Stephen King's The Stand - Review

The Stand by Stephen King

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A thrilling, apocalyptic epic from the Master of Horror.

'The Stand' is one of Stephen King's early masterpieces, published following 'The Shining' the previous year, but is entirely different in many ways - in theme, tone, scale and, most notably, the source of the horror inflicted on its characters.

The novel begins with a man hurriedly waking his wife in the middle of the night, making an escape with their daughter from an army base. Something has gone terribly wrong and he wants to get them as far as away as possible. They escape, but it is already too late - the man is infected with a manufactured strain of flu and it is now uncontained, leading to a plague that will kill almost the entire human population.

The first part of the novel deals with the spread of the plague, introducing us to many of the main characters through their experience of the superflu pandemic. Numerous attempts to contain the plague by the authorities fail as society steadily falls to pieces, people fall ill and die, and the survivors wait and wonder when it will be their turn. This story could have been a novel in itself, drawing you in to the disintegrating lives of a large cast of characters.

In the second part of the novel, we journey across a derelict USA with the surviving characters, who begin to form groups as they meet up on their journeys. Many soon realise they are experiencing the same dreams - of a dark man who walks the roads at night and an old woman waiting patiently in her Nebraska home. Drawn by these shared visions, the characters find themselves being steered into a battle between good and evil, the old woman in the East representing Good, and the dark man in the West representing Evil.

The group of survivors drawn to the old woman, Mother Abagail, form a democratic society known as the Free Zone. But there are tensions from within that threaten to boil over, while in the meantime the society formed by the dark man, Randall Flagg, is building its power in the West.

In the final part of the novel, the showdown between Good and Evil begins. A small group heads west, building to the final confrontation with Randall Flagg, on which hinges the future of the Free Zone and the survival of everyone in it.

Through every one of the book's 1300+ pages, you are completely immersed in the lives of the characters and the biblical scale of events. You witness humanity at its worst and its best, the narrative taking over your life for weeks. You witness humanity's destruction and how that feels for each individual left behind. You witness attempts to build societies again from what is left behind and wonder if it could ever be possible for humanity to live in true peace and harmony.

'The Stand' is a fantastic portrayal of its themes and subject matter, an epic odyssey that leaves you with a deeply satisfying conclusion and a feeling of sadness at having to leave the characters behind. I shall miss reading about them and the challenges they have faced. Perhaps one day I shall have the pleasure of meeting them again.

Of course, one character whom I shall definitely meet again will be Randall Flagg. Flagg establishes himself as one of King's most evil villains in this early tale and he has gone on to feature in many others, notably the epic fantasy 'The Dark Tower' series. It seems that evil truly can never die after all...



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