Oh wow, it hasn't even been a year since I finished this and I'm rereading again?

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I'm not sure what I can say about this massive tome that hasn't been said before, but I came, I read, and I conquered. I also really enjoyed it along the way, which says a lot due to my struggle with committing to massive books. :) Does anyone know if there will be a new book-to-screen adaptation of this one in the near future, or if the old mini series is worth the time? Anyway, I'm satisfied and a tiny bit relieved to be finished. <3 Thanks to everyone who pushed me to make 2019 the year I picked up The Stand and for all the people who cheered me on along the way.

I read this over 20 years ago. This is Stephen Kings Magnus Opus. I think it is the book of the 20th century or a least modern times. I loved this book and still have this as my favorite Stephen King novel. It blew my mind. This would have to be in my top 10 favorite all time books.

I know a lot of people don't like the ending of the story the way King wrote it, but I for one think it's one of his best endings. It appears that we accept that forces of evil can use magic to influence events in most stories and that's okay, but we don't see much of the forces of good use magic to influence. Mother Abagail is a good angelic like person and she gathers people together, but she doesn't use any sort of magic really or power other than the dreams. Most books seem to take this approach. What I like about this ending is that good actually steps in and does help out the world. For the world Stephen sets up, I think it works rather well and it's unusual and rarely seen. In my view, it makes for a great ending. It might be a bit too far, but its still satisfying to read.

The Stand, Stephen King

Publication date: October 3, 1978.

The Stand is a post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy novel by American author Stephen King.

It expands upon the scenario of his earlier short story "Night Surf" and outlines the total breakdown of society after the accidental release of a strain of influenza that had been modified for biological warfare causes an apocalyptic pandemic, which kills off the majority of the world's human population.

King dedicated the book to his wife, Tabitha: n  "For Tabby: This dark chest of wonders."n

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز یازدهم ماه اک��بر سال 2005میلادی

عنوان: ابلیس (ایستادگی)؛ اثر: استیون (استیفن) کینگ؛ مترجم: نرسی خلیلی فر؛ تهران، واژه آرا، 1383، در دو جلد، 1252ص، شابک دوره9646498566، شابک جلد نخست 9646498647؛ شابک جلد دو 9646498655؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده ی 20م

در روز بیست و سوم ژوئن، وحشتی مرگبار سراسر «آمریکا» را فرامیگیرد؛ بازماندگان در گورستانی، به وسعت دنیا، در تلاش برای بقا، و در کابوسی دائمی سرگردان هستند؛ آنها که زنده مانده اند، یا به سوی پیرزنی میروند، که نماد خوبی و نیکویی است، یا به سمت مردی تاریک، که نماد شیطان است

کتاب «ابلیس»، رمانی پساآخرالزمانی و فانتزی، نوشتاری از نویسنده ی نامدار «آمریکایی»، «استیون(استیفن) کینگ» است؛ آنگاه که مردی از یک آزمایشگاه بیولوژیک فرار میکند، زنجیره ای از رویدادهای مرگبار، به هم میپیوندند، و ویروسی جهش یافته، منتشر میشود، که در طی چند هفته، نود و نه درصد انسانها را از بین میبرد؛ آنها که از مهلکه جان سالم به در میبرند، در ترس و سردرگمی به سر میبرند، و به شدت به یک رهبر نیاز دارند؛ با پیشروی داستان، دو نفر برای رهبری و هدایت جامعه ی کوچک، پا پیش میگذارند، زنی یکصدوهشت ساله و خوش قلب به نام «مادر آباگیل»، که از بازماندگان میخواهد جامعه ای در ایالت «کلرادو» بسازند؛ و مردی شرور به نام «راندال فلگ» که از آشوب و خشونت لذت میبرد

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 14/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 10/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

I never get tired of reading this book. It's my absolute all time favorite reads. Every once in a while I have to go back and read it again and again....and it's just as good as the first time I read it those many years ago.

