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The Stand : Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut (Signet)
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The Stand : Expanded Edition: For the First Time Complete and Uncut (Signet)
by Authors:
Stephen King
Paperback
In 1978, science fiction writer Spider Robinson wrote a scathing review of The Stand in which he exhorted his readers to grab strangers in bookstores and beg them not to buy it.
The Stand is like that. You either love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. Stephen King's most popular book, according to polls of his fans, is an end-of-the-world scenario: a rapidly mutating flu virus is accidentally released from a U.S. military facility and wipes out 99 and 44/100 percent of the world's population, thus setting the stage for an apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil.
"I love to burn things up," King says. "It's the werewolf in me, I guess.... The Stand was particularly fulfilling, because there I got a chance to scrub the whole human race, and man, it was fun! ... Much of the compulsive, driven feeling I had while I worked on The Stand came from the vicarious thrill of imagining an entire entrenched social order destroyed in one stroke."
There is much to admire in The Stand: the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath. Anyone who wants to know, or claims to know, the heart of the American experience needs to read this book.
Average Customer Rating:
Most Amazing Book I Will Ever Read!
The Stand is my favorite book of all times. What happens during the story is that a man-made mutation of the flu virus gets loose, and almost all of the population dies. The only survivors were immune to the disease. Anyway, the story takes place all over America, but mostly toward the west.
After the flu epidemic is over the survivors start having dreams of two things - a woman named Mother Abagail that lives in Nebraska asking the survivors to come see her and also urging them not to go to the dark man. The dark man is the other person the survivors dreamt about. He was in the west and all you could see of him were his glowing green eyes. Naturally, most of the survivors were afraid of him.
After that the survivors divide into two - the group on the dark side (the dark man's), and the group on the good side (Mother Abagail's). The story leaps back and forth from different survivors, until they eventually band together. I personally like that, because it often leaves a cliffhanger about the character.
This is not a book that you would want to read ahead on. Also, do not be intimidated by its size. The uncut version is the best! I am only twelve and I was able to finish the book in a week and a half. Trust me, you will not be able to put it down!
The Stand
Ninety-nine percent of the population has died, now what? Stephen King deals with this exact scenario in The Stand. Very few people survive an incredibly deadly strand of flu. Those who do survive are left to piece together their world. Eventually, an apocalyptic battle between good and evil begins. The thought of a world with no government, money, or justice is a scary and yet intriguing idea. The book follows these two groups of people, the one committed to reestablishing society and the other committed to destroy it. Mother Abagail a one-hundred and eight year-old black woman, personifies God and leads her party to Boulder where they begin to establish a peaceful society. Randall Flagg, a middle-aged white cowboy, becomes the Devil and leads his group gathered in Las Vegas. The extended cut is a long read at 1141 pages, but well worth the length. King's characterization is the most amazing part of The Stand. The character's become real. The plot, however, can be confusing at times, because of the many different characters and story lines. At times the story seems to drag on with endless descriptions and heavy foreshadows. These dry spots are fortunately few and far between, leaving the reader with poetic ideas about what the end of the world would really be like.
King's Best
I've been a big Stephen King fan for a long time. This is one of my two favorite of his. It has something for everyone-- suspense, romance, thrill, etc., I liked it on several levels. Heck, I even got a little bit of religious inspiration out of it. I liked the characters-- even Flagg is an interesting bad guy, not just another cookie cutter. Excellent book. Reminded me a lot of one I read called The Greatest White Trash Love Story Ever Told.
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