Rating: 
Summary: absolutely fantastic
Review: WELL THIS IS ONE BOOK THAT HELD MY ATTENTION FOR AS LONG AS I COULD FINISH IT AND THE REREAD IT AT LEAST FOUR TIMES BEFORE FINALLY PUTTING IT DOWN. HATS OFF FOR Mr KING.
COME TO THINK OF IT, ALL THE WORLD IS DEAD. YOU ARE FREE OF ALL TROUBLES. ALL YOUR DREAMS , ALL THAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO BUY BUT COULD NOT AFFORD IT NOW WAIT TO BE PICKED UP AND YOU HAVE A BEAUTIFUL GIRL WITH YOU....WOW. BUT WAIT HERE ....NOTHING COMES FOR FREE..EVEN WHEN MONEY HAS NO VALUE...THERE IS A DARK MAN..DARK DREAMS AND YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU DO NOT ACT HE WILL GET YOU ANYTIME.
THE BEST PLOT I HAVE EVER READ. WORTH EVERY MINUTE YOU SPEND READING IT
Rating:
Summary: Still good
Review: I've re-read this book about 5 times, and recently read it again, I just can't get enough of it. It is King's best book to date, a book that you will read over and over again. It is a mix of horror, romance, and sci-fi, expertly intertwined. It is a tad bit long alright, but well worth the read. If you havn't read it yet, give it a go; its worth it. (also look for references to this book in the dark tower iv: wizard and glass)
Rating:
Summary: Classic King novel as the author intended it to be read....
Review: The Stand, Stephen King's apocalyptic novel that mixes science fiction with horror (think of it as a realistic merging of The Andromeda Strain and The Final Conflict), was a runaway best-seller when it first hit bookstores in the late 1970s and is still regarded as one of King's best works, at least by his millions of fans. Its scenario of an accidental outbreak of a government-created strain of the flu -- which has a mortality rate of over 90 percent -- that wipes out most of mankind and sets the stage for a final showdown between good and evil makes for compelling reading.What many readers did not know was that King was asked by the accounting department of his publisher to trim his already huge novel by several hundred pages to keep costs down and to make the hardcover's price affordable ($12.95 in 1978). Given the choice of doing the edits himself or letting the in-house editors do the cutting, King chose the former. As a result, most -- but not all -- the characters and situations appeared reasonably whole, although King remarks in the Preface that pyromaniac Trashcan Man's westward trek from the Midwest to Nevada has the most scars from the literary surgery he performed. By 1989, though, King had enough clout -- and reader support -- to get Doubleday to publish The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition. Released in hardcover in 1990, the book sold very well and was later adapted by King as a miniseries for ABC-TV. So what are the differences between the two versions of The Stand, besides the heavier weight and higher price? (Remember that
$12.95 retail price from 1978? In 1990 this had nearly doubled to $24.95!) Well, the novel's tale remains the same -- nefarious U.S. military creates a deadly strain of the flu...flu accidentally (and later not so accidentally) infects most of humanity...then the survivors split into two camps, one led by the evil Randall Flagg, the other headed by an elderly woman known as Mother Abigail, thus setting up the ultimate battle between darkness and light. But in this novel, the magic is in the details. The long and fiery journey of the Trashcan Man across the United States is now more complete, and a frightening character who was completely excised from the original novel in '78 is now restored in a literary equivalent of the Extended Editions of The Lord of the Rings DVDs. Another bonus: Illustrator Bernie Wrightson, who has contributed his drawings and artwork to King's Creepshow, Cycle of the Werewolf and one of the Dark Tower books, has added several illustrations to this edition. There are just a few and they are sprinkled sparingly, but they add a powerful jolt of visual effects to King's already vivid prose. King acknowledges his penchant for writing big, sometimes rambling novels, and The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition is surely big and rambling. Yet the cast of characters -- Stu Redman, Frannie Goldsmith, Larry Underwood, Harold Lauder (whose descent from merely obnoxious teen to jealousy-driven traitor is one of The Stand's more interesting subplots), Nadine Cross, Nick Andros, Tom Cullen, Lloyd Henreid...and the mysterious entity known as Flagg -- is one of King's best ensembles of fictional creations, and the mythical landscape of post-flu America is truly unforgettable.
Rating:
Summary: It's Just Not Fair
Review: Wow. This book is too good. It's just not fair. Come on, Stephen King, let somebody else get a chance at the great ideas. If you take them all, what are the rest of us to do?
Rating:
Summary: King's Finest
Review: The Stand explores a nightmare vision of a post-apocalyptic America and it will draw you in from the beginning. This was a book I read in three days because I could not put it down. The plot and characters are believable enough that you will be left wondering, "What if...?" for weeks. The U.S. government unintentionally releases a virus on the world that kills 99% of the human population and an empty shell of civilization is left behind for the survivors to resurrect. People are drawn to darkness, embodied by the creepy Randall Flagg, or light, embodied by a 108 year-old black woman in Nebraska, based on the deepest instincts of their souls. The conflict between these camps captures King's vision of good vs. evil in his most powerful way. Can Amazon lend me a few extra stars? I can't recommend this book highly enough with the five I have here.
