Meh. I get the impression that Stephen King was trying to create nothing less than an updated, all-American version of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings epic here, but the results feel shallow, overlong, self-important, cheesy, and a little smug in places. The sentences of The Stand appear to be quite pleased with themselves, which can get a bit annoying considering they don’t really have all that much to say.

Then again, The Stand by now has more than 200,000 five-star reviews here at GR (many by good, respected friends), so there must be something to the book that I just don't get. Even I can see that it isn't all bad: King is a solid writer, and here and there the story gets downright interesting for a few pages (usually when either Larry Underwood or Randall Flagg is around). For the most part, though: yawn...

I loved this book. I read the uncut version years back when I lived in the States, maybe in 2002. I loved everything about it except the ending. I'm a big fan of Stephen King and have 23 of his books on my shelf. Stephen King can only write a good ending to a book by chance. That said, the first 95% of his books is generally so good that I can forgive the ending.

One of the things I like best about King's writing is the way he breathes life into characters and every day settings. For a horror writer this is crucial. You have to make everything utterly believable so that when the monster comes and the stakes are raised the reader feels it's all real and cares about what's at stake. The short story, The Body, on which the film Stand By Me is based is a great example of King's genius at making complicated, flawed, awkward, real characters.

Anyway, The Stand, is not typical King as the main core of it is an apocalypse, and the super natural horror element is rather secondary and low key for most of the story. The apocalypse is a believable one, a flu pandemic with a mortality rate so high that only a tiny fraction of the population survives. King tears the world down in terrifying slow motion and playing on our fears of pandemics it is at once horrifying, touching, and fascinating. King is great at slowly pulling everyday reality apart.

The cast of characters who survive this catastrophe is sizeable, diverse, and interesting. A pyromaniac with an array of mental issues, a man with learning disabilities, a singer who was in the act of breaking big, others more ordinary but no less fascinating under pressure.

The literary institutions of this world sniff at horror writers as much as they do fantasy writers but I find King's prose and insights into the human condition to be as powerful as those in many of the more plodding works of literary fiction I've read. Readers often don't notice it because it's not what they came for. But King is interested in people and how pressure acts on them.

“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.”

King shows us the inception of the disaster, plots its course through his scattered and varied cast, and slowly brings those actors together into two communities in the aftermath.

The two communities we focus on centre on the supernatural aspect of the book, one of them is home to the 'good' folk, and the other to the 'bad'. The bad camp is ruled over by Randal Flagg who roams through the pages of quite a few of King's books, The Dark Tower in particular.

The book concludes with the fight between these two camps and ultimately the ending was a touch unsatisfying for me, though not awful by any means. The journey to that ending however was a fascinating thrill ride and well worth the price of entry!

If you've not tried Stephen King before then this is a fine place to jump in - be warned though, it is perhaps the longest of his books with a page count to rival GRRM at his most long winded.



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...

They dubbed it Captain Trips on the West Coast, and Captain Trips is a bitch - but that was many days in. When it first comes, it comes by car traveling thru a gas station. Of course, we'd say, that's just where a car would go. Ah, notice I said “thru”, and not so quietly. From there, Trips is all stealth, like a pinball wizard bouncing around the States. Picking and choosing. Mostly picking. Cause that's what it was made for. To the few who remain, the dreams will come. Red eyes watching from the darkness, or the sound of a rocking chair and the calming voice of the sweet, old lady.

Can you like a book more the second time around? For this book, the answer is yes. Not that I remembered all that much from before. “Funny how a memory works”, I mentioned to a friend while reading, or doesn't work. But I could not forget how quickly the story had grabbed me back then. A summer of reading King. And another summer now, separated by many years, but a feeling that's much the same. There I found Stu again, flipping the switch, just as the car smashed into those gas pumps. And Larry taking the long, dark walk through the Lincoln Tunnel. Nick, fatefully meeting Tom Cullen while walking north to Nebraska. “M-O-O-N”, that spells Tom, laws yes. And then Nick coming to see Tom much later in the story, fatefully once again. The Trash Can Man did not forget his date with those giant oil tanks standing outside Gary, Indiana, nor his own trip westward. How many times was he burned? On the outskirts of Ogunquit Maine, Fran fell asleep once more as Harold hung “ass to the wind” to paint that sign along the roof of a barn. The trip for each of these people, West towards those calling dreams.

