to receive worldwide till this day.
Now don't get me wrong. The book is nothing new when you glance at the blurb. It is nothing you haven't already read or known about because it is the story your mom/dad/grandma must have read to you as a kid - while you listened moon-eyed with wonder and awe, overcome with emotions you couldn't quite fathom.
It is the ever-fascinating and timeless tale of good triumphing over evil that you have come across enough times yet can never possibly get over.
It is that same story, but with a distinct Stephen King-esque flavour.
Add a dystopian, post-apocalyptic, anarchic world in the grip of an epidemic that claimed most human lives to the eternal conflict between good and evil, and the summation result will lead to The Stand.
But it is so much more than this simple one-sentence summary. Every character, every plot device, every written scene has been constructed and put together so fastidiously in this book that at the end of it one feels that the reader is assigned with the task of collecting and preserving every piece of the gigantic puzzle to form this humbling, larger-than-life image the author had begotten.
Everything is done so ingeniously, that the mesmerized reader can only sit back and watch this spectacle of gargantuan proportions unfolding right in front of his/her mind's eyes.
Horror, psychological ramifications of events, political intrigue, war, chaos in the absence of a centralized administration, a crumbling world order, basest of our human tendencies - King doesn't shy away from exploring the entire gamut of human actions and emotions in a world where nothing of the old establishments has survived.

This man can write. There's no doubt about it.

In terms of sheer volume, scale and narrative sweep, it is an epic. In a way it is The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, The Iliad and The Odyssey or a concoction of all the elements that transformed each one of these stories into epics the world will never cease to look upon with the utmost respect.
It is the story that never becomes stale despite the number of years you insert between the time you read it first and read it for the umpteenth time in some other form. It is the story that transcends barriers of language, culture, religion and history and will always be told and retold in possible ways imaginable, for as long as humanity survives.
It is the story you are bound to be won over by even if you're snotty enough to swear by your copy of Ulysses and frown upon the Stephen Kings of the world of writing simply because they don't have much of a chance of ever winning the Man Booker or Pulitzer or *gasp* the Nobel Prize.
It is the story of good, evil and everything in between. It is the story of love and hatred, loyalty and betrayal, sin and redemption, fate and co-incidence, rationality and the inexplicable. Of unalterable mistakes and innocence lost. Of the goodness of the human heart and the face of the Devil.
At 1100+ pages, it was rather much too short.
I almost wished for it to never end.
But then again one can always re-read to start the cycle of awesomeness all over again.

I've finally read the whole thing!

(Yeah, I talk big, but notice I had to make sure to safely catch the book... I couldn't bring myself to really throw it!)

I'll write up a full review later, but overall I really enjoyed the book. I loved the how instead of starting after the world-changing event (as many dystopian novels do), the story progression actually showed us the world before, during, and after the Captain Trips plague impacted it. I was also impressed by the character growth as the survivors found themselves having to adapt to a whole new and scary world where the old rules didn't apply any more. Stephen King is mostly known for horror, but while there are certainly some horror elements in the story (particularly with the main antagonist Randall Flagg), there are many other genres sprinkled in as well. This novel is as much science fiction and fantasy as it is horror, and some parts are even beautifully written, like a particularly poignant passage where Frannie Goldsmith describes exploring her father's toolshed like being transported to a magical realm. King's writing strengths are really on display here!

However, I did have some issues with the book. Much like I felt disappointed with the climax of Stephen King's It, I did have a n  "That's it?!"n reaction to the climax of this book... after so much build up, it felt anti-climactic to say the very least. Also, some parts did feel a little bloated (I can see why King originally trimmed this version down by at least 200 pages). And there were times where the writing really left a bad taste in my mouth. For example, while I do applaud King for giving us a mentally handicapped protagonist in Tom Cullen, there were times when the writing made me really uncomfortable, almost as if his disability was being played for laughs (like the running theme where Tom spells everything M-O-O-N). Also, one scene in particular which involves soldiers being executed on TV is so racially insensitive, it almost makes me wonder if King inserted it as a test just to see if his editors were paying attention, only to find out that they really weren't... not at all!

Many people consider this King's masterpiece. I don't quite regard it that highly, but it certainly is a compelling read... except for the smattering of parts that made me cringe for all the wrong reasons.

M-O-O-N that spells DONE!!

Damn, what a long book. Not the longest I’ve ever read but definitely close.

That being said though I didn’t find myself thinking “wow this could have been cut out” or “gee this is dragging” and so honestly I can’t say I’d recommend the abridged version over this. You just gotta be prepared to settle in for a while!

I think part of what hurt this book for me were my pre-reading expectations. This is widely considered one of King’s best works, if not his best. But opinions on King cover such a huge spectrum because the man really does have tons of different books to choose from.

But for some reason I had it in my mind that this book covered a battle of epic proportions between forces of good & evil. But that... didn’t really develop? Or at least, it wasn’t as epic as I expected?

The book is very character driven, and while I did enjoy the characters, it felt a little disproportionate to the action. There was a very coherent web of characters that fanned out from the core, and many of them were likable in their own ways. It just took a long time for things to get going.

I was far more interested in Randall Flagg, who was the embodiment of evil, than in Mother Abigail, who was the embodiment of good. I knew beforehand that this book had many religious themes, but unfortunately those themes didn’t 100% resonate with me. I appreciate what King did with them, they just didn’t strike me in quite the way I like for religious themes in books to.

King also name dropped quite a few classics such as Lord of the Rings & Watership Down & I could see elements from those classics reflected in this work. I thought the way he worked that in was clever.