Rating:
Summary: A Modern Day Epic
Review: I just began reading Stephen King's works this past summer, and in these last six months, he has grown to be my favorite author. In my opinion, King is one of the greatest story tellers of the modern age, and The Stand is one of the greatest stories of our time. Actually, I shouldn't really describe The Stand as a story for it is so much more than that. The Stand is truly a modern day epic, equatable to the Iliad and Odyssey. King doesn't just present us with the idea of world wide desolation, he makes it real. The characters he creates dwell not within the pages of the novel, but rather in our minds and hearts. Finally, King paints the ultimate picture of a battle between good and evil; a battle that you will be drawn into wholly. If you buy The Stand you will not be dissappointed.
Rating:
Summary: A truly magnificant good VS evil novel
Review: Now before we get started on this review i'd just like to say this novel is amazing and will be a favorite of mine for a very long time. Now as 99% of the world is dead and 50% of the remaining 1%( hope im not counfusing you here) are making a happy town and everybody seems happy but the other 50% of the remaining humans have other plans and what do you get when you mix them together? well a classic Good VS evil novel, and even though this novel has been out for nearly 25 years and its still a loved classic now what does this tell you? that this novel is timeless. Now this novel is long about 1,179(pages) or something around there(uncut version) and if you can't get into this novel it will take a long time to finish but i don't think you will have a problem with not getting into it and now that we have the setting lets move on to the characters. The characters are probably the most realistic and superb personalities. The villian is realisic yet scary as hell. Which makes for a great villian of course. So in conclusion this is a magnifigant novel and if you are an s.k. fan you will probably love this or if your just a bookwork looking for a really good book buy this.
Rating: 
Summary: The Stand (Uncut Edition)
Review: I've read many Stephen King novels and many of them I totally liked. In fact I thought I would never read a book of his and not like it. The Stand was an excception. I found it to drag and I really saw no reason as to why some of the things happened the way they did.It took me about 4 months to read this because it was just not interesting enough to capture my attention. However, even with all of that overall I thought it was good and I would recommend it to only the fans of Stephen Kings. If you just happen to pick it up, it wouldn't really be a good book to read.
Rating: 
Summary: A frightening, realistic epic
Review: This is the story of a group of people, each carefully drawn, travelling across the United States after an apocalyptic epidemic. In the expanded version, you get a few scenes showing how the apocalypse was released from its bottle. You also get a lot more background on the principal characters. The characters gather together and, as they try to rebuild their lives, they realize they have to confront a supernatural evil if they are going to survive. I always liked this novel becuase, as I read it, I could tell that Stephen King believed every word of it. He doesn't stop to apologize for his wild ideas, or to explain how any of this could happen. When the survivors try to build a community, King explores frontier democracy through them. He doesn't flinch for an instant, doubting that he can switch from horror to politics. He just keeps going. The expanded edition makes the ending much better. A few characters have to take a journey into the badlands to take their stand. In this edition, you get the whole journey, which gives the climax more context. I highly recommend this book to anyone, especially people who have never read Stephen King before.
Rating:
Summary: Yet another amazing novel by Stephen King
Review: You are walking down the aisle at your favorite supermarket, when someone an aisle over sneezes. The sneeze goes unnoticed by you and everyone else in the store. It is just a sneeze after all, just an everyday symptom to the common cold. Or is it? What if this time it is not just a common sneeze, but a gateway to one of the most highly contagious, and deadliest diseases known to man. This is the very concept that Stephen King uses in The Stand, to induce fear into his readers minds.
The Stand is one of the best books I have ever read. It is creative, suspenseful, and it has everything you could ever want in a book. King incorporates such themes, in The Stand, as; survival and adaptation, when the entire human race is almost completely erased, and the remainder of the population is dealing with the loss of friends and loved ones, as well as trying to survive on their own without the modern technology of the world they used to know. King uses the classic good versus evil theme throughout the entire book, as the survivors of death, move toward one of two designated locations, one for the good and one for the evil. Governmental domination and deception is a major theme in the book, and the government officials do everything in their power to conceal the deadly disease, even if it means killing those who speak out about their concerns pertaining to the disease. There are even a few love stories throughout the book, as well. The many different stories and plotlines flow together smoothly from one to another, and it really gives a variety of storylines, that anyone could enjoy reading.
When reading The Stand it is not always easy to distinguish fiction from reality. King has a way of making his readers feel as though they are a part of the actual story, by encompassing the reader in a world he has created with his words, and making them forget the world going on around them. King also has a way of making his fictional stories feel real by writing so, it seems as though the events occurring in the book could actually really happen in the our own real world. This, I believe, is the thing that frightens readers the most.
So if you want to get away from the hustle and bustle of the real world, and you just want to get lost in a good book, The Stand is for you. Just make sure you have some free time on your hands, because the novel is over 1100 pages long, but it is all definitely worth reading. I myself could not put the book down, and I never wanted the story to end. The Stand is yet another one of Stephen King's amazingly imaginative writings, and in my opinion, the best of all of his creations, so far.
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