The cast of characters is large, and yet it is personal to only a couple of handful, making it just right. For such a big book, in ways this story feels short - another reason why this is an exceptional read. Somehow, its pace rarely slows, excepting a time or two for what seem like a short heartbeat. I read the original '78 Doubleday version this time around, cut down by order of the publishers. In these pages, that trip west flew by, so time and again I wondered what I'd just missed. I knew there was more there, just out of memory's reach. And so I already know I'll return to read the uncut version again. Someday.

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 ...

As soon as Chinese New Year got cancelled, I knew coronavirus was serious. Then the virus spread just like viruses do in every horror novel. So much so, in fact, that my immediate first thought was not to stock up on bottled water and toilet paper, but that it's finally time to read n  The Stand.n

Naturally I'm a Stephen King superfan, so it's strange I hadn't yet read what is commonly considered his magnum opus. In the back of my mind I knew there would be a right time to read it. I thought it might be after King's death (rue the day) or after reading everything else by him. As a way to fully compare it to the rest of his oeuvre. Clearly, however, a once-in-a-100-years pandemic was the sign I was looking for. This is it, folks. It's time.

As it turned out...maybe not the best idea. After seven months of living through this, there's a level of new normalcy. But in those early days, during constant uncertainty, seeing nearly 4,000 Americans die daily, entire nursing homes wiped out, entire families...it was scary as hell. Reading a scary book during a scary time isn't nearly as fun as it sounds.

I kept a reading journal throughout this time. Partly because I wanted to remember my reactions throughout such an enormous read, but also to monitor my mental state during a pandemic. Much of my journal entries relate to bad dreams, reactions to the news, or just keeping up with the death count. Many times Stephen King's world was a close parallel to the real world, resulting in much anxiety and much admiration for a writer capable of prophecy.

Here's the full, unabridged copy of my The Stand review journal:

01/27/2020 - What better time to see what The Stand is all about than during a global coronavirus pandemic? Given this book's epic length, I’m going to do a review journal with spoiler-free reactions over the many months I suspect it will take me to finish.

Three chapters in, and of course I’m hooked. Would expect nothing less from King. It may be a big ass book, but he doesn’t wait around to get started. For this rollercoaster, you skip the line and sit right up front. Clickity-clank, clickity-clank, then a straight drop. If the rest of the ride is this intense, and the coronavirus doesn’t kill me first, I’m going to be one frazzled mess by the end.

02/11/2020 - I've been reading this a while, but only at 10%. My main thought right now is that it's entirely unfair for Stephen King, probably writing most of this while still in his 20s, to be this good. Old characters, female characters, rich, poor--they all come across so real it's startling. How can one mind comprehend so much? How does he articulate it so well? He builds this terrifying world one person at a time and it's so much scarier that way. I'm in awe.

In other news, over 1,000 deaths have been attributed to the coronavirus. That's approximately 2-3% death rate for those infected. Better than the 99% death rate in The Stand, so there's a bright side. Of course, there are Internet rumors circulating that China is under-reporting and the real count is significantly higher.

02/28/2020 - Up to 15%. Starting to question my logic that reading this during a pandemic will make it more fun. I became physically disturbed last night while reading in bed. Like, on the brink of a panic attack. It's all getting too real. The careful pacing particularly. Stephen King, prophet that he is, describes our current world too well. One case spreads to ten, to fifty, to a thousand. The government doing all it can to prevent blame, to avoid panic. Of course that's making it worse.

For historical reference, what's going on right now is that there are more coronavirus cases outside of ground zero China than in. Last I heard that includes 56 countries, with rates rising every day. Other than China, Iran, Italy, South Korea and Japan seem to have it the worst. The W.H.O. just raised its risk assessment from "high" to "very high," which is their most extreme rating outside of declaring an outright pandemic. Saying the world is under pandemic essentially succumbs to the realization that the virus is unstoppable and everyone on the planet will eventually be exposed.

The death rate for the coronavirus is somewhere between 2-3%. I calculate that 2% of the world population is 154 million.

There's also been a case where someone previously "cured" of the coronavirus caught it a second time.

At home, our president has censored the CDC from making any announcements about the virus without approval by the vice president. When asked why the stock market is tanking, he blamed the recent Democratic debate.

Still unclear which is scarier right now, Stephen King's novel or reality.

03/03/2020 - have to share this frightening quote from the book before I forget:

The President is scheduled to speak tonight at 6:00 PST and his press secretary, Hubert Ross, has branded reports that the President will speak from a set mocked up to look like the Oval Office but actually deep in the White House bunker “hysterical, vicious, and totally unfounded.” Advanced copies of the President’s speech indicate that he will “spank” the American people for overreacting, and compare the current panic to that which followed Orson Welles’s “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast in the early 30s.

