n  n    The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there...and still on your feet. n  n

So I finally finished this gigantic brick. This freakin' gigantic heavy brick, and all I can say is, this is probably the best freakin' brick ever made. With a heaping 1439 pages, this book managed to hurt both my wrists, and probably injured some of my fingers. That's the price I had to pay to read this amazing novel. I never thought that I wouldn't finish this, fuck it I never even thought of putting this book down and read something else for the meantime. All I can say is, Stephen King managed to impress me again. Not that I doubted him though.

Its a typical thing for King to serve us with multiple characters with different stories, and plunge them together at some point. And as usual, some were amazing, and some were dreadfully boring unforgettable. This was also my experience while reading Needful Things, but his characters here are way better. I got an in depth description of each one, and I either loved or hated each one. That technique of King is truly remarkable. What goes best with an amazing plot? Well, freakin' amazing characters that's what. Ask me who my favorite is, and I'll probably end up describing most of them instead because I loved almost all of them.

I remember complaining how long the novel is. I've read quite a few epics, but all of them were way shorter than this. When I finished though, and pondered upon what could've been excluded, none came to mind. I believe everything happened for a reason, or let me rephrase that, everything was written for a reason. You can't really take out something from the story, because then the plot holes would reappear. The length of the novel is proportional to the enjoyment I experienced while reading this.

Once again, the characters were amazing and fully developed. I actually cared for them, and I didn't want them to die. This novel focused on the battle between good and evil, in a lengthy epic like feeling. We have Mother Abagail on the good side, and Flagg as the devil. It's King's second time to introduce a devil-like character, and the character turned out just as amazing. Flagg truly depicted a strong devil. He's really a strong character that I would love to read more about in his other novels (really hoping for a guest appearance).

Harold is the one I hated the most while reading. That pig really annoyed me. Everything he did was really annoying, and I wanted him to die at one point in the novel. Although I do have to point out that I hate him for a good reason. My hatred of him led to a better enjoyment of the novel. We all hate a character, and we want to see awful things done to them. I'm more than satisfied with the characters King created.

Lloyd and Nick were really amazing too. One is part of the dark team, and the other of the good team. I'm not gonna spoil who belongs where. All you need to know is that Nick's a kickass deaf-mute, and Lloyd's an annoying yet funny character. Tom's really cool too, despite being a retard. I didn't care for him that much in the beginning, but things started to change as I read along.

Stu and Fran's story would have to be my favorite of all the ones in the novel. Ever since the early parts of the novel, Fran's story already caught my interest, and it continued till the end. Larry Underwood's also really interesting. His pride overcoming him then more awful things happening really kept me interested in what would happen to him. I'm only going to mention those characters though, because who would want to read a spoiler and ruin their reading experience right? Those 3 are my favorites, but that doesn't mean that the others were boring. I will repeat, almost all the characters are amazing. There will obviously be a few that would stand out, and those 3 are my choice. Wait, I forgot to mention another favorite, the freakin' dog Kojak!! I always love dogs in novels. Kojak didn't disappoint!

Yes!! The baby lives, and King kinda went Sci-Fi with all the science talk, and I loved it. He further expanded the world building, and in the end, he actually created a perfect world. With 99% of the world gone, and a super virus that is still haunting the citizens even though it's eradicated, the readers will wonder what would happen to the human race, and what King gave us is probably the perfect solution. The baby problem in the latter part of the novel was really cool for me, and the solution was even cooler. I actually though either the baby or Fran would die, thankfully neither did.

STU DIDN'T FUCKING DIE. I actually thought he would, because King fucking wrote "and they never saw Stu Redman again". But that actually meant that the other three died. Even though Larry died, Stu's still my favorite so I'm not complaining. His survival was also really interesting for me. Pneumonia and other sicknesses associated with his situation. Flawless writing from King.

Okay, enough feet kissing and let me get on with some negative aspects of this novel.

