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Summary: A fantastic Epic as only Stephen King an tell!
Review: With the world in the grips of advancement of the world we rarly look at the consequences. THE STAND is a frightening tale of what happens when a small plauge made by man is the same thing that distroys humainty. In this Epic (and that what it is), King creates a world where just going from point a to point b is a jorney frought with terrors so simple that it makes our world now look like giant cushion. Just breaking a loeg could be the determining factor of life and death. This world is not just a place where simple terrors are, it is also the play ground of a walking terror more powerfu;l than anything ever faced. THE STAND is a testiment to King's craft and an insperation to all who read it.
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Summary: King at his best
Review: An awesome epic tale of good vs. evil. I've read almost every one of King's books, and this is my #1 favorite.
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Summary: The end of modern society has lessons to teach...
Review: This is most assuredly not a happy-go-lucky story. When you are talking about a virus that ravages the world, you are not in for too many good times. However - that does not mean you are not in for a good read. In traditional Stephen King style, he really goes to town on characterization. With the size of this book (particularly the expanded edition), you have no trouble understanding the survivors in this story, from all their motives, imaginings, and desires.What may detract from this novel for some people is the inherent religious overtones that exist within it. This was not just a battle of man against nature after a terrible tragedy. This was a battle for the soul of mankind itself. However, if you read between the lines a little bit (or just exercise your own creative reading license) you can interpret this "light and darkness" battle as a polarization of the human condition and how people would react during a globe-spanning disaster. Personally, the first 250 or so pages of this book (when the virus is making its rounds) is perhaps the scariest thing I have ever read as well as the most poignant when the survivors realize that the old world has left them behind and they have to rebuild. Certain concepts underlie the whole story that serve to highlight the allegorical themes of the work in terms of the battle between "good and evil." Can man rebuild his culture without bringing back the same problems again and again? The answer would seem to be "no." Is mankind perenially going to do things that will potentially bring about extinction? The answer would seem to be "yes." And, perhaps most importantly, is it possible for groups of people to make a stand against this apparently ingrained nature? As King says: "The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there ... and still on your feet." Read this book and you will enjoy it. However, read between the lines of this book and the inherent sociological comments on our society and you will enjoy it at a deeper level.
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Summary: A tale of armageddon, you can't put this one down!!!
Review: The Stand is a amazing tale of how a massive plague nearly wiped humans from the planet. Only a few who were immuned survived and then faced a battle with the "man in black." The first portion of this book is fasinating because King goes through actual plague and how it runs its course through the population. If you ever wondered what it would be like if there was an armageddon and what the aftermath would be like for survivors this book is for you. The rest of the book tells of how the survivors come together to make a "Stand" against a evil that is trying to take over what remains of the world. This book maybe on the long side but you will never notice. I was left wanting more and wondering what happened to my favorite characters. You can't put this one down!!!
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Summary: Incredible and unforgettable
Review: This has to be the best book I've ever read. A plague sweeps the world, killing almost everyone, leaving only a few people to choose between the powers of good and evil. To beat the forces of evil, God's people must deal with traitors, sickness, injuries, pregnancies, sabotage, and worst of all, a psychic enemy, the Dark Man. The book is long, but it is well worth the wait in the end. It's one of the only books that have ever actually scared me. I read it a year ago, and to this day I can still remember every little detail. It's definitly King's best work ever.
