Rating: 
Summary: Reinventing American Democracy
Review: This book is the only book by Stephen King that was published in an abridged format first, before being published in full quite later on. The general idea is the destruction of the whole of humanity by a « superflu » - also called « Captain Trips » - germ produced in and leaked out of some military research center : biological warfare. This is a common theme in Stephen King's books or films. We find it in Firestarter, Golden Years, The Talisman (in collaboration with Peter Straub), and some others still. Only a few immune people survive, and there Stephen King revisits history. On one side, in Boulder, Colorado, the good ones, summoned and gathered by an old Christian black woman, Mother Abigail. The core group is composed of a deaf-mute man, an old intellectual university professor, a judge, a working-class Texan, a female student from Maine, a rock-star singer, and a mentally-retarded man. On the other side , the Devil, in the shape of the Dark Man (a common character in Stephen King's books like The Eyes of the Dragon, The Talisman, The Dark Tower, and some others, and also known as Flagg in some of these novels), also appearing as a crow, gathers in Las vegas all types of discontents, criminals and (ethics-deprived) technicians to revive the nuclear center and the air base near by and then to conquer the world. He hangs delinquents and those who resist his power (according to his law) to lampposts at street corners, like Hitler did with working class activists, trade-unionists and communists, crucifies some others, like the Romans did, and dismembers some more, like the Inquisition did. His main assistants are a killer he recuperated in a prison, and a crazy man, Trashcan Man, whose only pleasure was, has been and is to set things afire and blow up anything he may think of. The good ones have to save the world and can only do so by following Mother Abigail's recommendations she gets directly from God. Their first action is to send three spies. The judge will never reach Las Vegas. A girl will become the mistress of the ex-prison-inmate, and she will be discovered and will commit suicide. The mentally-handicapped man will survive and fulfill his mission because he is invisible to the Dark Man who can only see a moon (the man generally says M.O.O.N.-MOON to signify his understanding of some instruction or situation). But these were sent by the political governing committee of Boulder, duly elected by a general assembly of the brand-new community with the American flag, the American national anthem and democratic procedures in agreement with the American Constitution they revive for the occasion. But the old black lady, Mother Abigail, who had disappeared, unknown of all others, before that meeting, comes back later on and gives God's orders to send four (we may think of The Dark Tower, The Drawing of the Three, where the gunslinger draws three people from the normal world to save the underground supernatural world : a young boy, a drug-addict and a physically handicapped black woman in a wheelchair, thus building up a group of four) of the members of the governing board (the deaf-mute man, the old university professor, the Texan and the rock-star singer) to Las Vegas to be sacrificed there by being put to death by the Dark Man, also known as the Walking Dude, and thus save the world. The Texan will break his leg on the way and will be left behind with the old university professor's dog who will help him survive, thus reducing the pilgrims to three, a christian symbolical number. Later on the mentally-handicapped man will come across him and save him from a bad case of flu with the mental help of the deaf-mute, dead by now, who can speak in his visions. They will be the only two to come back in the middle of the winter, close to Christmas. This is both a realistic vision of the birth of Christ and the resurrection of the saving group. The others will be caught, interrogated and tortured, and finally set in place for public dismemberment. At this very moment the crazy man, Trashcan Man, arrives with an atom-bomb he has recuperated from the underground arsenal of the United States in Nevada, on a tractor. At this moment the magic of the Dark Man, his magical fire, will be redirected by God's hand onto the atom-bomb ; thus destroying the whole of Las Vegas, the Dark Man disappearing out of his shoes and clothes. He will find himself later on a quasi-deserted island, adopted by « savage » natives as some kind of God, thus starting his come-back. Then, the end is the possibility (that will only last as long as it will take the Dark Man to come back) for the good ones to feel free to go to various parts of the country, to become modern pioneers, to reconquer the world and reconstruct society nearly from scratch, with a symbolical birth from the female student in Boulder at a time that looks like Christmas. Life is possible again. What is essential here is that humanity in the midst of the worst catastrophy, goes back to the American democratic model, but also to the fascistic model. That is a typical case of the memory Stephen King has of both sides of history, the good one and the bad one, good and evil. But we note that humanity is saved by an old woman, a black woman, a Christian woman. She is the prophet of rebirth. This speaks to the minds of modern Americans engulfed as they are in long fights for civil rights (for the Blacks, the Indians or all ethnic minorities), for liberation of other groups such as women or gay people. We note that there is no gay element in any book by Stephen King, at least any obvious element that I have noticed, even if some relations between some men remind us of Whitman's « comradeship » or « camaraderie » between and among frontier men. Every element, like in all books by Stephen King, is symbolical. The new saviours are a deaf-mute man, a physically