03/13/2020 - It's a misty Friday the 13th. I'm reading The Stand on my break, which happens to be at home now. The office is still open, but we've been instructed to work from home for the unforeseeable future. This doesn't come as a surprise since nearly all gatherings have been cancelled. Talk shows are without an audience, theme parks are closed, movie releases are all delayed. The upcoming presidential debate has been relocated to avoid cross-country travel. Entire countries are on lockdown.

It's all playing out eerily similar to Stephen King's doomsday scenario. The book, so far, has been a crystal ball for what happens next. Within hours of reading a passage where King's president delivers a cough-filled address stating that virus concerns are blown out of proportion and a vaccine will be delivered next week, Mr. Trump appears in the oval office and assures all Americans will have access to testing and free medical treatment. Surprise, surprise, both presidents lied.

What's still to be determined is just how deadly this virus is. On one hand you have 22 dead in a single Seattle nursing home, but on the other it's been suggested that hundreds of thousands of infected people are running around who don't even know it because they don't have symptoms or they aren't serious. It seems like either way I'm not personally at high risk, but I am worried about those who are.

These are certainly interesting times, to say the least.

03/19/2020 - Today marks my first full week of not leaving the house. There's little incentive to at this point. Movie theaters, restaurants, and book stores are all closed. And even if they weren't, the risk of getting COVID-19 isn't worth the reward. Fortunately we saw this coming and our house is stocked with food, water and other essentials. I'm thinking we can last another two weeks before needing to venture out again.

Being honest, I've struggled to pick up The Stand as of late. King usually delivers a delicious dose of escapism disaster, but under the circumstances it's all hitting too close to home. Like reading Cujo while living with a rabid dog.

I also think the last few chapters have been really boring, though. I'm at 26%, which probably translates to page 350ish, and the most recent characters have really snoozed the action. I know I still have a bazillion pages to go so I'll hold off before giving final judgement, but in this present state I wouldn't call it his best work. Of course this wouldn't be the first time that a King book had a lengthy lull before launching back into life-changing thrills.

We'll see how I feel after another week. Hopefully I'll have better things to say about The Stand, and will not have yet descended into madness.

03/28/2020 - The Stand did get good again. I’m at 35%. Been reading faster than normal because I have this conspiracy in my head that the coronavirus will finally end the day I finish reading this book. Unfortunately, even at my current pace, that might be several more months. I’m trying, world, I’m trying! Lol

As for current affairs, today is sadly noteworthy because over 2,000 people have officially died from COVID-19 in the United States. Just two days ago we hit 1,000 dead. The way things are going, it’s very realistic for those numbers to continue doubling every few days.

The virus itself is still somewhat mysterious. Is it airborne? Kinda yes, kinda no. How long can it stay on surfaces? Several days...ish. Can you get it from touching cardboard boxes? Maybe? Will warmer weather do any good? Don’t count on it. Who can you trust? No one, of course, because even the seemingly-healthy can spread it all around.

The president expects everything to be fixed in a few weeks so churches can be packed on Easter Sunday. We’d all get a good laugh out of a comment like that, except the situation is too dire.

What else has been going on? So much I can’t even keep track. The government somehow came up with $2,000,000,000,000+ to infuse the economy, save businesses and give people enough money to hopefully keep the lights on. Pretty cool, I guess, but I think we’re all wondering what will happen next if this goes on for several more months.

A number of celebrities and politicians have caught the virus, some have died from it. A grim reminder that this really does impact everyone. You can’t buy your way out of this mess.

04/16/2020 - Future me, whenever you decide to re-read The Stand (which I’m sure you will at some point) remember that the end of “Book 1” gets boring. But don’t give up, because the adventure really starts with “Book 2.” There’s a lot of direct homage to The Wizard of Oz, like there is in The Dark Tower series. Slightly cheesy, I suppose, but Oz is up there among the great quest novels so it’s worthy. And like Oz, King populates his journey with unexpected characters who become close to your heart. You’ll fear for them, and really hope they don’t die—even though in the back of your mind you suspect they will.

Hopefully you won’t live to see another global pandemic, but if you do—don’t read The Stand during it. You will be tempted, because it is perhaps the definitive literary achievement of pandemic stories, but it won’t make you feel better. It will make you feel worse.