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Summary: Regenerating Concept
Review: I am not a major fan of King's literature, though I have read several of his books, rereading some. I can agree with the reviewer below who commented "This is the perfect diet book." I honestly lost about 100 lbs during one summer in my sixteenth year (having been grossly overweight at a starting point of some 270 lbs!) as I read and reread this book. I simply could not put it down and I had no appetite; I was that consumed by the book! (In retrospect-some eight years later-I felt immensely similar to the maligned but sympathetic portrayal of Harold Lauder, the gawkish and romantically irrelevant High School Nerd in all of us.) But I could embrace entirely Stephen King's own Dionysian revelry-expressed in "Danse Macabre"-that he felt in the original writing of this book, more than twenty-five years ago: the tearing apart of society. It is also eerie, as others have pointed out, that this novel was conceived before recognition of AIDS was brought to the world's attention. This novel is one of those long and tedious epics of massive character proportion and realistically relevant philosophical introspection and sociological/anthropological speculation (the type that I just love!)-"The Mists of Avalon" by Marion Zimmer Bradley being one; Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series, beginning with "Clan of the Cave Bear" and John Jakes' "North and South" trilogy being others. I think King recognizes drastically the psychological-at least-truth of alternate realities and other universes and exercises intelligently that hypothesis-or "channeling," if you will-in his greatest works. "The Stand" is obviously one of them, maybe even "the" one-being a riveting portrayal of a world gone mad, a world very much like our own, recognizable and human, but just that much seperated on the dividing line to make an impact of horrific proportions. The Arcadian characters of Stu, Fran, Nick, Larry, Glen, Ralph, Mother Abagail-even their Machiavellian counterparts in Harold, Nadine, Lloyd, The Trashcan Man, Julie Lawry and The Dark Man Himself, Randall Flagg-are sympathetic, familiar, intrinsic counterparts of our American culture. You are there with them, a critical observer and a friend to them. They are your archetypes: your mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, lovers and children. It can be argued that they are stereotypical, and to a certain extent they are, but that is all the more useful a tool for King's thematic interweaving of the tale. He draws you in, in some cases spellbinding you, seducing you with the magnetic polarity of his white and dark magick. And then he repulses you, frightens you, wakes you up and tries to edify you. This might be the way the world ends, this might be "what we are headed for," this might even be what happened, or is happening still, in some way-not literally, but in a generalistic sense. However, I am finally forced to agree with what most of the other reviewers listed here have come to admit, even those who most forcefully propoound the book as "the greatest I have ever read." King's writing is a machine. He comes in like a whirling dervish and he finally peters out like a bad case of diarrhea. The "deus ex machina" ending, familiar to creative writing class critics, arrives with nary an excuse some 100-200 pages from the end, and is severely anticlimactic in that it has already been anticipated. The true climax of the book happens early on (in the Captain Trips flu) and is almost continually refueling throughout the whole book. King's portrayal of women and minorities is negligent and childish, to say the least, but I cannot agree with those critics who have complained of the book's limited world setting-America as an enclave. King accounted for this within his storyline, having characters speculate about the possibility that other countries and other societies globe-wide might also be reeling from the effects of the superflu, gathering haphazardly around their own "post-apocalyptic" representatives of divinity and dismay. However, those outcomes, whatever they might be, while interesting, would be irrelevant to King's theme and his closely-knit band of distinctly American survivors-just like most other cultures are to our present-day standards. Finally, I was disappointed with the ending of the book; I felt limited, but not by territorial boundary lines or possibility. I felt that there was immense possibility in King's concept, as millions of other readers from the days of the Bible to the present instictually have, with the ending, the restructuring, the regeneration of humanity. This is an ancient idea, and an ancient wheel, as King well knew in his demonstration of the "real end." The circle never ends; the cycle never stops. The world goes on. There was no "Second Coming" for King's band of survivors in the literal sense, or any Rapture, but they remained. Beyond Good vs. Evil, beyond the present-day, beyond Armegeddon even (for Christian afficionados) the message is: survive!
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Summary: A great read
Review: It is the end of the world, and man must decide between the forces of good and evil to determine the fate of humanity. This is a classic epic tale that will be told for a very long time. Only a talent such as Stephen King can produce a story like this. I am sure it will stand as a testament to his creative talents. I have rarely read a book where the main characters are so real, that I believed they really existed. I cried when they cried. I laughed when they laughed. I even screamed at the book in times of great peril for the main characters. This is a must read for all good readers out there. Overall, the book is absorbing. Along with great main characters the narrative itself is told in a such a way that it draws the reader into its world and makes everything else disappear. The real world does not exist until the book is over, I guarantee it.
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Summary: A fantastic tale
Review: This was a fantastic tale. I enjoyed it! The book is over a thousand pages, but it feels like less. It feels like less because the story is so faced paced. Some people are saying that it is too long, well I did not want it to end! M-O-O-N that spells, one of the greatest novels EVER! I highly reccomend this novel too you. It was not that scary, if you are looking for a scary book dont pick this one up, Insted read The Right Hand Of Evil, by John Saul. This book is just an adventure, But i think you will enjoy it!
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Summary: a tale as old as time
Review: This book is wonderful. It is not a story specifically about a superflu bug that wipes out a large part of the population; it is not about the stuggle to survive when all those you love are gone and you are alone; it is not a story about love, or life,or human relations either, but, it does have all of those things in it. It is about good and evil, god and the devil, the light and the dark, whatever you would like to call it. Stephen King manages to write an epic that never bores you and will make you laugh out loud, cry outloud and want to cover your eyes.
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Summary: One of the BEST
Review: Although I read the abridged version of this book originally, I thought that this "uncut" version to be far superior!! A previous reviewer said that you won't be bothered by its length, and that's the truth. The characters will suck you into this world, and you'll find yourself reading late into the night. One of the finest books I have ever read; moving, captivating, and disturbing. A "deserted island" classic for sure.
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