1st Review

The end of the world where humanity takes a stand between good and evil.
I am a Stephen King fan and whilst I have read most of his books, The Stand has remained my all-time favorite. I read it when it was first published in 1978 and I was really happy when a longer and uncut version came out in 1990 and have since read it many times. It remains an incredible, riveting and unforgettable story. The ultimate post-apocalyptic/horror/fantasy and thought provoking novel.

The following content was provided by the publisher, giving a brief synopsis of the story and information on the 1991 uncut version.

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.
And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

In 1978 Stephen King published "The Stand, the novel that is now considered to be one of his finest works. But as it was first published, "The Stand was incomplete, since more than 150,000 words had been cut from the original manuscript.

Now Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil has been restored to its entirety. "The Stand: "The Complete And Uncut Edition includes more than five hundred pages of material previously deleted, along with new material that King added as he reworked the manuscript for a new generation. It gives us new characters and endows familiar ones with new depths. It has a new beginning and a new ending.

What emerges is a gripping work with the scope and moral complexity of a true epic.
For hundreds of thousands of fans who read "The Stand in its original version and wanted more, this new edition is Stephen King's gift. And those who are reading "The Stand for the first time will discover a triumphant and eerily plausible work of the imagination that takes on the issues that will determine our survival. [image error]
This is one book that’s left a lasting impression on me and I love picking it up and reading it all over again and again. How quickly and easily greed, corruption and playing the Hand of God can bring humanity to its knees and even with the possibility of their total extinction. That thought is not that far fetched with all the stuff that’s being done today, all in the name science. Hah!!!!!!!!The plot line which is divided into three parts/books follows the experiences of the plague survivors before, during and after the catastrophe and the roles they play in the story. It’s dark, intense, terrifying and uplifting…there’s hope, faith, religion, love, hate, fear, fate and redemption. A suspenseful and emotional build-up to the final face-off of good versus evil. There’s a meaning to everything that happens in the story – the betrayals, the dreams, death and births. There is nothing random in anything.

But it’s the realistic and deep characterization that’s astonishing. Complex and well developed characters that leap off the pages. It gives us a deeper understanding using the viewpoints of many of the characters – their back stories show the differences in the morality of humankind.
The vivid descriptions make the plot and characters so real and believable.

There are so many great characters in this story that some have left a lasting impression on me.

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Stu Redman, a quiet, moral and unassuming character that inspires people to continue their fight against evil.

“Men who find themselves late are never sure. They are all the things the civics books tell us the good citizen should be: partisans but never zealots, respecters of the facts which attend each situation but never benders of those facts, uncomfortable in positions of leadership but rarely unable to turn down a responsibility once it has been offered . . . or thrust upon them. They make the best leaders in a democracy because they are unlikely to fall in love with power.”

Larry Underwood, who I totally disliked when he’s first introduced. He’s selfish, self-absorbed but slowly we begin to see something deeper and true in him. I became attached to him and when he finally finds his redemption in the stand against evil, it was totally devastating.

“I think you're a taker. You've always been one. It's like God left some part of you out when He built you inside of me.”

Harold Lauder is tortured by insecurities and the fighting the darkness that is inside him and ultimately giving in, hoping that will finally make him a worthwhile person. He doesn’t realize that he’s being manipulated by the dark forces and that he will die when he’s served his purpose.

“He smiles a lot. But I think there might be worms inside him making him smile.”

Nadine Cross – scary and frightening. These two sides of her – the goodness she shows with Leo, the child she cared and loved, after taking him with her on her journey to her other side - becoming Randall’s virgin bride and mother to his child.

Tom Cullen – plays an important role in the story. He’s the good in all of us. Innocent and pure. The scene where he’s showing his new home in Boulder to the committee members is so poignant and touching.

He would be like a man in a darkened unfamiliar room who holds the plug of a lampcord in one hand and who goes crawling around on the floor, bumping into things and feeling with his free hand for the electrical socket. And if he found it — he didn't always — there would be a burst of illumination and he would see the room (or the idea) plain.

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want for nothing. He makes me lie down in the green pastures. He greases up my head with oil. He gives me kung-fu in the face of my enemies. Amen”

Glen Bateman – the sociology professor who does not believe in God but in the end, he’s ready to sacrifice his life for the good of humanity. I loved his attitude to life, humans and the world. And he had the most incredible lines in this book.

