One of the longest (and greatest!) books you'll read...

books:


	• The Stand (Modern Classics) Stephen King Gramercy, 2001 - 1200 pages average customer review:based on 931 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A classic- but better cut

This book is one of those cases where shorter is better. Find the first (abridged) edition, it holds its pace better than this larger uncut version, and loses nothing.

One of the longest (and greatest!) books you'll read...

What an epic. What a masterpiece! While this novel might take a while to get through, it's totally worth the effort because you get to know the characters very well and fall in love with them. A good "apocalypse" story about what happens when a disease kills 99% of the world's population, and a few thousand are left to re-create society. Very eerie, especially during the parts where some of the characters are wandering through the empty cities. Makes you glad to be surrounded by people!

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Insane, epic and brilliant

There are plenty of pitfalls that drag epic, amibitous novels down; plots that don't hold up for a thousand plus pages, characters that grow tiresome, repetitive themes that feel like a broken record halfway through the book.

The Stand avoids all of these. The cast is large and varied enough to keep multiple plot threads going, but not too large to become confusing. And as many as there are, none are superfluous to the plot, all serve a purpose that is revealed before the finale. The plot is intense and ambitious, but divided into segments it is managable and sustainable. Daunting certainly at 1200+ pages, but always building towards the inevitable conclusion. The theme is as old as storytelling; the ultimate battle between good and evil, the eternal cycle of death and rebirth. But King manages to present these timeless themes with mythic, Biblical imagery melded with a down-to-earth humanity that makes them fresh and exciting.

This book is a chilling, thrilling home-run. At the end of the book (and at many places throughout) I felt as though I'd been completely wrung out. The amount of emotion the reader invests in this book is one of the greatest of any book I've read. Its exhausting and exhilirating at the same time. One for the ages, truly not to be missed.

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So long, and with such a disappointing ending.

I love long books, but this one is so long, and requires so much time to read it, that the ending was just way too much of a let-down.

Epic

Great book. A government-created virus is accidentally released and kills almost everyone in the world except for the very few who are immune to it. King creates an ensemble cast of numerous fully-fleshed, fascinating characters who try to survive and eventually come together to Boulder, where they make a camp and attempt to rebuild society. But, there is another camp that intends to go to war with the others if they are not stopped in time.

If you are expecting The Stand to be an action, explosion and fighting filled novel, you will probably be disapointed. It is very compelling and intelligent, but there is less action than you'd think. The greatness lies in the journey of the characters and the interesting undercurrents such as philosophy, sociology and more. This book has so many genres in it, like adventure, fantasy, horror, even politics.

The character stories are so intriquing as well. Randal Flagg is possibly the coolest villain ever, and all the characters seem real.

It is long, but well worth reading. Recommended to anyone.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Arguably the greatest horror novel ever written by the greatest horror novelist, this is a true Modern Classic that was first published in 1978, and then re-published in 1990, complete and unabridged, with 150,000 words cut from the first edition restored, and now accompanied by unusual and imaginative line art. The total copies for both editions, in hardcover and paperback, exceeds 4 million worldwide.

The Stand is a truly terrifying reading experience, and became a four-part mini-series that memorably brought to life the cast of characters and layers of story from the novel. It is an apocalyptic vision of the world, when a deadly virus runs amok around the globe. But that lethal virus is almost benign compared to the satanic force gathering minions from those still alive to destroy humanity and create a world populated by evil.

Stephen King is a brilliant storyteller who has the uncanny gift of putting ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, giving readers an experience that chills and thrills on every page.

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