The back of the book states that "The survivors who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge - Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg the nefarious "Dark Man", who delights in chaos and violence. Yes, both of them possess those amazing qualities, but I don't think it's right to say that both of them are the leaders of the novel. I get that people in the novel looked up to the both of then [in fear and in doubt] but neither of the two became my genuine favorite. I really liked them both, yes, but that's that. Randall's really outstanding with all the violence don't get me wrong, but Mother Abagail was presented as somewhat disgusting . Obviously opinionated, but hey, aren't all reviews opinionated?

Maybe I should've said that I had one problem, because that's all I can think of as of right now. I had problems along the novel though, but all [except the one stated above] were resolved. Major problems like plot holes and all were resolved at the end of the novel, and that's awesome. Mostly when I read a novel, the problems that I had while reading didn't get fixed. The Stand proved itself otherwise. The main problem would be that we tend to complain even if we're not yet done with the novel.

The ending's really great. I'm not going to complain anymore because I really liked it. It gave me closure, and honestly, the ending's really witty. You'll have to read it yourself, but I really liked it. I'm not gonna put it in a spoiler tag anymore, because there's no reason to do so. Just read this amazing novel and see for yourself. Once again, real witty of you King. This is why you're my favorite author.

The nuclear blowout in the end was not as amazing of an ending as I was hoping. Flagg being the devil, I kinda figured he wouldn't end up dead. Why use a man made creation to kill a supernatural being right? I'm not considering this as a major problem of mine though, I just thought that King could've ended the novel in a different way. I can't think of a better ending though, so I also don't get this contradicting and useless spoiler tag.

So to wrap things up, this is now my favorite King novel. It is clearly superior to The Long Walk and Needful Things, both in length and substance. I'm not saying don't read the other two, because they are both amazing in their own ways, and I'm also recommending them. The Stand is just King's novel that had the biggest impact on me, as of now. Such a shame to say that he's my favorite author yet I believe I've read less than ten books of his, and I've only read this now. I'm planning to change that soon though, I can't wait to read more amazing novels written by King. 5/5 stars, and a worthy addition to my favorites list. A clear recommendation, and I can say that this is one of my best reads of 2014.

October 14, 2018 Review:

This is my second time reading this ridiculously long piece of apocalyptic fiction, and I’m still not sure why I decided to read it again (listen to it, actually... I had someone read most of it to me this time through headphones directly into my ears). My review from two years ago is below, and it is honest. It’s how a felt when I finally reached the end of the book.

I think I rushed the ending last time. Hell, I think I rushed a lot of the book last time. It’s long, okay? Like a million pages or something. It can feel overwhelming. My first time through I just wanted to finish. The book had beaten me to death, and I was ready to tap out, submit, cash in my chips, and call it a night.

I didn’t let that happen this time.

This time I listened to the first third or so of the book (Book I) and reintroduced myself to all of the characters I’d met two years ago. It was a fun ride getting reacquainted with some of these people, many of them I remembered vividly from before while some of them get new again. So I read all that stuff... and I put the book down.

After a little break, I moved on, picked up where I left off, and continued my journey west with these crazy survivors. The middle felt a little bloated, a little over cooked, but it was good, man. I just stopped when I caught myself checking out, and I went back to the story again later.

When I got to the last act (The Stand!) I really slowed down. I took the exact opposite approach I used the first time around, and it paid off. I don’t wanna spoil anything, but spending a lot of time with a couple of characters slowly trudging our west was probably the best part of the book for me. I completely missed it last time in my quest to speed to the end, but taking the time to really savor what was happening and letting it sink it made me enjoy this so much more this time.

So, yes, read The Stand. Listen to it if you need to. Take your time and enjoy it. It’s a massive undertaking, and it’s not always going to be easy, but do it. If you consider yourself a King fan, you really have no excuse. He paints a beautiful world here with dozens of memorable characters and scenes that will stick with me for a while. Some of his best writing is on display in some sections of the book, especially when nothing scary is happening.

Glad I came back around on this one, and I’m looking forward to reading more of his early works this month.

