From the Bookshelf of Reading List Completists…

The Stand

Stephen King,

Bernie Wrightson (Illustrator)

Start date: July 1, 2016

Finish date: September 30, 2016

Discussion: The Stand - July-Sept 2016

Why we're reading this: Runner Up - April-June BIG read Poll - so we will be reading it the next 3 months.
[close] Runner Up - April-June BIG read Poll - so we will be reading it the next 3 months.

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 5 topics — 107 comments total

The Stand - July-Sept 2016

Abridged or Unabridged?
By Jennifer · 22 posts · 61 views

last updated Dec 05, 2017 06:52AM

The Stand - General Discussion
By Matthew , Assistant List Master · 29 posts · 45 views

last updated Oct 10, 2016 08:37AM

showing 2 of 2 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Nov 18, 2020 Jenbebookish rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: the-hype-is-real, 3-plus, fantasy, he-is-king, tome-investments, post-apocalyptic, 2020, horror

Ok. I have been wanting to read this for forever. This is one of the few books my dad has read for pleasure and loved, I've had copies of this book around throughout my entire childhood, and it always bothered me that I hadn't read it yet. But it IS a beast of a book, and having dismissed Stephen King as trash until last year I just never prioritized it. Having recently discovered Stephen King to be...well...a mad genius! I've gone through like 10 of his books, some of them newer and some of the Ok. I have been wanting to read this for forever. This is one of the few books my dad has read for pleasure and loved, I've had copies of this book around throughout my entire childhood, and it always bothered me that I hadn't read it yet. But it IS a beast of a book, and having dismissed Stephen King as trash until last year I just never prioritized it. Having recently discovered Stephen King to be...well...a mad genius! I've gone through like 10 of his books, some of them newer and some of them older. Pet Sematary remains my favorite, but I have enjoyed all of them. And I've so often come across people saying that King sucks at endings, but until now I've never really felt that to be true. But finally, I agree.

I still rated this 4 stars. It was completely engrossing, and it hooked me from start to finish. For something that was like 1200 pages, I didn't think that it dragged on at any part. I was completely interested and engaged all the way through, I enjoyed everyone's storylines, and the reading experience was a great one. My favorite part was definitely the beginning, the entire process of the virus getting out, tracking the initial spread, knowing that each cough and interaction between a person was deadly, reading about how easily things got out of control and imagining how easily something like this could happen in real life. I specifically chose to read this during this pandemic, don't ask me why. But it didn't particularly scare me any more than I was already scared, if anything I'm fascinated by it. I've always thought that being killed off by a virus seems about as likely as another mass extinction via meteor or climate change.

So the story begins with some deadly virus being released accidentally via one negligent mistake followed by a bunch of coincidences. Very quickly it escalates as attempts to contain it fail, and within a couple weeks things have crossed over into apocalyptic. A very very small percentage of people are immune to the virus, less than 1%, so it's quickly determined that the virus will all but exterminate the human race and only the select few will be left. Things of course turn chaotic, and just like in every other survival story, people's true natures come the surface. There are the people that are innately good, and the people that are innately bad. Soon the survivors start to congregate in groups and areas, and it's discovered that everybody has been having the same dreams. Dreams of an old black woman, and dreams of a man. The good seek out the woman, and the bad seek out the man. It becomes clear that there will be some inevitable reckoning, some battle between good vs evil.

And then the end comes. and I found it utterly absurd. This 1200 page book is build up for this seemingly huge battle of good vs evil. Each side is gathering their army. Mother Abigale is the head of the "good" people. Some 108 year old woman who is somehow close in contact with God. She's responsible for the coming together of everyone in Boulder CO, the leader of the army of the blessed, holy, and consecrated. On the other end there's the bad man, named Randall Flagg, or simply the "tall man" or the "dark man" who seems like he is some manifestation of the devil. He has supernatural otherworldly powers. The ability to control animals, to come to you in dreams. The extent of his power is never really established, but being that the entire book consists of people being deathly afraid of him, describing in detail the terror he strikes into the hearts of the good and bad alike, he's sort of built up to be a powerful devil, the antichrist, or if not the devil himself than some demon fallen angel, some second in command to Lucifer himself.

