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.

Full Video Review Here: https://youtu.be/cnCPVKr2VHw

Many argue that this is Stephen King's greatest book...and it's hard to argue against them. The most incredible thing about The Stand is that King doesn't depend on scaring you to make this memorable like a lot of his early works, but shows that he was always capable of writing a great American novel.

What King is able to do over 1152 pages (complete & uncut 1990 version hardcover) with over 30 main and secondary characters is just an amazing feat of literary skill. None of these characters feel like a throw away nor do you get them confused with anyone else. Each has their own personality and style and you learn to love, or hate, every single one of them. The hate being in that you're supposed to because they're detestable human beings.

I don't hand out 5-star reviews lightly and this is one of the few that I would give 6 if I could. A stunning achievement that has aged beautifully and is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. Don't let the size of the novel scare you away; this is one journey absolutely worth taking.

Laws yes, laws yes, M-O-O-N, that spells 2 stars. Stephen King wrote in his ‘Preface Part 2: To Be Read After Purchase’ that he added 400 pages to this unedited 1990 copyright of The Stand. I believe it was 500 pages too much. He says he added the extra pages at the behest of a majority of fans that considered The Stand one of his best books—though, personally, he doesn’t regard it as his best fiction. I’ve given King several other chances to capture my imagination, with only one success, The Long Walk. I figured I’d try King one last time, and so I went with what’s ostensibly the fan favorite. But once again, Stephen King came up short in the following areas.

Storyline. A post-apocalyptic world is a fertile context in which to reveal a fascinating, phenomenal environment, and takes the imagination of a superstar to make it believable. King has the requisite imagination, but the story missed spectrums of opportunities to describe the process of the extermination of the human population. What we get instead is a relentless elaboration of all the vehicular accidents that occurred as people panicked and barreled straight into each other. There really was no description of the exodus, the run on supplies, the vigilanteism, the ad-hoc, grass-roots organization that must have banded together as societies’ institutions failed. There was no description of media’s spin and government’s intervention to fix the crisis, which the reader is aware happens all too often in catastrophes. King is happy to dedicate 400 pages to character development, and in the process isolates his characters from the carnage that is happening, transporting them cleanly to the other side of the apocalypse where everybody is already dead—in their cars apparently. How about increasingly desperate newscasts; some immunological forecasting where the charts and infection vectors are cobbled together by tired scientists; some scenes as the power dies, water pressure fails, hospitals surrender. Instead we get the National Guard deployed to cordon off cities, and machine gun nests manned by soldiers who were willing to accomplish their duties, despite that they would more realistically have abandoned guns and returned home to family. I think King missed a fecund opportunity to comment on human nature, the dark side of human nature, as they packed together like rats.

Characters. They were two-dimensional. With 400 additional pages and 20 main characters, one calculates that each person in this unabridged version would get 20 extra pages of detailed character development. That’s probably true, but King didn’t mature the characters. He used those extra pages merely to place them into more action. Consequently, none of the characters grew—none made profound statements of the human condition. The emotional breakdowns were weak. The fright was hollow. The good guys and bad were stereotyped and their development was heavy-handed; in other words, the characters were not leading independent lives, they were doing exactly as Stephen King’s pen dictated. The evil man overacted his part, and was thereby flat and unbelievable.

Denouement. To say the ending was anticlimactic is an understatement. The different threads of the story came to the same stitch, but it was messy and rushed. We come about 1030 pages not knowing how it’s going to end, we’re given a big clue, then it pans out exactly how you would have guessed 98 times out of a 100. There are 2 pages of what the world-to-come may look like from the different character perspectives, and yet King fails again to make resounding, sweeping, vitriolic summaries of the human condition. No warnings to mankind. No predictions. No lessons to the reader.

What gristle, then, are you supposed to take away from this book? I don’t know. I was never spooked, chilled, frightened, or even discomforted. I learned nothing about the dimension and capacity of humans in the land of post-apocalypse. I never empathized with any of the characters. Now, for 1153 pages, that’s not worth it.