“Show me a man or 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.”

“Dreams are the psyche's way of taking a good dump every now and then. And that people who dream - or don't dream in a way they can often remember when they wake up - are mentally constipated in some way.”

And the confrontation between him and Randall Flagg is amazing. Glen knows and accepts his fate and not afraid to laugh at the devil!!!

“Oh pardon me… it’s just that we were all so frightened… we made such a business out of you. I’m laughing as much at our own foolishness as at your regrettable lack of substance.” – Glen Bateman to Randall Flagg

Abigail Freemantle, 108 years old and believed to be the oldest person and survivor in the world and claims to be God’s prophet and is instrumental in bringing the good forces together.

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“God doesn't bribe, child. He just makes a sign and lets people take it as they will.”
“The Lord provides strength, not taxicabs.”

And a fine answer to why God had chosen her to be the messenger of God

“...you'll find that God often chooses to speak through the dying and the insane...A healthy person might be apt to filter the divine message, to alter it with his or her own personality. In other words, a healthy person might make a shitty prophet.”

And then there’s Randall Flagg also known as the Dark Man, The Walking Dude, friendly, smiling and helpful… but one can sense the evil and darkness behind that facade – a true villain.

A demon wearing a denim jacket that displays a button of a pig wearing a cop’s cap one the one lapel and the other with a smiling face button.

The sound that his well-worn, sharp-toed cowboy boots make as he walks the prison corridors to “save” Lloyd Heinrich. A face of true and dark evil.

“He was known, well known, along the highways in hiding that are traveled by the poor and the mad, by the professional revolutionaries and by those who have been taught to hate so well that their hate shows on their faces like harelips and they are unwanted except by others like them, who welcome them to cheap with slogans and posters on the walls, to basements where lengths of sawed-off pipe are held in padded vises while they are stuffed with high explosives, to back rooms where lunatic plans are laid.”

“He’s in the wolves… the crows, the rattlesnake, and the shadow of the owl at midnight and the scorpion at high noon. He roosts upside down with the bats. He’s blind like them.”

The third part of the book was both sad and uplifting.
We discover the role that the main characters play in overcoming the Dark Man. And wow…that was totally unexpected.

“There’s always a choice. That’s God’s way, always will be. Your will is still free. Do as you will. There’s no set of leg-irons on you. But... this is what God wants of you.”

I thought that Nick Andros death caused by a bomb planted by Harold & Nadine in the house where the Free Zone Committee was distressing but what Stu, Larry, Glen & Ralph were faced with – travelling to Las Vegas to face Randall Flagg knowing that it would result in their deaths – was incredibly sad. When Stu breaks his leg and the remaining 3 have to carry on without him was beyond sad – it was HEARTBREAKING – Larry having to be comforted by Stu and convinced that this was all part of their destiny.

“Goodbye East Texas. It’s been pretty goddamn good to know you.” -Glen Bateman to Stu Redman,

And the journey Stu and Tom Cullen face getting back home through the freezing cold, buried by snow…the struggle to survive…never giving up.

And finally the birth of Fannie’s son….giving them hope for the future ahead of them.

The epilogue totally blew my mind!!!!!!!!! Randall Flagg does not die in the atomic bomb blast??

What the hell…so some of the followers do...which was fitting…but why the good guys???? Why not the evil scourge???? But then, I understood. Evil and good will always be the two forces that forever be facing each other…just another place, same light and dark with different faces.

n[image error]

Because humanity never learns from his mistakes. Bad things that happen are quickly forgotten pushed aside as memories past…and so the circle begins again. An eternal and never-ending battle where neither side wins or loses.

Stu & Frannie, at the end say it all………….

“‘Do you think… do you think people ever learn anything?’
She opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, fell silent. The kerosene lamp flickered. Her eyes seemed very blue.
‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. She seemed unpleased with her answer; she struggled to say something more; to illuminate her first response; and could only say it again:
‘I don’t know.’”

Some more quotes I really liked -

n“There's precious little reform in the human race.”
n

Were the 1427 pages worth it? Laws yes!

