The Stand

Rating:
Summary: Great characters, artificial plot
Review: For the first 350 pages or so, I really liked this book. The characters were rich, varied, and had intense relationships, and the crisis was harrowing. It disappointed me that all the characters involved in the intense relationships were dying, but I still liked the book.

Then, boat heels clocking along the blacktop, then came The Walkin' Dude. Suddenly I realized Stephen King was introducing the "big bad dude" along with the plot. Suddenly I realized it sucked.

The bad guy is pretty much a flop, and the entire plot is terribly artificial; all the important decisions and actions are made because of a sort of divine gun to the back. And for me, the idea of blindly following anything is evil.

Still, I liked the book, and if you're interested great character portraits delving deep into the human psyche (Harold) then you could do worse than The Stand.

Rating:
Summary: King's best novel to date.
Review: I've been a big Stephen King fan for as long as I can remember. I'm only 18, but I know what I like, and I love Stephen King's work. Last October, I posted about "The Stand" on DVD. That was before I was able to get a copy of the book. I finally did, though, about a month later and just now got around to writing my review. So here's what I thought of the book.

"The Stand" was amazing, for lack of a better word. The scenes that King couldn't fit into the teleplay are totally awesome. I almost always prefer the book to the movie, and with "The Stand", there is no doubt that the book is better, although the movie was excellent. I don't really know how to describe it. I have about half of King's novels and one of his screenplays, (Storm of the Century), and so far, "The Stand" is my favorite. It has surpassed "It", which was an old preference. The way that King intertwined all of these people, good and bad, was superb. Taking Stu Redman to Atlanta, then to Stovington, then to Glen Bateman; sticking Fran Goldsmith and Harold Lauder together in the small coastal town of Ogunquit; everything that Larry Underwood went through while he tried to get out of New York; and Nadine Cross's struggle between what she knew was right and what had been chosen for her... Bringing all of the good people to Mother Abigail, first in Hemingford Home, then in Boulder, and all of those with something to prove to the Walkin Dude in Vegas... I feel that the novel is so much better than the film because it shows everything from every perspective as it is happening. What I mean is that, in a movie based on a book, things are not only cut out, but they have to be left out. There is no way to show what the person is thinking, unless you want to do something cheesy, like a voice-over. That's why I think books are usually better.

If you've never read a King novel, read this one. But only start it if you have the patience to read it all. I've had my copy for between six and eight months. Usually, in that time period, I'll read a new book once or twice, and they don't end up dog-eared until I've had them for about a year and a half, maybe two years. My copy of "The Stand" is almost falling apart. This book is just amazing. I don't know how else to describe it.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite.
Review: 700, 800, 1100 pages... so what. Get over it and read the book. This is the best story I have ever read. The scariest thing about it is the possibility of it. No monsters, no ghosts, no rabid dogs, and yet it still may keep you up nights. The character development is key. All those pages are necessary to become intimate with the characters. A classic good vs. evil story with modern flair. (even though it was written in the 70's) His absolute best book. If you only read King once, this should be it.

Rating:
Summary: Read to discover, not criticize
Review: I cannot say that I regret reading this book whatsoever. I discovered many deep truths about life in this novel and being only 14, I will read it again in a few years to see what I get out of it then. If you find it hard to concentrate and retain your patience when reading a long book, I will caution you to not read this book all at once. Read it over a month or so and you will avoid the migraines I was caused by reading so much at once. I admit that it is long and can be arduous to read at times, but I think that you will appreciate what you come away with after reading the book. The ending definitely could have been better, but I am rating this book on what I came away with and not so much on how it was written. After all, I think that the more important thing when reading is to discover something about yourself rather than focus on how the ending could have been better. Realism is a fact in these books and just enough fantasy to keep you reading.

Rating:
Summary: the best King novel
Review: I couldn't put this one down. Good vs. Evil at it's most fascinating best. The end of the world as we know it after disease kills off most of the population. The "good" gravitate to each other and the "bad" do as well. What happens next is thought provoking, scary and surreal. The characters are rich and believable. This is truly one of those books where the book was so much better than the movie. Had me thinking for days after I finished. Thumbs up!

Rating:
Summary: Best King Novel
Review: This is King's best novel. It involves a worldwide fatal disease, struggling survivors, and a wicked fellow who just may be the anti-Christ. King shines in this book with his well-rounded, believable characters and interesting plot. While the length may be daunting to some, for King fans and those who love apocalyptic stories this is a must-read.

Rating:
Summary: Great but a few points
Review: The Good

Let me just say that "The Stand" is a great book. The lanuage is vivid and it is indeed spooky. Mr. King has done some wonderful writting here and chreated great charecters.
Tom Cullin-The mentally challanged "Ace in the Hole" of the Boulder Free Zone.
Nick Adros-The deaf mute with a lot of ideas
Larry Underwood-Burned out musician stuggling to accept the reality that he has survived and move on.
And last but not least Randle Flag-The imp of the devil with that nasty habit of killing everyone.

The bad

The book is scary and kids shouldn't be reading it or watching the miniserise(I know this is a no-brainer but tell that to my little cousins).
The book is way TOO LONG King does a great job of creating this world and then wraps it up almost as an afterthought

For my last beef some of the charecters have really really bad sexual idenity problems that part of the story is just not vital to the plot.

Don't let all of my compliants take away from your enjoyment of an otherwise great book.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!!!
Review: This book is exellent!! I could not put it down!!! I was done in FIVE days!!!! The charatcters are well devolped (Nick and Tom are my favorites). The ending was excellent, but the last 5 or so pages seemed tacked on, but they are overshawdowed by the rest of the book.A must read, unless:

1). You prefer light, non apocolptic books

2). You want less than 1000 pages

3). You enjoy self deprevation.