New words: drumlin, nonce, caul, jocund, yatter, treacly, gymkhana, rugose, intaglio, blatting.

A heartfelt thank-you to Norma and Brenda for including me in this 1,300 page marathon journey of a novel.

I was kindly offered the opportunity to become part of the “traveling sister read” earlier this month. Such a great concept and what an incredible experience. I enjoyed every minute of it. All of our discussions, opinions and back-and-forth chats. So interesting to share each other’s thoughts as we made our way through the book together. With such an incredibly long book we managed to keep one another on track. It was great fun trying to figure out where the story would take us. I can't imagine tackling this book without them!

A 5 star book as well as a 5* reading experience! Thank-you to my 2 new Canadian sisters!
In the end, the book left me with just one question: is mankind doomed to continually repeat his past mistakes?

To see the full traveling sister review please visit Norma and Brenda's blog at:
Http://twogirlslostinacouleereading.w...

The first time I read The Stand I was home sick from school with some illness, the German measles I think. Maybe not a good time to be reading a book about a super flu, but I was young and not so bright.

This had to have been in 1981 or so, because that’s the year MTV debuted, back then they played music videos on Music Television and probably had about ten or so they kept playing over and over. Well, I’m on the pull out couch in the family room with MTV playing (it made me feel better to see the guys from Journey), and reading The Stand, half listening to MTV when this (very 80's)video I hadn't seen before comes on.

The Stand

This was very surreal. I was feverish and the words I was reading like “The walkin’ dude” and “Trashcan Man” were coming out of the TV machine. It was very strange……as strange as The Alarms hair. Did you notice the painting of the flower he did looks just like the hair. Amazing…….I kind of like the painting.

I loved the book and it has been one my favorites list ever since. I always wanted to re-read it, but it was so darn long, and there are so many books out there to read. Thirty years later they release the audio version and I was excited, not only to revisit the book but to hear it on audio,(yay) and I was not disappointed. The Stand still remains on my favorites list. But since it had been so long since I first read it, I forgot most of it. It was like a whole new book.

The government develops a biological weapon, a super flu (project Blue) , nick named Captain Tripps, that is inadvertently released and kills 99% of the human population along with most of the dogs and horses. The cats survive (they always do). Here I have to ask the question, why would a government develop such a weapon when It kills most everybody…….even the guys on your side, and you?

The people who survive start to have crazy dreams. One is about a very old African American women, Mother Abigail, in Nebraska who calls on the people to come see her and then to travel to Boulder Colorado. The other is a nightmare about a mysterious fella named Randell Flagg, aka The Walkin’ Dude or the Dark Man who draws them to Los Vegas. Randell is not just bad; he is pure evil, while Mother Abigail is the instrument of God. The survivors pick their side, and there is a good old fashion show down between good and evil. What could go wrong?

King develops strong, memorable characters in this book. He also writes horrifyingly memorable scenes like a trip through the Lincoln Tunnel in New York, dark and stuffed to the brim with rotting corpses. That is not one of the things I forgot.

A few minor things bugged me in this version. Stephen went back later on and added pages to the book that were cut by the publishers, which I am happy with. But, in an attempt to update the book, he moved the time period up from 1980 to 1990. This made a few things awkward, such as a scene about the shootings at Kent State University. The reasons for the shooting were changed from being about war protest to protesting the detainment they were under because of the flu. This worked in the original version because it was closer in time period of the shootings at KSU. Being set in the 90’s it made no sense.

Also, King was in love with the word “pillion”, it means to ride behind the driver of a motorcycle. He used it as much as he could. He also described people’s knee joints popping when squatting, or getting up from a squat, many times. One time would have been just fine.

Love the book. Now I’m off to buy hand sanitizer.

Traveling sister read with Norma and Kaceey

I am feeling wow right now and what an achievement reading The Stand. 2 weeks on this amazing book and the best part the discussions it created with Norma and Kaceey.