I decided to start reading The Stand when I started my new course at university – one much harder than one the previous. The last two months have consisted of late nights, copious amounts of coffee and naps during physiology class. But The Stand has been my constant and loyal companion; one that I have used as a pillow in the aforementioned physiology class. Finishing the book felt like saying goodbye to a friend that had not once let me down. I’d like to salute Stephen King for giving me Mother Abagail, Nick Andros, Glen Bateman, Kojak, Stu Redman, Fran Goldsmith and one of the most beautiful journeys I’ve ever been on.

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!

'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'

This book is epic! I've had such a good time reading this! I love end of the world plotlines and while theres nothing here that we havent read before (the world ends, minimal survivors that fall into tribes, alliances made etc etc) it felt like an end I'd never seen before. These characters are everything!

'We've become so used to the idea of the flu - it almost seems like common cold doesnt it?'

Larry, Stu, Glen, Fran, Harold, Nick, Tom and Ralph - an epilogue of people. I love how King brings his everyday characters to life. Theres no heroes or pageant queens, just your regular folk with faults and scars that jump off the pages and into your heart.

'But no ones know how long five minutes is in the dark; it might be fair to say that, in the dark, five minutes does not exist'

And when King got dark, he got dark. Some parts of this book are terrifying! Rita and her strappy sandals could possibly haunt me until the end of time and those scenes in the Lincoln Tunnel should not be read at night! I cried in the stadium singing the national anthem for the american dream that ran away and the culture lag - my soul felt these scenes! This book is full of so many emotions its exhausting!

'I wonder if we need to reinvent that whole tiresome business of gods and saviours and ever-afters before we reinvent the flushing toilet. That's what I'm saying. I wonder if this is the right time for god's'

And in true SK style, you can't have a book that doesnt mention and quote a ton of other books, I especially enjoyed the Watership Down references as I adore those wise bunnies.

'And it always at the end, came round to the same place again'

I know, you're thinking about Men and Mice (or is it Mice and Men?), me too. For all our new normals we always start where we ended.

5 superflu filled stars!

n  “Man is a gregarious, social animal, and eventually we'll get back together, if only so we can tell each other stories about how we survived the great plague.”n

After having left it to dust off on my long list of future reading material for years, I deliberately picked the most appropriate time to read Stephen King’s The Stand. What better time to delve into a huge brick centred on the downfall of the human race through a pandemic, than when one is trapped at home under lockdown resulting from a pandemic?

It is, perhaps surprisingly, a novel idea. Post-apocalyptic stories in the entire post-war era have tended to base themselves on the idea of nuclear apocalypse, on mankind’s ultimate bout of self-annihilation, creating a radioactive world of mutations and grey-green colours. Or, in the case of more absurd and low-form iterations, some form of zombie transformation. The concept of the practically instant removal of 99,4% of humanity, leaving the material world in preserved stasis, breaks with the whole post-apocalyptic feeling (although similar works have admittedly been written before; I am Legend comes to mind).

That being said, the similarities with post-apocalyptic stories which do base themselves on the nuclear explanation is easy to see. The Stand is one of the most influential works of the genre, and it struck me more than a few times how the developers of Fallout: New Vegas must have both read, loved and been forever shaped by the experience of reading this book. Here are mentions of the rise of new dictators, ‘little caesars’, the formation of depraved communities in the desert surrounding Las Vegas, crucifixion of the dissenters and so forth.

While the formation of such tropes is interesting enough in itself, the true beauty of the book lies in the exploration of humanity’s reaction to near-annihilation, sometimes expressed through the analytical monologues of sociologist Glen Bateman, but more frequently through the inner musings of various characters in doubt about their own situation. How are the advances of technology, including innovations of gender, politics and education, dealt with in a time when the advances that made them possible are now longer present? What happens to social values we have taken for granted in our post-industrial world? How does mankind reassemble and what types of communities are formed?