**SPOILER ALERT**
So the tension builds. The suspense is real. Randal Flagg's evilness seems so profound that I started to wonder if we were headed for another one of King's open endings, or unhappy endings. AND THEN....Mother Abigale disappears randomly into the night for some strange reason and when she comes back, she dies. But not before she tells a group of people that they must make a journey ON FOOT. No driving. To see Randall Flagg. And when they get there, they'll know what to do. Seems like a suicide mission, and for everyone other than Larry Underwood who breaks his leg along the way, it is. They make the trip, on foot mind you which is completely senseless and just written in as some divine instruction of torture but ultimately has no meaning or significance. They end up imprisoned. One of them is tortured. Randall Flagg tries to make a deal with them to which they refuse. They are sentenced to death, but on the day of their public execution the Trashcan man (a demented arsonist eager to please Randall Flagg) shows up with an atomic bomb that he's found and basically the result is that they are all blasted into oblivion and Randall Flagg is (sorta) beat. Larry winds up being found by Tom Cullen who's a simple good hearted man with the mind of a child, and is nursed back to health until he can eventually make the journey back to Boulder and relay the story of what has happened.

Okay that might somehow sound more interesting than it really was. I just could not believe that the entire build up wound up as that nothing of an ending. I had visions of an epic battle between good and evil, arch angels making their way to earth to fight off evil wretched demons crawling out from the depths of the earth. Mother Abigale casting the demon Randall Flag back to the depths. Or even the opposite, Randall Flagg becoming more and more engorged with evil and power, every man succumbing to his power. Either scenario would've been better than this ridiculous ending where there is no battle between good and evil but only an atomic bomb, and then the end. UGH! Of course there is some little bit at the end where it's made clear that Randall Flagg or the anti christ or the devil or evil incarnate or whatever he was, wasn't actually killed off but rather only beat temporarily, and he's back walking around at the end starting all over. Which in my opinion is so freaking stupid I can't believe it.

I loved every ounce of this book, until the last 5%. I finally understand the whole King-sucks-at-endings things. Oh well. I still gave this 4 stars because the reading experience was a great one and King kept me engaged for 1200 pages. The ending didn't ruin the book for me, I still consider it a great book. If only King would rerelease this with a proper ending. What a shame. For all I know this is the book that started off King's reputation for being atrocious at endings.

To sum it up: Still great. 4 stars. Shit ending. ...more

15 likes · Like · see review

Sep 22, 2011 Valerie rated it it was ok

Shelves: sf-f-bookclub, z-2015sffchallenge, readinglistbookclub

Hurrah! I am finally finished. I must say that a large part of this book was tedious. Had I not heard good things about it prior to reading, I probably would have given up on the book. I can only suspect that those who gave such hearty recommendations read this book in its original publication, rather than the "uncut" version to which I listened.

One of the most amusing parts of the book came in the foreword from Mr. King. He defends his commitment to the previous editing out of about 400 pages i Hurrah! I am finally finished. I must say that a large part of this book was tedious. Had I not heard good things about it prior to reading, I probably would have given up on the book. I can only suspect that those who gave such hearty recommendations read this book in its original publication, rather than the "uncut" version to which I listened.

One of the most amusing parts of the book came in the foreword from Mr. King. He defends his commitment to the previous editing out of about 400 pages in allegory by revising the story of Hansel and Gretel. His concise and brutally honest of this classic tickled my funny bone. Alas, I don't think this quite proves his point as the full "uncut" version of Hansel and Gretel doesn't come close to over 1,000 pages.

The very first part of the book was interesting, as Captain Trips rears its ugly head and quickly spreads. However, the excitement was short-lived. Mr. King soon took the book through hundreds of pages of character back story. I kept thinking, "please let something happen soon." Every now and then there would be a glimmer of something that seemed important, or at the very least it caught my interest.

I was probably two-thirds of the way through the book before I felt like things started to happen. That's over 700 pages or 31 hours (for those on audio) before the meat of the story. And, it was a fun story from that point on, but I wouldn't say it was great. I certainly did not feel that the payoff was worth the wait.