Rating:
Summary: "Would you like fries with that...?"
Review: This is King at his most McCheesiest, and for this I've docked the book three stars. I then gave two stars back for sheer ambition. But then I took another away when I realized that if ambition really counted for anything, Bill Gates would be on the cover of next month's "Playgirl"....

Rating:
Summary: Good and Evil for Dummies
Review: "The Stand" was a profoundly silly, specious, and annoying book. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite bad enough to discard. Stephen King is such a compelling writer that I couldn't put it down until I had read every cheesy page.

Since other reviews describe the plot, I'll just say that it pertains to a government-created virus wiping out 99% of the population, and the survivors coalescing into two groups, "good" and "evil".

While this idea has potential, and it's interesting/creepy that the book was written years before AIDS, Ebola, etc. were ever heard of, King's execution is badly flawed. He's a talented writer -- given the initial premise, he could have written a spellbinding, heartrending book.

He didn't.

Plotting is humdrum, characters are uninteresting and/or unlikable, illogicalities and implausibilities are explained away with "a wizard did it", and the climax... Worst climax ever!

A few characters were well written. I liked both Lloyd and Harold, although they were obviously supposed to be "bad guys" in different ways. I couldn't help thinking that, if they hadn't been the kind of guys who had never caught one break in their entire lives, they might have turned out very differently. King even lets us glimpse that possibility (Harold respected by his Boulder co-workers, Lloyd actually becoming brighter when he gets a job). Larry was a sharply drawn portrait of a hard-nosed New Yorker (granted that's a stereotype, but I can attest to its accuracy), maneuvering to come out on top even in a conversation with his mother, yet paradoxically striving for integrity. Some of the minor characters were funny and rang true.

But most were bland and dull. Stu, Ralph, Frannie's father, et. al., were simple country folk with untapped resources of down-home wisdom. Glen Bateman and Judge Farris were interchangeable old eggheads who get their comeuppance when they discover that science and education are not only less virtuous than superstition and mysticism, but also have less practical value. Tom was a mentally handicapped man who nonetheless managed better than many "normal" people. Note also (if it needs pointing out) the persistent anti-intellectualism in these characterizations.

Randall Flagg is one of the weakest villains I've ever encountered. Sure, he's unpleasant -- but he's not especially scary. Poke Waxman and Trashcan Man, both of whom are clearly psychotic, are much scarier than Flagg. Heck, I've had *bosses* scarier than Flagg! By the way, if King is going to describe Flagg as "fishbelly white", and then send him to Africa, shouldn't he think of something to call him other than, "The Dark Man"?

Then there are the women. King, already notorious for being unable to write believable or sympathetic female characters, hits a new low in "The Stand". Most female characters are one-dimensional, either too good to be true (Frannie, Lucy), or too bad to be true (Nadine, Julie Lawry). The few who are neither, who are strong (Dayna), or complex (Rita), or simply unglamorous (Larry's mother) invariably meet horrific ends.

Frannie is the supposed heroine, but she was a whiny, self-satisfied, irritating nitwit. When we first meet her, she's berating her boyfriend for impregnating her, although their sex was consensual, and Frannie was the one who forgot to use birth control. When he offers to marry her or pay for an abortion, she angrily refuses to consider either possibility. Later, she berates Harold -- a twenty-year-old boy -- for not knowing how to perform an emergency appendectomy. I thought, "Hey, Miss Snottypants, are your hands tied? Why don't *you* whip out the pocketknife and start cutting, if it's so easy?" She hasn't an interesting thought in her head (or diary) all book. Her main virtue seems to be that, even after she gets pregnant for the second time in less than a year, her belly is "still perfectly flat".

Mother Abigail is even worse. A borderline offensive Noble Savage stereotype who lectures on and on about her god, she's revered, if not worshipped, by all the "good guys", despite the fact that she's ignorant and bigoted. At one point, she says she's proud of having nothing to do with Catholics, whom she refers to as "mackerel snappers". Can you imagine a book where a Catholic woman refusing to have anything to do with "darkies" is portrayed as a wise old saint?

Abigail also seems to be a mouthpiece for some of King's more ill-considered opinions, as when she says that the only thing dumber than a chicken is a New York Democrat. I had to wonder where a woman who's spent her entire life on farms in Nebraska would ever have encountered ANY New Yorkers -- Democrat, Republican, or otherwise.

In fact, there's a disturbing and unfortunate reactionary subtext throughout the book. Aside from the anti-intellectualism mentioned previously, there's an underlying conservative bias, which subtly (or sometimes blatantly) equates "good" with patriarchal, right-wing christianity (patriarchy being particularly irrational in the society described, given its population deficit). The good guys are passive sheep who blindly follow orders from Abigail and her god, although when Flagg expects the same sort of groveling, he's supposed to be satanically evil. Harold, the lone anti-authoritarian character, who quite accurately points out that the people in authority were the ones who caused the problem in the first place, is depicted as crazy and physically repulsive, and eventually killed off in a gruesome and painful way. One of the ways we know that the Vegas folks are subhuman "bad guys" is that they (brace yourself) share child care.

King at his worst (though this isn't his worst by a long shot) is still pretty gosh-darn entertaining. Reading "The Stand" is like binging on Cheez Doodles - you'll hate yourself, but you won't be able to stop. Although I can't wholeheartedly recommend it, give it a try if you're a King fan.