The exploration of these questions also inevitably means that the development of certain characters is going to be incredibly interesting. The tragic and doubt-ridden journey of the almost archetypal “disgruntled young man” Harold Lauder is one such. The life and time of the supernaturally endowed centenarian Mother Abagail equally so. As the survivors emerge from the ashes of human civilisation, so too do their stories, their motives and their dreams.t

Problematically, it is very evident that King spent so long crafting, building and setting things up, that he forgot to plan for an ending. The last section of the book feels extremely rushed, far too convenient, and fails to do any sort of justice to the first 80%. It falls miserably short of the expectations formed by simply going through the book up until the end, and it takes a significant amount of willpower to not let the final disappointment be the main takeaway.

In the long days of quarantine, however, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the book. It is a flawed work, and the fact that I read the uncut edition meant that I had to endure origin stories for the characters which were significantly longer than they needed to be to get on with the actual plot. But invariably sitting and lying down in a variety of spots in my small London apartment, I had a great time delving through The Stand, sometimes reading it as pure entertainment, sometimes nitpicking and critically analysing the more scientific and sociological aspects of it, sometimes following the characters’ lives and sometimes being annoyed by them.

All in all, reading it was like living with it, accentuated by the situation in the real world.

“In America even scummy douchebags like you should be able to catch a cold.”

M-O-O-N, that spells unpopular opinion. I do have oh so many of those. Laws, yes.

2.5 stars rounded up to three. I don’t want to write this review. Really I don’t. I don’t want to say that this is far and away my least favorite King book ever. I don’t want to tell you that the Satan versus God war was total bullshit, or that King does much better when he writes general Good Vs. Evil stories.

I don’t want to tell you that Randall Flagg is totally lame. That Brady Hartsfield would bend Flagg over his knee and give him a fucking spanking and send him off to his room without supper.

“To be polite, she sipped a little more of the dreadful Kool-Aid.”

But I have to say these things you see, because The Stand is 1,400 pages of boredom. I did not drink the dreadful Kool-Aid.

I have been thinking long and hard about this. Pretty much ever since the book started. (That was on April 15. Laws, yes, almost two weeks ago.) And I can’t precisely articulate what exactly it is that I find so boring about it.

“That was the whole world, after all, nothing but thoughts and plots.”

Maybe because so much time was spent on the opening, on the beginning of the flu. Was the flu horrifying? Yeah, in a “Oh God what if this happened for real?” sort of way… Could King have done more with it? Why, Laws yes, I think he could have. I would have liked to see the panic overtake the cities, the mass exodus, the cars crashing, the people stomping each other into the dirt and turning ugly in a fight for survival, the panic power of a single sneeze in a crowded room.

King, your Constant Reader knows you are capable of this. Instead I was given passing references to the military blocking off roads and shooting people down, a code name for a super secret evil government plan that didn’t seem like it ever manifested. It was all hinted at. I don’t like you when you’re subtle Steve. I much prefer when you take all the ugly people are capable of and slap me across the face with it. That’s just the kind of girl I am. Maybe I’ve got a little R.F. on my shoulder.

“But no one knows how long five minutes is in the dark; it might be fair to say that, in the dark, five minutes does not exist.”

But that’s not all. I was more than a little annoyed at the hints of brilliance, being reminded of what was to come. I saw the beginnings of Cujo in there, The Kid trapped in a hot car surrounded by evil wolves. I might have glimpsed pieces of Dreamcatcher. The beginnings of Under the Dome, little ideas sprinkled all around. All these quotes I’ve included? I highlighted 30 others, and will cherish them all. But a 1,400 page book has to be more than a string of good quotes. Maybe it’s a matter of not aging well, I don’t know. Might I have liked this if I had read it 30 years ago, when it was first released? Yeah, maybe. As it stands, I was disappointed, and maybe that isn’t fair, but it is what it is.

All my favorite things about King’s work are there. The characters being real people, average Joes and Janes. The underdogs. The minute details, the Baby, Can You Dig Your Man’s? The pure nostalgia of his work. And somehow they didn’t come together in a way that made me love any of it. Did I love Glen? Sure. Nick? Sure. Tom Cullen? Yes. Kojak? You can bet on it. But Larry, Stu, Ralph, Joe, Lucy, Abagail? I really didn’t care. They were, to quote the book, No Great Loss.