handicapped man (like in The Cycle of the Werewolf, also known as Silver Bullet, or in The Dark Tower, where the physically handicapped person is a black woman) and a mentally-handicapped man (such characters appear in other books too). In a way, a handicap is a key to the rebirth, the resurrection, the renaissance, the redeeming, the epiphany of humanity. Then we have an intellectual (like in The Dark Half - a writer, Salem's Lot - a writer, Pet Semetary - a doctor, by far more ambiguous, Misery - a writer, etc), a rock-star (This is less common, but references to rock music are extremely common in Stephen King's books, such as Christine), a working-class man (a common character indeed with the special case of Graveyard Shift), a female student (the role of girls and women is not marginal at all in Stephen King's books : The firestarter, Christine, Carrie, Cujo, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Rose Madder, Dolores Claiborne, or even Misery). We could also point out the importance of kids as redeeming characters in these books. We work here on an alliance of the mind, the arts, industrial work, intellectual work, thinking. We could go into finer details in that symbolism. These symbolical elements come back again and again in Stephen King's novels. Humanity is always jeopardized by bad evil dark forces coming from men and women themselves, but led by men. But humanity always produces the individuals and the forces that can regenerate the world, though this regeneration is always temporary and requires some kind of faith, some kind of belief in the supernatural, in some other world, even if it is only literature. In fact Stephen King systematically explores all those worlds that lie beyond the limits of normalcy. But this regeneration is always temporary because humanity produces evil forces that can be easily manipulated by the Dark Man, « the Devil's pawn » as he is called in The Stand. The cycle of good and evil is always recurring. Even though Las Vegas has been totally destroyed, the Dark Man finds some new affiliates who will enable him to come back and exploit the darker side of human beings. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Universities of Paris IX and II
Rating:
Summary: M-O-O-N, that spells classic
Review: It's a shame, really, that so much is said these days in the literary world about so little. It seems as though writing itself has become something of a pointless pursuit--there's nothing to say that hasn't been said. Jordan is just rewriting Dune, after all, and the Stand is nothing but Tolkein, right? Well, not quite. Almost all original writing is doomed to be labelled as a "rip-off" of other popular writing these days, but that doesn't necessarily make the naysayers right. This book is a wonderfully original look at Christian faith and the nature of man's relationship with God and with himself, King's best work, and (I can only hope) the future subject of high school literature classes everywhere. And by the way--if you don't understand the ending, try looking to the THEME of the book, rather than hollowly sitting and looking for another literary soap opera to fill your time. It seems cheesy and tacked on for a reason...
Rating: 
Summary: DISAPPOINTING! - referring to the uncut edition
Review: The book was totally disappointing and I am yet to find the WONDER of this story. To be honest, it was, in my opinion, extensively overrated. The storyline is great though, a superflu that destroys over half the world's population and leaves a few surviors to battle on. Yet strangely, I found it very hard to warm to any of the characters, maybe because they were too plain or uninteresting(?), I don't know. Not Stu, not Fran, not Harold and not even the religious old woman , who is apparently responsible for saving mankind. Simply put, the story was too long and drawn out, there was an excess of unnecessary information that endlessly bored me and left me wondering when the story was going to move on. Is this the 'supposed' BEST Stephen King book, the much talked-about novel that everyone DEFINITELY had to read? I was GREATLY disappointed and still cannot understand why people continue to rate such a grossly exaggerated story.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: The Stand was great. The charactors were believable, as if they were people you know in your own life. Stephen King is a master of charactorization, I'm guessing there is at least 300 charactors in the story alone. Don't be intimidated by the 1,000+ pages, it reads very fast. In a few years, The Stand will be read in English classes and be considered one of the best novels on the late 1900's.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite book
Review: I loved this book for a couple reasons. It was very long, 1141 pages, small print! It kept you into it though. It also lots of different thing going on at one time.A little confusing, a lot of characters, but interesting. It left you at one point, then going on to another one, which made you want to get to the part where they left off. It was exciting, sad, disgusting, and powerful. It was so intense at some times, but also a little boring, you needed those parts though.It is about a killer plauge that wipes out most of the worlds population. The few survivors are either attracted to Mother Abagail on the good side, or Randall Flagg on the bad side. They slowly come to each place and form communities. Randall Flagg uses his inhuman powers and attacks the good side, somewhat forcing them to send a group of 4 men, unarmed on a suicidal mission to stop Flagg and his people. It has great suspense, keeping you reading to the very end. I highly recommend this Great Stephen King book, and hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Have fun with Stu, Fran, Harold, Ralph, Larry, Trashcan Man, Mother Abagail, Randall Flagg, Lloyd, Tom, Glen, and so many others!
