About this title: This popular post-apocalyptic novel by master of horror Stephen King inspired a 1994 TV miniseries. A devastating flu escapes from its containment in a military biowarfare lab, killing most of the population of the United States, and by implication, the world. Those who remain, immune to the disease, receive dreams that lead them to align themselves either with the forces of good, led by a saintly, ancient woman named Mother Abigail; or the forces of evil, led by the enigmatic, demonic Randall/Richard Flagg, the Dark Man whose debut in this book was followed by appearances in several of ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: New American Library
Date Published: 1980
ISBN-13:9780451160959ISBN:0451160959
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Cover has some wear, pages are unmarked. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: N A L, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1980
ISBN-13:9780451127891ISBN:0451127897
Description: Poor. No Jacket. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. The book is very solid with bright, unmarked pages. The cover has moderate shelf wear & heavy edge wear with a 1.5" X 1.25" piece missing at the lower back corner, feathered pages at the upper corners and small tears at the spine. read more
Description: Good. 0451121597 SS--This mass market paperback book is in good condition! Some creasing of the spine. This is a solid used book that looks to have been read and enjoyed a time or two...standard signs of wear from reading. Has store stamp on top border. SMOKE FREE HOME! Do not settle for worn, torn, throwaways. Pay a few pennies more for a nice copy! read more
Description: Good. 0451090136 Mass market paperback, previously read used book in good condition, varying degrees of shelf wear, some spine creases, m..._ read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Signet, Toronto, ON, Canada
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780451150677ISBN:0451150678
Description: Good. 0451150678 Mass market paperback, previously read used book in good condition, varying degrees of shelf wear, some spine creases, m..._ read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Signet, Toronto, ON, Canada
Date Published: 1981
ISBN-13:9780451160959ISBN:0451160959
Description: Good. 0451160959 Mass market paperback, previously read used book in good condition, varying degrees of shelf wear, some spine creases, m..._ read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Signet
Date Published: 1980
ISBN-13:9780451090133ISBN:0451090136
Description: Acceptable. Overall below average used book. May have highlighting, underlining, notes, price sticker on cover, or be an ex-library book. read more
Description: Good. Dust Cover Missing. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
"This is Stephen King's take on a post-apocalyptic novel. A particularly nasty flu-like disease get out from a government laboratory and kills almost all the people in the United States in a matter of weeks. And when men in power decide that it would be bad if other countries discovered that the States have experimented with chemical warfare, they release it in Europe and the rest of the world... So this is a world where entire towns are suddenly empty of inhabitants - or with just one or two. And if that wasn't hard enough to comprehend, the survivors start dreaming. And they dream the same dreams, very powerful dreams about an old black woman or a scary scary dark man. Slowly, people gravitate towards the east and the old woman - or to the west and the dark man. These two symbols of good and evil - Mother Abigail and Randall Flagg - gathers followers around them and two very different types of states are created. A democratic one and a dictatorship. And neither of the states are content to just live the other one alone so a conflict is sure to happen some way or another.
This is a book about good v. evil, it's a book about faith. It's very clear that the two new societies represent the good and the bad in people and that people are drawn to one of the two. But to accept this, they have to accept that the old way of living based on rational thinking doesn't cut it anymore - now people have visions and are acting based on what they dream. Mother Abigail claim to be in contact with the Lord and as a spiritual leader of the settlement in the West, she tries to teach them to believe in things they can't see - and that sometimes you have to do something that doesn't feel right or wise because it's the will of the Lord. This is a book about Christianity. King often refers to The Book of Job and it is the kind of Christianity where you are tested, beaten down and hurt a lot but just have to endure it and keep on going because God wants it. It's the God who told Abraham to sacrifice his son, we're dealing with. And if the good people in the east wants to deal with the evil in the west, they have to be willing to make sacrifices along the way.
It is also a book about a modern life focusing too much on the material things. When there's no one around to keep it going, electricity and other modern conveniences we take for granted, disappear. No more cold drinks - except if you can find a cool stream to cool them in. And it's a world laid bare because of human mistakes - because we distrust each other and want to make sure to be one step ahead of each other so if they use something bad against us, we have something worse - even though we've signed treaties that we would never do that. And when the bad thing happened to us, well, of course we shared it. It's about basic human nature - and it's not always pretty. But some characters rise above it and faces the wrong they did earlier and try to fix it and becomes better people for it.
The only thing that really bothered me was the amount of characters - or more exactly that they sometimes are hard to keep track of. Sometimes a character appears and is presented like you already know them - and I found myself flipping backwards through pages to find out who exactly that character was - only to discover they were introduced in the next couple of pages... But the amount of characters are also a good thing because he kills of quite a few of them - even ones who survived the flu in the first place but then die because there's no one around to help them when they fall into a well or get a burst appendix!
With so many characters, it's hard to pick a favourite - except for Kojak of course, one of the very few surviving dogs and a beautiful and very intelligent one at that. Tragic that the flu killed man's best friend as well. But besides Kojak, I really liked the deaf-mute Nick Andros and the unwilling leader Stuart Redman. And Tom Cullen the retard - what's not to love about Tom? (Maybe his display of stuffed animals?). But the book wouldn't be the same without the Trashcan Man - or without the Kid who is one of the added characters in this complete edition.
This book is epic in it's scope and for a long time I tried to read it as fast as I could - but in the end I didn't really want to finish it because I knew some of my favourite characters would die and because I'd been with these people for so long so I didn't want to let them go...
A lot of people say that King has a problem with ending his books. I really liked the way this book ended (a nice variation over evil imploding on itself) - and that, like in many King books, we are given enough knowledge to know that although evil may be beat this time, it is never destroyed. It will always rise again."
"Stephen King has a way of making other Bestsellers feel plastic. His characters breathe. I believe them.
Sure, there are moments when the plot teeters on the edge of the campy horror flick chasm, but it never goes there. Instead, it falls into something much more human, with all its ambiguities and vulnerable conversations. Despite reputation, King is not about shock value or the gruesome (although you'll certainly get a healthy helping of the latter). He seems to be fascinated with what drives humans to make the irrational, sometimes honorable, sometimes horrific decisions they do.
The Stand is a beacon to good long books. Yes, some authors can take their sweet time, be long-winded, over-descriptive, have a painstakingly slow build up, and still remain engrossing for over 1100 pages."
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