__________________

August 5, 2016 Review;

I once had this goal to read everything King book in order of publication. I started with Carrie and worked my way down. When I got to The Stand I was worried because the copy I had was the new 1200 page version. I always hear about this one being his best so I finally gave it a shot.

It started out great. A virus sweeps across the country. There are several different storylines to follow. Everything is great until about a third of the way into the book. Stephen King connects all the stories together and then drops everything. The book becomes extremely slow moving and nothing really happens.

After pages and pages of nothing, I got to the end. I was about 30 pages from the end, then 20, 10... the book ended. No big surprises. No climax. The big scary man wasn't scary at all. I closed the book and wondered how this was a classic. So much more could have been done with this. It was a great idea, but it just didn't work out for me. Oh well.

Maybe I will continue my quest through King's books. For now, I need a break.

Seven years ago to the day, I finished this book for the first time. Reading it for the fourth time, it's still my favourite book ever. Bit weird reading it amongst coronavirus, a bit close to the bone, but still every bit as good as I remember.

M-O-O-N, that spells one of the best books ever! This is King at his very best.

Apocalipsis, el libro más largo que King ha escrito. Y como es debido, toma su buen tiempo para despegar. Vamos, a lo que tiene acostumbrado a sus lectores con alguna que otra paja innecesaria.

Para empezar, quizás darle cuatro estrellas a mí me parece demasiado excesivo al ser una historia que pierde el ritmo en varias ocasiones, donde a veces no se sabe exactamente cuál es el foco de que narren tantos personajes; entre los cuales hay un desbalance terrible donde los buenos tienen más protagonismo y los malos (aquellos que son interesantísimos), no lo tienen tanto sino casi al final. El principal problema que le veo es que al comienzo hay unos que tienen mucha pantalla, prometen demasiado pero luego se desinflan como un globo a lo largo del libro y decepcionan. Y hay otros, a los que se les da el mismo protagonismo pero solo para dar vueltas y vueltas sobre el mismo tema opacando al resto, lo que se vuelve cansino y muy pero que muy monótono.

La primera parte del libro es introductoria. Con la epidemia, el virus y todo el caos que conlleva en los pocos supervivientes. Se siente mucho los tonos apocalípticos, que es genial, pero hay algunas escenas que en verdad sobran y a las que se les puede pasar tijera sin compasión.

La segunda parte se desarrolla más y se nos da algo de acción, además de por fin centrarse en la trama principal (el muy manido y reciclado enfrentamiento del bien y el mal). Sin embargo, aquí es donde más me he disgustado y se nota la pérdida de tiempo que se le dedica a cierta parejita de personajes hartantes.

Y ya la última parte es lo mejor de todo el libro. Los personajes colisionan, hay un enfrentamiento final, muertes, sorpresas agridulces. En fin, es un deleite ver cómo todo se puede ir más al carajo. Yo el único problema que le veo a esta parte final es que se incurre en lo que a mi parecer es un gravísimo deus ex machina que no puedo pasar por alto.

Sin embargo, es un buen libro y aunque tiene sus altibajos vale la pena. Aunque también es verdad que si me pongo a compararlo y valorarlo con respecto a It, este último es sin duda mejor libro que Apocalipsis. Ambos tienen cosas en común, como que son larguísimos, novelas corales que tienen muchísimos personajes, hay un villano que manipula de alguna manera la mente y se explora la maldad humana en distintas facetas. Solo que It lo hace mucho mejor y Apocalipsis se quede algo blandengue al lado, desaprovechando a buenos personajes y dándole demasiadas vueltas a otras cosas no tan importantes. Así que por esa razón me pesa ponerlo a la misma altura y se lleva sus cuatro merecidas estrellas por ser una aventura larga con subidas y bajadas y que me ha gustado para ser un tochaco.