If it’s been 19 days since you last updated your review/blog, remember that looking back at what’s happened in the world will be depressing. For example, 19 days ago only 1,000 Americans were documented as succumbing to the virus. Now that number is 34,000 and growing rapidly. Globally, there’s been 144,341 deaths. These numbers include only those who were officially counted, of course. The world is unfair, and you know that there are many more who society didn’t deem important enough to be included in the statistics.

One good thing about revisiting The Stand will be recognizing that no matter how horrible your current political situations are, remember that most political situations are horrible. In the 1970s, King imagined a president who refused to take any responsibility for the handling of a pandemic. Had King’s president lived long enough for the other branches of government to approve stimulus checks, there’s no doubt he would have demanded that those checks bear his name. Situations change, but people generally don’t.

If you are absolutely determined to re-read The Stand during another pandemic, remember that it’s okay to take a break and read other books before coming back to it. I recommend gothic romances. They're a good melodramatic distraction from all the real drama swirling around.


05/06/2020 - What’s life like during a pandemic? I suppose people will ask years from now. For me, at least, the staying at home part isn’t bad. Where there’s books and Internet, I’m good. I’m still employed (from home) and taking online classes, so too busy to let staying in every night be oppressive.

That said, I still find myself suddenly panic-stricken. The smallest thing sends me a spiraling. Planning a birthday party and realizing it’s impossible amid a swirl of uncertainty. Will I still have a job in six months? Will it be safe to travel? Will the next wave of virus be even worse? Will I be dead by then—what about my family?

Other things too. Watching a movie where people happily interact can be an escape, or a grim reminder that those moments were the before times—times we may never see again.

Are my panic attacks unwarranted? Probably. Mostly. But how can I be sure?

Even if we do eventually return to normal, what’s the long-term psychological impact? Can I ever attend a concert or visit an amusement park without imagining a plague of death in the air?

The new developments haven’t been reassuring. It’s not just flu-like symptoms; the virus causes blood clots which can lead to fatal strokes. The strain that’s out now is more severe than the original strain. Maybe you get it once and you have antibodies, maybe you can get it an unlimited number of times.

The official death toll continues to rise to terrifying numbers, but they’re also saying the virus could have gone global as early as December 2019. How many COVID deaths haven't been counted? Hundreds? Thousands?

By the way, says some government leaders, we believe this virus was manufactured in a Chinese lab. Great. What does that mean? Was China reckless? Was this intentional and we have a nuclear war to look forward to?

Oh, and murder hornets.

Ugh!

Anyway, back to The Stand. I’ll admit to still reading slowly. It’s good. Really good. But I can only handle small doses at a time. King is revving up to create the ultimate Good vs. Evil battle. Stakes of Biblical proportions. I still got about 500 pages to read, but I can see why people find that aspect of it appealing. I’m not convinced it’s Top 5 King material yet, but I’m willing to let the adventure roll on and be convinced otherwise.

06/04/2020 - Dreams play an important role in The Stand. Survivors of the super flu dream both of holy Mother Abigail and evil Randall Flagg, but where their sympathies lie determines their allegiance.

Since the beginning of the pandemic I’ve had my own reoccurring nightmares. All of them some variation on the same theme: impending doom.

***Goodreads Word Limit Reached, read the rest n  HEREn.***

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.

2020 Review:

Upgrading this from 4 stars to 5 because this book hit me on every level—and was a flawless reading experience. Perhaps it’s my reading it against the backdrop of COVID-19, or maybe it’s my maturation, but The Stand is officially my favorite Stephen King novel. :)

2015 Review:

How does one even begin talking about The Stand, Stephen King's masterpiece? Since its publication in 1978 and re-release (with over 400 pages of originally deleted material added back in) in 1990, countless reviews and articles have been written about King's self-proclaimed "long, dark tale of Christianity." There isn't much that's new to say about it, but I'll give you guys some of my own thoughts and opinions on this mammoth of a book, anyway. Seriously -- this sucker took me over three weeks to read! Granted, I've been busy and can usually finish this one up in a week or so... but still, it's long. Almost 1200 pages long. Oh boy.

In many ways, The Stand was a landmark book for King. It was his last novel with Doubleday. It stretched the limit of what his readers could handle, page number wise (again, there was over 400 pages worth of stuff that was cut from the original to keep book production costs down). King took the excellent character work from The Shining and the ability to write a large cast of characters, a'la 'Salem's Lot and put them together to help create The Stand -- a novel that covers several states across America as well as many, many people therein. Often King has described the writing of this book to be his own personal Vietnam -- a struggle that he sometimes hated, but could never sem to finish. It's perhaps King's most intricate work with his largest cast of characters to date, all written before the man even turned 30.

