The Stand: Complete and Uncut

Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Book EVER!
Review: I love this book. And to be honest I'm not much of a King fan. I read a few others of his, but this just blew me away. Years after reading The Stand I still think about the characters. If there is a God in heaven, King will write a sequel to this.

Rating:
Summary: My All-Time Favorite Stephen King
Review: "The Stand" had me hooked from the first sentence. It was mysterious, touching, scary, confusing, and sickening. I read this book late into many nights.

As the book begins, a virus is being spread throught the U.S. (unbeknownst to anyone). People begin dying left and right, and the rest of the book follows the travels of those who survive. The survivors wander around looking for others like themselves. This was the most interesting part of the book.

The last part of the book becomes a quest for good vs. evil, as the survivors try to make some sort of "law system" for themselves and run across evil that is not from this world.

Bottom Line: This is one of the best books I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: Who is Spider Robinson?
Review: According to Amazon.com's editorial review of "The Stand," Spider Robinson, in his 1978 review of the original version, actually begged consumers not to purchase the book. I guess Mr. Robinson didin't consider "The Stand" to be on the same level as his own classics like "Lady Slings the Booze" or the "Callahan's Place" series. You've never heard of them?

No kidding. Nobody has to beg consumers not to purchase Spider's books because, well...nobody purchases Spider's books to begin with.

"The Stand" is a good book; maybe great. Mr. King at his best is possessed of a certain folksy, sitting-around-the-campfire style that most readers are likely to find engaging, and that style shows itself most strongly in this and a few of his other works. I've heard it suggested that such a style isn't really "literature." The next time someone tells me that, I'm going to smack them with a copy of "Huckleberry Finn." Hard.

The post-apocalyptical theme has been popular in literature for, oh, the last two thousand years or so, although it's often badly mishandled. Mr. King manages to make the end of the world both spectacular and tragic, as well as creepy and sordid (not to give it away, but everybody gets the flu and dies...). Of course what happens afterward is the real meat of the story.

The bad guy is very, very bad. King imbues him with an almost endearing charisma of the darkest vein, and at times you almost don't want the good guys to win, because whatever this guy's got planned is bound to be just...really cool. And really evil.

The protagonists (and it's a long list) are all well-drawn individuals, rather than an interchangeable ensemble. A story of over a thousand pages leaves plenty of room for character development, and Mr. King makes the most of it; the reader is left feeling as much for the character's small failings as he is for their larger trials and tribulations.

The book is not without its failings, however. I've only read the "uncut" version of the stand, (re)published sometime around 1990. I don't even know if the original story was set in the 90's or the 70's (when the book was originally published). Either way, the purpose of releasing the "uncut" version was ostensibly to update the story for a new generation of readers, and in this I'm not sure Mr. King is entirely successful. There tends to be an inescapable zeitgeist to good stories; it's part of what makes them good. The original story was written in the late seventies (maybe early eighties). The updated version of this book doesn't really FEEL like a story taking place in 1990--too much of the backdrop is 1970's all the way: the slang the characters use, their manner of dress, the vehicles they drive. One of the main characters is an almost-famous rock star whose one hit is titled "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?" That probably wouldn't have knocked Nirvana out of the top spot on MTV in '90. I think the story could have stayed safely in its original "when" and still been just as (if not more) relevant than the updated version.

It's still a fantastic story; the kind you'll be sad to finish. Rarely is such a large cast of characters handled so fluidly and engagingly; rarely is a bad guy so bad and simultaneously so endearing. I don't know if this is really "horror" or not, but it's a great American story.


Rating:
Summary: Apocalyptic...
Review: This is of course the definitive book of the apocalypse. It is hard to review a 1200 page book, but rest assured that this book will be read faster than a book half its length -its just that good. The plot is simple - a flu is released and 99.9% of the world dies. Of the remaining people the good goto Colorado to be led by an ancient woman and the bad congregate in Las Vegas to be led by the mysterious Randall Flagg. The two factions prepare for war and begin rebuilding their respective visions of utopia. An explosive ending to a masterpiece of a story. Defiantly one of the more horrific visions of the future - but told in such a wonderful way that the reader appreciates that there is more to King than just a horror writer.