Great book for a group read.

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.

M-O-O-N spells spectacular!

I first read THE STAND in the early 80's. It was during the Christmas break- I lived out in the boonies with my family, and after the holiday hoopla was over -I planted myself in my favorite chair and sat there for 4 days devouring every page-(only leaving for bathroom breaks, meals and sleep).

30+ years later my reading experience was a little different. I read it with my Goodreads friend Lisa- who had the uncut version, while I had the original- I stopped and started as she caught up- there were huge amounts of messages back and forth- on the characters, the differences in editions, who we loved- who we hated, and everything and anything we could think of to discuss. It was a month long read...

...but the one thing both experiences did have in common was- I LOVED IT each time!!



At a remote U.S. Army base, a strain of influenza is accidentally released. Despite a lock down- soldier Charles Campion is able to escape with his wife and child. By the time the military is able to track his whereabouts- Campion has spread the disease around parts of Texas- triggering a pandemic which kills off 99 percent of the population.

The one percent are left in survival mode- spread out over the entire country and plagued by strange dreams about two individuals which eventually draw some to Nebraska and some to Las Vegas.



Hemingford Home, Nebraska- Is the home of Abagail Freemantle— "Mother Abagail" a 108 year- old woman who receives visions from God. She is the embodiment of good.



Las Vegas, Nevada- is where Randall Flagg has set up shop- Randall is also called The Dark Man and The Walking Dude. He lives to cause death and destruction and has supernatural powers which allow him to be human, animal or demon. He is the embodiment of evil.



King said that he "wanted to write a fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting"- and that is just what he did. THE STAND is a wonderful epic fantasy adventure about good vs evil- One that I would recommend to anybody who hasn't read it yet, and even to those who have!

When a novel is 1,439 pages long obviously there are many ups and downs in the story. However this is one of the best examples of good over bad I've come across (and not even the most extensive I read either). To be honest I'm not trying to damn it with faint praise, just the opposite. But having read many classic narratives this for want of a better phrase ... let's say... and I will...
isn't in the same league. Stephen King is an excellent writer being a fan of both him and scifi, this is very enjoyable indeed, nevertheless a little long -winded. The characters and plot are quite exciting though and the various mad situations memorable. The top of the list, Mother Abagail at 108 dominates the few scenes she is in. Prophet or mad woman? Her unpretentious manners will...
charm, and only the facts resolved at the end can tell the tale. Another unique human or more likely phantom is the Dark Man, Randall Flagg (if he had any) to his friends , who chill the nervous opponents with strange powers in the bleak setting...a virus has killed 99% of the Earth's population, the dying gives this deep pathos in the extreme, and the survivors seek refuse but where? Las Vegas of course to the evil, Boulder, Colorado the good ...cannot explain that . A few thousand people left and they still need to kill each other! NOT ENOUGH CARNAGE FOR ALL... Sad. The backgrounds of the poor inhabitants are the most interesting parts in the whole event. From normal life and problems to the ultimate disaster in history...Love, hate, bombs, more killings and various struggles to live and prevail into the next day never fails to move the reader, as they in the land of total death try and try to keep breathing . The snows in the Rockies you can feel in your bones as the unfortunates suffer . Car wrecks block the streets and highways with numerous dead, grotesque bodies inside, tumultuous tunnels trap travelers who can't exit. And consumers will turns the page and continue this epic . A fine voyage in a place that no one would like to experience...for real.

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.