Now that I have read both this & The Passage by Justin Cronin, I think Cronin’s work might be a little closer to what I’d look for as a reader. Both books have their positives & negatives, and I’ve rated them both similarly, but Cronin’s characters have stayed with me in ways I don’t anticipate King’s characters will. Cronin’s apocalyptic scenario also felt a lot more terrifying to me, which is ironic given how closely King’s scenario is to a potential outcome of our real life Covid-19 situation.

Overall, very glad to have conquered this beast. It’s one of those books you have a hard time ignoring because so many folks consider it essential reading. It’s also my highest rated King book to date! So that gives me hope that maybe he’s written a couple other books I can get down with.

Dear god this was a lot to get through but DAMN was it worth it. WOW

Ach du heilige Kacke. 1700 Seiten. Und ich habe sie tatsächlich ENDLICH durch!

O man, was für eine Achterbahnfahrt dieses Buch doch war. So überragend stark es auch gestartet ist, so zäh waren einige Stellen im Mittelteil... Ehe das Buch mit einem lodernden Inferno ausgegangen ist!

'The Stand' ist episch, actionreich, gruselig, skurril, übertrieben, wahnsinnig, tiefgründig - kurzgefasst, King nutzt alle 1700 Seiten bis zur letzten Sekunde aus, um seinen Charakteren Tiefe zu geben und sein allumfassendstes Einzelwerk zu kreieren... Doch es hätten auch gut und gerne 500 Seiten weniger getan

3.5/5 stars

M-O-O-N. That spells I am done with this MOONstrosity of a tome.

This is the biggest single book I’ve ever read in my life so far—It’s 470k words and it’s even bigger than Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson—and although it doesn’t go into my personal favorite list, I enjoyed the majority of the book.

The Stand is totally not what I expected. I really thought this would be a super thrilling plot-driven with a lot of actions book due to the nature that the story revolves around a plague outbreak. As it turns out, The Stand is a HIGHLY characters’ driven book with the plot moving at a very slow pace, and as great as it was, sometimes it did get a bit excruciating.

One of the two that stands out the most from this book—other than the gigantic size—in my opinion was the theological nature and the classic tale of a battle between good versus evil.

n  n   

“That wasn't any act of God. That was an act of pure human fuckery.”

n  n

There are a lot of symbolism to the aspect of light versus darkness here. To give one example of many, with the country being ravaged by the outbreak, the survivors ended up joining either Mother Abagail’s group (the good) or Randal Flagg’s group (the evil); Mother Abagail is located in the East (where the sun rises every day) and Randal Flagg is located in the West (where the sun set). I enjoyed reading almost all the characters’ perspectives and survivor’s tales and I really think if you love a HEAVY theological talk in your fiction, this is a must-read.

n  n   

“The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window.”

n  n

Other than the theological talk, the characters were almost absolutely delightful to read. The characters developments in this book were astounding to say the least and it was awesome to see how far these characters changed from where they began. Plus, Stephen King writes very unconventional and memorable characters in The Stand such as Nick, Tom Cullen, Randal Flagg, Harold, Larry, and Mother Abagail to name a few.

Picture: Mother Abagail by Bernie Wrightson



Now, the parts that didn’t work for me. First being Stephen King’s prose took quite a while for me to get used to. Second, and probably my major problem with the book, The Trashcan’s man chapters were atrocious. I didn’t enjoy any moment reading his POV, it was messy, felt juvenile, and during my time reading it, I knew immediately this his meeting with the Kid was going to be the one that was cut out from the first published edition of this book, and I was right. It was a painful 70 pages chapter which in my opinion offer close to zero points to the story. Finally, with a book this HUGE, I really expected the ending to blow me away but the ending ended up being anti-climactic. I also can’t help but think that the first edition of this book (the 800 pages one) would probably be a better experience. Stephen King received the title “word diarrhea” for a great reason and a lot of the words in this book in my opinion definitely deserves to be flushed.

Overall though, I think The Stand is still overall a great book. Even though it’s not a genre that I dive into frequently, I found myself amazed by the characterizations and compelled to read what happened to most of the characters. It’s unfortunate that there were a few hiccups with the pacing and ending but I still will recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed a heavy theological discussion and memorable characters in their read. Thank you also to my good friend, Celeste, for giving me this book as a late birthday present!

You can find this and the rest of my Adult Epic/High Fantasy & Sci-Fi reviews at BookNest

Traveling Sister Reads Review by NORMA, BRENDA and KACEEY!!

Let’s take a stand against evil!!

5 epic stars for THE STAND by STEPHEN KING as we all thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience of reading this masterpiece of a novel together.

With not too many of Stephen King’s novels read and not really being all that familiar with his work, when we thought of King we thought of horror, disturbing, and very frightening came to our minds. THE STAND is much more than that and not what we expected at all as we all went into this one pretty much blind. This is a whole different kind of disturbing and an unforgettably frightening story but yet hopeful with such a complex and believable story of human behaviour. It's clear to us now why this is considered a masterpiece.

How can we not say something about the length of this very long book and what an achievement we all felt after getting through it. Yeah us! We spent two weeks with this complex plot and intense and complicated characters and enjoyed the discussions it created with each other.

STEPHEN KING created a believable world here after a devastating destruction of the human race and it left us wondering how it would play out with our generation of technology. Could we survive or rebuild? Hmm Stephen King maybe you could add another 400 pages.

This is an excellent book to choose for a group read and makes for great discussions. Would recommend!