Rating:
Summary: The Stand is a masterpiece!
Review: How can you not be compelled by the many layers of this book? first you have the panic and frustration of the dying people, then the struggle of the survivors to come together. then the struggle of the battle of good vs evil! this book is a classic and i would recommend it in a heartbeat!
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: This is simple. If when you finished to see the movie you felt that the first 3 hours were great and the last 3 hours poor, give the story a second chance. Read "The Stand" and you'll see there's is a reason to exists a "good" side and a "evil" side. There's also a very good reason to the "final battle". There's is a reason to the existance of Randall Flagg. This book will answer all the questions the movie let you asking....a must read...
Rating:
Summary: Armageddon
Review: The idea is brilliant: What would happen if about 99.5% of the population gets wiped out by a plague? How do the survivors organize themselves again? A lot of post-apocalyptic science-fiction has been written, but from all the books offering this subject, "The Stand" is without doubt one of the most excellent ones, which is mostly due to Stephen Kings great talent to create interesting characters, of which you will find dozens in this amazing book... But on the other hand the situation is so complex that a lot of things have been forgotten in this novel: What happened to the rest of the world? This book is understandably too much centered on the USA, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened in the rest of the world... Still, this novel is among the best of Stephen King's work, mostly also because its more than a horror novel, it's a book about the survival of human mankind, the fight between good and evil, the utopia of a new society, a new beginning from the scratch for the civilization. Having read the cut version first, I was very pleased to discover the complete and uncut version, full of rich details, making the characters even more interesting and also delivering more background information about how the whole mess started. If you have the cut version, buy the uncut one if you want more information about your favorite characters and even meet some new ones. If you dont have the book yet, go for the uncut version, it might be longer, but it's worth every page of it! Honestly, who likes to watch a cut movie? So why would someone like to read a cut story?
Rating: 
Summary: A compelling read!
Review: I'm not a Stephen King fan, but this book just captivates me. I actually didn't pick it up until I saw the miniseries "The Stand" when it was first on television. When I have a long vacation, this is usually one of the books I take with me...I only gave it four stars because some of the sections (mostly the Ad Hoc Committee free zone meeting sequences) tend to go on and on...but still an excellent book all the same. OH and the mini series is terrific too -- an excellent accompaniment to the book! (It's available on video and is also on SciFi network from time to time). Since I'm not a Stephen King fan (nothing against him -- just don't usually read that genre of books) I was and still am surprised by how enjoyable this book is! Read it!
Rating:
Summary: Stephen King IS the King!
Review: I must admit, the daunting page-count was a detractor. But what a fabulous read! What's more, after you finally meet the antagonist Randall Flag...egad, and what a horrid fellow he happens to be...you can't persuade yourself to put the book down! It is engrossing, overwhelming...and out-and-out FUN. It is my opinion that Stephen King has for some time been wrongly pigeon-holed as a writer of the most base and sensational type of horror--an assertion that is simply untrue. I am not a Stephen King maniac (though I have met a few in my day), but I must say that he is a brilliant author who posseses an unmatched ability to create and unfold prose teeming with beauty and poignance. The Stand is a perfect example of this. If you want good writing, this is it. More importantly, if you've never read King before, and are unfamiliar with the merits of his talent, The Stand is a particularly fine place to start. As for me, I miss the characters Stu, Larry, Frannie and Mother Abigail. They came alive to me with each turn of the page, each chapter read. I know they will for you, too. Go on, order the book. You won't regret it!
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