It took me just under a week but I've finally reached the end of the epic journey that reading The Stand for the second time has been. It was long but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it and wish I go could back and do it again already. I feel like there's a reason I didn't read it when I first became a King fan as a teenager, I don't think I could have fully appreciated this book back then. It is so filled with little details that make a truly awesome larger picture that I'm still trying to wrap my brain around fully. And I don't think I've ever enjoyed a cast of characters so much before, they're each so different and I fell in love with each of them for different reasons. I think my favourite would have to be Tom Cullen though, he'll forever hold a special place in my heart and is probably my all time favourite King character EVER. Flagg still disappoints me a bit, he’s made out to be such a big bad boogeyman but really, he’s just the dried out old drunk at the back of the bar raving about how he’s god after just having pissed his pants. I’m glad I decided to revisit it despite wanting to skip over it in my chronological King reread just because of its sheer size. I feel like I was able to absorb more of it and I fell even more in love with the story and it’s characters and I can confidently say it’s one of my top 5 King books now.

This is my favorite of all time, if-I-could-only-have-one-book-with-me-on-a-desert-island book.

It is customary for Stephen King to write pretty hefty romans-fleuves: The Shining, It, Under the Dome, are all novels of Tolstoyan proportions. But The Stand is undoubtedly one of the earliest and one of the longest books of his prolific career. I have been reading the 1990s’ 1200-pages “writer’s cut” of the 1978 shorter version published initially.

The Stand is, at first glance, a novel about a pandemic. But the epidemic imagined by King doesn’t compare with the Spanish Flu or AIDS, or even with the more recent H1N1, Ebola or COVID outbreaks. King’s Captain Trip’s pandemic is of apocalyptic proportions: it wipes out more than 99% of the human population from the face of the Earth in a matter of days. A massive thermonuclear attack would probably have been more to the point — and, in fact, the novel ends up somewhere around these lines. Nevertheless, this unfortunate and utterly unrealistic event gives rise to extremely thrilling situations in the story. Case in point, the massive traffic jams instantly congealed into cemetery vaults inside the Lincoln Tunnel (NYC) or the Eisenhower Tunnel (Denver): thousands of vehicles trapped underground, all passengers soon rotting away inside their cars.

Although Stephen King made a big name for himself as a horror writer, The Stand is not strictly a horror novel. There are, of course, some explicit and sometimes gruesome descriptions of sex, violence and death, but the main topic is elsewhere. Even the theme of the pandemic, prominent at the start of the narrative is, by the first quarter of the book, pushed aside as a mere backdrop. As if King had gotten a bit bored with his initial “superflu” idea and had purposefully strayed off-topic.

What soon comes to the fore is King’s fascination for the paranormal, the occult, and weird religious or demonic eccentricities. Not that these things are surprising, coming from the author of Carrie (telekinesis) or The Shining (telepathy). But they become more and more significant as the novel progresses. While this started as a post-apocalyptic survival story, the main focus soon becomes a dualist battle between the followers of Mother Abigail and the minions of Randall Flag, the woman of the good Lord and the man of the Devil. In other words, The Stand ends up being a sort of epic speculation about Good and Evil in the manner of The Lord of the Rings, a rewrite of the biblical myths of the Fall and Redemption of humankind.

One of the most exciting aspects of this novel, however, is that it focuses on a rather large group of survivors (Stu Redman, Frannie, Larry Underwood, Harold Lauder, Nadine Cross...) who gather together in Colorado. In this sense, The Stand can be read as a polyphonic novel embracing very diverse people from all corners of the USA. King takes a particular interest in portraying impaired or disabled characters, such as Nick Andros (deaf person), Tom Cullen, Joe/Leo, the “Trashcan Man” or the “Kid” (mentally disabled). These are among the most fascinating, vivid, sometimes disturbing, sometimes endearing characters, primarily through their peculiar regionalisms and speech habits: “Laws”, “M-O-O-N”, “Happy crappy” and so on. And although the pace of the novel gets particularly slow towards the middle of the book, these characters take shape and flesh under King’s pen and continue to fuel the reader’s interest almost effortlessly for hundreds of pages. I guess this is what defines a page-turner.