The entire books is spent leading up to this epic conflict. Classic good versus evil. I was looking forward to monumental battle. (view spoiler)

So, I could probably hammer down and give this one a 2-star rating. Heck, I probably should. But, that Hansel & Gretel story, it made me laugh out loud. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Oct 30, 2013 Nico rated it it was ok · review of another edition

A hard 54 hours. Real hard. The two stars are mostly out of respect for the books first third when it was all Walking Dead inspiring dystopian. The first third was enjoyable. The middle and ass end, not so much.

If I hadn't read Dark Tower, and some of his other excellent stuff, I'd have been the first person to start throwing stones at Stephen King for this.

The villains are all right, until they decay horribly in the last third of the novel, (this is following the middle third which is pure fill A hard 54 hours. Real hard. The two stars are mostly out of respect for the books first third when it was all Walking Dead inspiring dystopian. The first third was enjoyable. The middle and ass end, not so much.

If I hadn't read Dark Tower, and some of his other excellent stuff, I'd have been the first person to start throwing stones at Stephen King for this.

The villains are all right, until they decay horribly in the last third of the novel, (this is following the middle third which is pure filler bullshit that serves no purpose but to turn you against the heroes), which only makes the villain decay more painful because you end up wishing the baddies can keep their shit together just long enough to do away with Stu and fucking Frannie.

It's hard to think of two worst people to have to read about for 54 hours. All Frannie does is bitch, be pregnant, cry and be generally stupid. Stupid in ways like "hey, even though I have a young child who had the superflu at birth, how bout we move away from the only source of healthcare available?" And Stu, ever the mindless jackass is all, "excellent idea Frannie, anything you want, my life for you!"

I don't even know what to say about the ending of this novel. All the villains become insta-stupid. Painfully stupid. And by this time, having to suffer through "The Free Zone Committee" Middle third of the novel which is more or less all the heroes circle-jerking and being irritating for endless hours, I really needed the bad guys to pull through on this one. Harold fucked it up though.

That really hurt. I don't know what Stephen King was thinking with that one. It's one of the most frustrating thing ever to happen in a book I think. When you decide to kill someone, just fucking do it. If you are an incarnation of the devil, it's okay to just kill all your enemies. You are not required to hold a symposium or a hearing of the charges. Why kill only your own trusted henchmen? And there are thousands of people right over the mountain.

Randall Flagg turned out to be the most incompetent evil overlord I've ever read about. But I blame King for it. Any time you write a Good vs Evil book, and people get bummed halfway through because the good guys are THE WORST, that's a real serious problem.

And really, what the fuck was with the ending? It is so shittily godawful, it makes Saruman in the shire look epic. I have time to waste, true, but I don't want to waste it on The Homeward Stu and Tom Cullen. I really had zero fucks left to give at that point. At the very least, I figure Flagg could have gone werewolf and eaten at least one of them. Boulder should have been haunted by a werewolf at the very least. This is the worst time in my existence that I've ever felt disappointment at the prospect of a pregnant woman not being eaten by a pack of wolves.

Other than that, my only other source of irritation with this is how mindnumbingly American it is. I mean, King is American, he's writing about what he knows mostly, fine, but ffs, at one point I had to pull an Atlas just to see what exactly he was going on about with the detailed in debt exploration of states and highways. Who is that for, really? Do Americans memorise every highway? State lines? Is it memorised like some kind of internal gps so they read along nodding and following this info exactly? Maybe yes, maybe no, but speaking on my own behalf it got real old real fast. ...more

Like · see review

Apr 22, 2012 Naga Sravika Bodapati rated it it was amazing

I can't say anything more than this..this book is going to haunt me for quite a while..Haven't read a novel quite so scary yet assuring,full of anticipation,suspense yet predictable.There is no death for "the darkman"(evil)exists as long as there are 7 sins in the world..It all seems like an impending disaster only got postponed and not totally averted. ...more

Like · see review

Jan 09, 2009 Tek rated it it was amazing

Shelves: stephen-king

Epic! This was the novel that set my path toward reading as a leisurely activity. Randall Flagg is one of the best villains I've ever read. ...more

Like · see review

Dec 06, 2013 Pianogirl rated it it was amazing

Shelves: stephen-king, favourites, horror, science-fiction

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was long but it went by very fast. It's the 5th Stephen King book I've read and he's definately one of my favourite authors. ...more

Like · see review