4.5 stars

The Stand is fantastic. Imagine an flue outbreak, not unlike our very own COVID-19, except this one is deadlier. It kills 99% of all population. And those left behind start having almost prophetic dreams of a 108-year old black woman called Mother Abagail, a symbol of safety, and the dark man who goes by the name Randall Flagg, chaos incarnate. As two societies form, all of old USA's survivors will have to pick a side with whom to stand and determine the future of what remains of humanity. Pretty epic.

n  “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.”n

There is so much that I loved about King's fifth novel. The thing that is talked about the most is the character work, which I must say absolutely lives up to the hype. Harold Lauder, Glen Bateman, Stu Redman, Tom Cullen, and Trashcan Man are just a few who really stood out to me. You got your good guys who you can't help but root for, you have your dude who was treated so wrong all this time and is spiralling downwards and downwards, yet you still have hope for redemption, a pyromaniac who steals your heart with his story of torment and abuse. Everything! Character driven readers will have a blast, and even if you aren't one, you'll have these characters stick with you for a long time.

n  “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.”n

Another element that is great is criticism of society and military/government. The latter occurs largely at the beginning and end of the novel, while the former is fairly consistent throughout. This area of the book was the most thought provoking, in my opinion. Sure the themes are pretty explicit but they are shown through different angles, whether it is through Stu and Glen's musings, Mother Abagail and Flagg's societies, or how the superflu outbreak was first [mis]handled. There is conversation relating to this that surrounds the nature of humanity and societies: if they are good or evil, and does it really matter. You can see it in the way that the two major hubs are: the similarities and differences, but that will be discussed more thoroughly in the spoiler section.

The trend of using racial slurs and derogatory (usually insensitive) descriptions to indicate who is a "bad character" is becoming more and more apparent with King's earlier works (I hope it doesn't continue still). Although it may have been accepted back in the 1970s, seeing this method of showing who the bad guy makes me uncomfortable and wrong. There are other ways to do this, especially since at times it is really in your face.

Another thing that bothered me a tiny bit was the actual showdown and pacing in some areas, but once again, that shall be discussed in the spoiler section. All I'm gonna say is, King likes to get wordy. For the most part, this didn't distract though. I enjoyed just hanging out with the gang.

Overall, I understand why The Stand is such a beloved novel. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though moments did feel like teeny let downs or made me uncomfortable. This is a novel I'd recommend to anyone who is not afraid of big books and definitely to every king fan.



Firstly let's address the ending: I thought is ok but a let down. I loved Trashy's development and motivation. All that was great. When everyone stopped to see him roll the atomic bomb into Vegas was a great scene. HOWEVER, I wish it wasn't by divine intervention that it exploded. I wish Trashy would have shown his master his new toy, just like he liked to demonstrate his other finds. I think it would have been in character and a better ending. That being said, I cried through the aftermath. Tom finding Stu and them getting back to Boulder together was great.

The theme of good/evil in society is what the novel finishes off with: Stu asks Frannie if she thinks humanity will learn from its mistakes. After all, people in the Zone are already showing signs of picking up all of old-earth's toys which are just up for the taking. She replies that she doesn't know. I love that King left this open ended and for you to make your own choice. During the novel this theme of a good and evil society is shown and destroyed constantly by the observations of the spies in Vegas. They all remark that the atmosphere there is different, but the people are fine people! And that the society there is not that different from the one in Boulder. So why is one society evil and the other one not? Is it who leads them? Is it their ideology? Thought provoking stuff. And will the Zone learn from what happened at Vegas? Who knows? (I guess the whole idea about "does God or Satanic intervention excuse our actions" ties into this too).

Something that has me hyped is the fact that I think I am spotting first connections to the Stephen King Multiverse. All the people who survive, to some measure, have the Shine. It is even specifically named that by Mother Abagail. Another thing is Randall Flagg. He is set up, but not fully explored. I know there will be more to come from him. In Carrie it is said that her Carrie's mother chased off the dark man (or was it Man in Black?). Could this be Flagg? In The Dark Tower series, I know that the main antagonist is also called something similar... could this be good old Randy Flagg? Hmmm. I'm hypeeeed.

So far this is my fave King novel. Boy do I need to watch the adaptation. If you're still reading this, wow thanks, and plez tell me if the adaptation is good (if you watched it) thanks!

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!