The Stand is also a panoramic book about the American landscape, from Maine to Nevada, and from Louisiana to Arkansas. It is a book about the foundation or re-foundation of a nation, and about a civilisation trying to establish itself against all odds. In this sense, The Stand harks back to the genre of the Western even more than it elaborates on the horror or post-apocalyptic fantasies. King’s book has had an evident influence on this genre nonetheless, from World War Z to The Road and Station Eleven, and from Mad Max to The Walking Dead.

No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side.
Or you don't.
...
The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there ... and still on your feet.

For reasons that should be obvious, I spent a fair portion of 2020 reading books about either plagues and/or apocalypses of one form or another:  Cold Storage,  The Andromeda Strain,  The Andromeda Evolution,  The Seventh Plague,  Severance,  Zone One,  The Loop,  World War Z,  The Cabin at the End of the World,  The End of October,  Permafrost,  The Arrest,  Malorie,  Leave the World Behind. And all year I thought “why am I dancing around the edges when the granddaddy of plague-based apocalyptic fiction is right here waiting”? So I finally decided to end this Year of the Pandemic right and re-read one of my all-time favorite books, The Stand.

If you have somehow never read The Stand, stop wasting time reading this review and go read it. I mean, right now. I’ll wait.

[Pause]

Great, now that you’ve read it, you know that the overarching plot of the story is exceedingly simple. A superflu nicknamed Captain Trips escapes from a government lab, killing over 99% of humanity in a matter of weeks:

Captain Trips brought bales of bedrooms, with a body or two in each one, and trenches and dead pits, and finally bodies slung into the oceans on each coast, and into quarries, and into the foundations of unfinished houses. And in the end, of course, the bodies would rot where they fell.

The survivors (in America, anyway) are called through their dreams to go to either Boulder, Colorado to congregate around Mother Abagail, a seemingly good woman, or to go to Las Vegas to be with Randall Flagg, a seemingly dark man, in order to prepare for some type of confrontation between the two sides.

But while that plot is a solid framework, it’s the extraordinary detail, characterization, and storytelling that elevates The Stand from good to legendary. With over 1150 pages to work with, Stephen King spins complex backstories for at least a dozen memorable characters: “East Texas” Stu Redman, Frannie Goldsmith, Larry Underwood (“Baby, can you dig your man?”), Nick Andros, Lloyd Henreid, Harold Lauder (“The business of virgins is always deadly serious—not pleasure but experience”), Glen Bateman, Tom Cullen (“M-O-O-N that spells Tom Cullen”), Nadine Cross, Mother Abagail, and last but not least, the Trashcan Man (“I brought it … I brought you the fire … please … I’m sorry ….”) But none are more memorable than Randall Flagg, a supernatural force of evil who appears in numerous King novels:

There was a dark hilarity in his face, and perhaps in his heart, too, you would think—and you would be right. It was the face of a hatefully happy man, a face that radiated a horrible handsome warmth, a face to make water glasses shatter in the hands of tired truck-stop waitresses, to make small children crash their trikes into board fences and then run wailing to their mommies with stake-shaped splinters sticking out of their knees. It was a face guaranteed to make barroom arguments over batting averages turn bloody.
...
He looks like anybody you see on the street. But when he grins, birds fall dead off telephone lines. When he looks at you a certain way, your prostate goes bad and your urine burns. The grass yellows up and dies where he spits. He’s always outside. He came out of time. He doesn’t know himself. He has the name of a thousand demons.

King tells story upon story, fleshing out not only the characters, but this whole post-apocalyptic world, exploring in detail how humanity might fall and then begin to rebuild its society. But all the while, these characters are being developed and positioned like pieces in a game of chess. And once the reader is fully invested, the pieces are slowly brought together, and there are clashes, and sacrifices, until the Armageddon-level endgame.

King has described The Stand as a tale of “Dark Christianity.” Outside of Flagg, all of the characters are flawed but redeemable, if they’re willing to choose the right path. Even the characters who choose to go to Flagg do so knowing that they’re doing it for the wrong reasons: loyalty, anger, jealousy, fear. The story takes the position that even evil serves the purpose of God, no matter how unknowable. And while humanity is portrayed as being on an endless wheel of making mistakes leading to these confrontations, there’s an optimism that goodness will prevail because enough people will choose light over darkness to make the difference.