“The flu didn't just leave survivor types, why the hell should it?”

I think my problem, in the end, was the distance between the good and the evil here. There’s something wildly impersonal about this story. Randall Flagg wants to be evil just for the sake of being evil. Brady Hartsfield is the same, but he’s not afraid to do his own dirty work. In fact, he wouldn’t have it any other way. Mind-fucking people into being bad for you just doesn’t carry the same weight as Brady throttling a car into a crowd of people in need, just because he can. Just because he wants the world to suffer with him.

There were some high points. That chapter that glimpses the second wave? The non-survivor types the world left behind? Absolute gold. As far as I’m concerned, it was the best chapter in the book. That, was what I wanted more of. If we’re going to use third person omniscient, we should be using it for exactly this. The Kid? From what I understand, he wasn’t in the original, which baffles me, because he too, was one of the highlights. Like a Junior Rennie with his brain fully intact.

“That was an act of pure human fuckery.”

There were consistency/continuity errors. The ending was hugely unsatisfying. Many character ARCs are never given legitimate conclusions. I now understand why people thought King couldn’t write women. At one point the Stu offers to get Frannie a washing machine. A washing machine, for when the electricity comes back on so she won’t have to break her back doing all the laundry. And what does she do? She throws her arms around him and kisses him. Uh-uh. Not in my house Stu Redman. You better get yourself a goddamn washing machine or you better find a fucking time machine and travel back to 1958.

Beyond all that, it was incredibly messy for a King book. There were the bizarre alternating timelines spliced into the middle, sudden in their appearance and just as sudden in their disappearance.

“After all, the only practical compensation for having a nightmare is waking up and realizing it was all just a dream.”

The foreshadowing and the supernatural didn’t jive with the ending we were given. Minor spoiler: at first it seems like the people who are immune to the flu are the ones who dream, and people who aren’t regular dreamers, die. Kojak, one of the world’s only surviving dogs, is a dreamer. Later, it’s explained that children who are the product of two immune parents are also immune. Well which of these is the determining survivor factor, genetics or dreams? I’ll accept either answer but I won’t accept both. Either the dreams make them safe or they don’t. If it’s not the dreams, those shouldn’t have been happening until after the plague had done its work. If it’s genetics, then in theory wouldn’t any survivors also have to have surviving family members? The whole premise fell apart because the book couldn’t decide if it wanted to be fantasy or science fiction.

I just can’t express it any clearer than to say I was disappointed. When society caves in on itself, and King writes books about it, I expect the worst of his characters. I expect there to be Johnny-do-good types with questionable pasts. I expect there to be charming, cunning, wolves in sheep’s clothing, who mostly win, until they don’t. Instead I got a world full of mostly decent people who do bad things with one oddly levitating demon pulling their strings.

“‘The Lord is my shepherd,” he recited softly. “I shall not want for nothing. He makes me lie down in the green pastures. He greases up my head with oil. He gives me kung-fu in the face of my enemies. Amen.'”

God bless Tom Cullen, Laws yes. That’s all I have to say about that.

This review originally posted at Hamlets & Hyperspace

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The last Stephen King book that I'd read before this one, was The Green Mile, and that one just blew my mind. Unfortunately, The Stand didn't live up to my expectations. I'm fully aware that many love this book and say it's possibly King's best, but for me, it was definitely just average King.

The book started off well, and the first chapter definitely had my attention. I was immersed in the story until around halfway through, and that was when I began to lose interest, and I felt I simply wasn't invested enough in the story.

This book is advertised as an 'epic thriller' so that was what I was expecting, but instead I felt like the book did have some thrilling scenes in it, but it moved at an incredibly slow pace. In it's defence though, the character development was incredibly detailed, although, I cannot say that I had a favourite.

I had absolutely no time or tolerance for Trashcan man. The chapters with him in were horrendous, and for me, added nothing to the story. What was his purpose?

I found the ending was anticlimactic, and I'm left pretty disappointed, especially for a Stephen King read. I know what he's capable of, and I wanted more from a book that was 1325 pages. I'm hoping my next King read will be better.