In short, it's a long novel about a government-created super-flu that gets leaked and wipes out 99.4% of the world's population. The survivors are left and must pick up the pieces. They must recreate society. In long, this is a story about psychology, science, and Christianity, and how the three sometimes come together as well as oppose one another. The highlight of the book is, of course, the characters. There is Stu Redman, a macho but kind-hearted Texan; Frannie, a young, expecting mother from Maine; Harold Lauder, the only other survivor from Frannie's hometown; Larry Underwood, famous rock and roll singer; Randall Flagg, a demon, or perhaps legion; Mother Abagail, Flagg's "opposite number"; Glen Bateman, college professor; etc. etc. etc. The list goes on, and each character is as memorable and well-drawn as the last. Perhaps that is King's greatest feat here -- these characters feel so alive, and only become more real with each scene they're in. The readers feels as though he or she is inside each one's head, and because they are so human-like, they are often prismatic -- I see some characters differently with each reread, which is a sign of a great author. Sometimes I support Frannie blaming her pregnancy on her boyfriend Jess Rider, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I feel sympathy for Harold in the end, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I feel like Larry really "ain't no nice guy," and sometimes, I think he's completely justified in his actions. That is why i come to this story again and again, without hesitation -- it's a different plague-ridden world every time I enter, and that is a wonderful thing.

As I've said a couple of times already, this is a long book. King fills the reader in on everything -- relevant to the story or otherwise. He wants to truly take his reader on this journey into the darkness, into the mad psychology of the human condition, and for that I am thankful. This isn't a book for the impatient or those who like to pigeonhole King. There is a lot of horror here, but he, at least, shakes hands with every other genre, too. It's a world-crossing, world-building adventure, and the ninth time was just as good -- heck, it was even better -- than the first.

King connections:
- This book has obvious ties to the Dark Tower series, such as the gang finding a newspaper with a story about the superflu in Wizard and Glass and Randall Flagg being the Man in Black.

- At one point Frannie reads a novel by the "Western writer up in Haven," i.e. Roberta Anderson from The Tommyknockers

- The Shop -- of Firestarter and "The Mist" fame -- is mentioned at one point as being the possible cause of the superflu

Favorite quote:
“Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.”

- Glen Bateman

Favorite scene:
There are so many, but I think I'll go with Larry Underwood traveling through the Lincoln Tunnel. Or maybe the feeling of everything "going bad" in Las Vegas -- those passages are powerful, powerful stuff. Or heck, the entire first third is gold. Obviously, the book is simply filled with great scenes!

Up next:
We're going the distance -- it's The Long Walk!

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

How is it even possible for me to condense my thoughts on The Stand into one review. I don’t know. But I’ll try!

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my reread of The Stand. Revisiting these characters reminded me of reconnecting me with old friends you haven’t seen in a while - you don’t realise how much you’ve missed them until you see them again. And the characters are what make The Stand so epic, for me personally.

But... I’ll get this out of the way early - it didn’t break into my top 10 King books. Yes, I love it, but some parts are bloody painful. That first section is mostly fantastic, I love reading about the outbreak of Captain Trips, a deadly flu that kills 99.4% of the population, but some chapters are a real drag. The Trashcan Man, for example. Yes, he is a crucial character, but good god, reading about him in the first section is like pulling teeth.

But truly, what would The Stand be without the epic cast of characters and the terrifying villain? My top 3 are Stu, the everyday man who proves a leader in such challenging times, Tom Cullen, a sweet innocent character who is impossible not to love, and Kojak, the goodest boy I ever did see, but there’s just sooo many that are fascinating to read about - from Harold to Nadine to Fran to Glen to Mother Abigail to the main man, Randall Flagg himself. And his scary penis. But a special shout-out to the often-forgotten Dayna Jurgens. She is the very definition of a BADASS.

The Stand is the ultimate battle of Good vs Evil, accelerated by a terrifying pandemic. It was quite scary to read during the time of COVID, and I can only be thankful that it never got quite this bad!

M-O-O-N spells EPIC. The greatest post-apocalyptic novel ever written, in my humble opinion.

Reread: March 2024. I still love this book but there’s just too many boring parts that take me out of the story. 4 stars.

At least three of my friends recommended this book to me. I don't think I'm going to hang out with those dudes anymore. King can spin a good yarn - Misery and Thinner are pretty good. This story, however, was spread a little too thin - no...way too thin. I guess he was going for some kind of Lord of the Rings epic, but it came across as just an overlong dweeb-a-thon.

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.

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

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!