This was my third time reading The Stand; I read the original version once and have now read the Complete and Uncut version twice. And while nothing matches the shock of the first time (including the line that I believe is single greatest misdirection in the history of literature), I’ve probably enjoyed the book more each time because the better you know the story the more you can just sink into and appreciate the incredible writing and storytelling. When people ask me what’s my favorite book, I answer that I have about 35 books on my Favorites shelf. But when pressed to pick just one, I’ve been saying The Stand because “it has everything you’d want in a story: action, drama, horror, comedy, and romance, all against the backdrop of a good v. evil battle for the fate of the world.” As one-sentence arguments for a book’s greatness go, I think that description still works. An absolute must read!

Το Κοράκι είχε ένα από τα πιο δυναμικά ξεκινήματα βιβλίων που έχω διαβάσει! Xωρίς χρονοτριβές, σε έβαζε κατευθείαν σε ένα μεταποκαλυπτικό κόσμο όπου η ανθρωπότητα εξαφανίστηκε και έμειναν ελάχιστοι για την μεγάλη αναμέτρηση ανάμεσα στο καλό και το κακό! Αυτό που με απογοήτευσε είναι ότι με γέμισε προσμονή και προσδοκίες για την εξέλιξη της ζωής στις δύο πόλεις και φυσικά στην μεγάλη αναμέτρηση που μας προετοίμαζε. Αντί αυτού, αναλλώθηκε πάρα πολύ στο παρασκήνιο και τις ιστορίες πολλών (υπερβολικά πολλών) χαρακτήρων και η πραγματική εξέλιξη πραγματοποιήθηκε στις τελευταίες 200 σελίδες. Ε όταν κατάλαβα ότι σε 200 σελίδες δεν πρόκειται να υπάρχει ούτε μεγαλειώδης μάχη, ούτε αναφορά στον τρόπο ζωής των επιζήσαντων, απογοητεύτηκα. Μιλάμε για ένα πολύ καλό βιβλίο αλλά έμεινα με τις προσδοκίες. Στο τέλος, όπως σε όλα τα βιβλία του Κινγκ, το βιβλίο απογειώνεται και θες να καταβροχθύσεις κάθε σελίδα του!!

Και καθώς αυτό ήταν πιθανότατα το τελευταίο μεγάλο βιβλίο που διάβασα φέτος, θέλω να πω δυο λόγια για την κοινότητα.
Εγώ αποφάσισα το 2018 να αφιερώσω περισσότερο χρόνο στα βιβλία και αν και είχα μια πολύ δύσκολη χρονιά με δύο χειρουργία, απόλαυσα εκατοντάδες κριτικές, έμαθα για δεκάδες βιβλία και συγγραφείς που δεν ήξερα την ύπαρξη τους, πείστηκα να ερευνήσω και άλλα είδη βιβλίων και από εκεί που διάβαζα αποκλειστικά βιβλία φαντασίας και περιπέτειας, βρέθηκα να διαβάζω Ντοστογιέφσκι, και Καζαντζάκη. Ο παλιός μου εαυτός θα γελούσε! Και όλα αυτά χάρης την μεγάλη παρέα του goodreads.

Σας ευχαριστώ για τις κριτικές, τα σχόλια, τις συζητήσεις και θέλω να ευχηθώ καλές γιορτές και το 2019 να σας βρει υγιείες και με πολύ ελεύθερο χρόνο για να κάνετε ότι αγαπάτε!!!

Keep reading!

Dear Stephen,

I'm sorry. I just don't like you in that way. I know we've been friends for a long time, but I just never developed those kind of feelings for you, even after eleven hundred pages. I feel like we only moved forward in fits and stops, and we were just never able to sustain a kind of even-handed development of the kind of chills and thrills a person really likes. Shock someone enough times with snot running out of their nose, and it just becomes a little meaningless. And there are only so many ways to view a dead body before one gets kind of numb instead of apprehensive. Using the journal device to move things forward seems a little crude, when what we really need to do is talk.

I have to confess, I've felt kind of uncomfortable watching you struggle with religion and spirituality. You sparked my interest when you posited that this might be the battle between the age of reason and that of "irrationalism," and the dark man was the last vestige of doomed rationalism. I thought for a few minutes we were headed somewhere really special, but you didn't seem very confident, and the theme fell apart.

I will say there were a few surprises along the way, which I found pleasant. I appreciate you avoiding the obvious character arcs, especially when it comes to redemption. I was glad to meet most of your friends, especially Joe/Leo, Stu and even Kojak. Your military friends bored me out, though, especially Starkey; I don't even get why you like spending any time with those guys. Such a bunch of fossils. I do have to say, I was really impressed with how you must have studied disease modelling and progression--I almost felt like was there.

Sometimes I get the feeling that you don't really see me as a person, just a baby-maker. You even have an extended soliloquy about it, as if I wasn't even here reading your words. It bothers me, because you took the time to develop nuanced male relationships (Larry, Stu, Lloyd), but the women were about reproducing or were cannon fodder. Since you allowed technology to remain, I'm not going to buy into your lowest most-functional society mentality, no matter how many sociological theories you throw at me. And then there's the elderly black woman as representation of all that's spiritual. Perhaps even Mother Earth? If I'm rolling my eyes, it's because it's another aspect of compartmentalizing women as either maiden, matron or crone, and people of color as closer to God(s)(being savage and all, as you so helpfully illustrate in your "The Circle Closes" afterward). Honestly, it's kind of juvenile, and a little disappointing when I know you are capable of so much more.

It's time for me to move on. I'm sure you'll find someone special eventually, Stephen, because you are such a really great guy. And so unusual, too.

With Three Stars,

Your Friend Always.

Cross posted at http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/0...

This is one of my favourite 'Stephen King' novels. I've read both the standard and the expanded editions of the book - but I preferred the expanded edition - as it gave more background on Fran's tumultuous relationship with her mother - and it had that creepy guy in it (The Kid), who was quite possibly more disturbing than Randall Flagg. Possibly. I think Trashcan thought so, anyway....should have kept walking. Talking of Flagg - I don't think he fully understood what Trashcan Man meant when he said: "My life for yours."

Anyway, it's one of those books that I'll revisit from time to time.

I am not a Stephen King fan. That being said this is one of a handful of works by him I enjoy. Mr. King seems to have a congenital inability to write an actual “hero figure”. The fatal-flaw motif is very evident in his protagonists. This will appeal to some readers, and they find it “a touch of realism”. There are times I wonder. At any rate that isn’t quite so evident here as in his other books. The main characters while definitely within the “feet of clay” school aren’t in general carrying around major crimes in their past.....not all of them any way.

The book opens up a lot of King's attitudes on God also I suppose, (of course I can’t be sure, but it seems so) in the development of the story and eventually (major spoiler coming )  the death of Mother Abigail. many Christians will see major flaws in this understanding of God I believe. Though I suppose the aforementioned view (the view Mr. King gives in the book. What I'd call the "legalistic" view of God, a failing to grasp grace) may be somewhat common as it shows up so often.

The plot develops well and the characters are real within their own story and the book's world. I think it stands to be considered a classic of it's type and will I believe be one of Mr. King's efforts that hangs around.

For those who read the Dark Tower Series (another set of his I read and reviewed) this book ties into the story in a peripheral way (as do many of King's works). It touches on Mr. King's larger mythology and "multiverse". It's quite readable with, however a large dash of “life’s crudities” evident.


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Read the "extended version" of this book. Not a lot of difference. I actually think it dragged the story out quite a bit. Not much really different but "more of the same" to a certain extent. There are more accounts of events during the plague, more detail about later events a slight amplification of the end.

Still a good book.