A prince amongst books. (The Stand - Stephen King)

Member Name: Boonoiy

Product:	The Stand - Stephen King
Date:	29/10/01 (131 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very detailed, Very believable, Very Scary

Disadvantages: May have too many pages for some

I have read through a couple of ops on The Stand and must say that it is quite a daunting thing to do, this book is such a huge one (about 1600 pages!) that, to summarise it and allow people to get an impression of the book's good and bad points, is a very difficult thing to do. But here goes:

I recently re-read this book in preparation for writing this op and must say that I had forgotten just how involved it is and also how GRIPPING!

As a few of you will know I'm very keen on the books of Stephen King, he gets a great deal of horror into the pages of his books, he gets across a lot of frightening details and fantastic information which should feel incredulous and impossible. The thing is that he does it in such a way as to make the stories believable and realistic.

The Stand:
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The plot of the stand (if you're planning on reading it - watch out, I tend to get a bit spoiley on plots :)) is basically the story of the development of a killer virus throughout the USA, the tale of those who survived and the struggle between Good and Evil.

The book's first 400 pages or so are spent on the spread of the virus (project blue) throughout the USA, it follows the first outbreak when an army guard escapes from the testing facility and spreads the virus into the general population through the town of Arnette, Texas. From here the virus spreads to the whole if the USA leaving destruction and death in its path, it is guessed that there is about a quarter of 1% of the population which are immune to "Captain trips" an these begin to come together in 2 groups.

Good-v-Evil: The main theme of the book, the next 1100 pages are devoted to the development of and battle between the two factions which have cropped up since the virus ravaged America. The "Goodies" all dream of an old black woman called Abigail Freemantle (Mother Abigail) and they head out to Boulder to meet up with he
r, she helps them set up a little democracy in Boulder and gets society running again for the "Goodies". The "Baddies" go a different way, they have all dreamed of Randall Flag (The Walking Dude/The Hardcase/The Dark Man) and have headed to Las Vegas to follow him in his evil plans of world domination and continued destruction.

The two bases are set up, no formal battle is waged between them only the setting up of battle by the Dark Man's forces - preparations for war. Spies are sent from the Good-guys into Las Vegas and the whole thing ends up with (READ IT AND SEE) winning.

Principal characters:
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(By no means exhaustive as there's just too many!)

Stu Redman - Saw the army deserter's demise as he lived in Arnette. Becomes the official head of the Boulder Free Zone (as it comes to be known)

Frannie Goldsmith - Pregnant 21 year old girlfriend of Stu's - got pregnant before the virus struck and worries that her child won't be immune as she was.

Mother Abigail - Figurehead of good in the book, 106 years old and an envoy of God's, believes in God's will above all else and directs the goodies against Flagg.

Randall Flagg - An earthbound demon - lives to see destruction of the masses and is the opposing force to Mother Abigail.

Nick Andross - Deaf Mute with a great deal of respect for the ways of Mother Abigail and her followers, part of the committee set up in the free zone and a very well respected member of the community.

Trashcan Man - Wanderer, taunted throughout his life for being into fire in a big way and setting all sorts on fire in his youth. He is willing to die for the Dark Man and will do anything for him. (Watch him - very important to the book!)

Lloyd Henried - Randall Flagg's right hand man, lots of power and devotion to the Man himself. Flagg saved him from starvation and he is ete
rnally grateful.

There are many others, all with a part to play and they are too numerous to mention.

Overall:
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As with all of King's books, a lot of realism on a fantastically OTT story, the believability is there throughout.

This book begins sanely and shows the panic of the masses really well, the deaths and survivals are all treated well and the book has a feeling of utter terror.

The virus is believable - who knows what's being cooked up by the military in the world, even as we speak, this is a great way of showing the possible consequences of army testing of Bio-weapons. It's a very thought provoking book in this respect.

I love this book, it took me 3 weeks to finish and would have been even quicker if I didn't have to go to work, I really never wanted to put it down and I think many others will find the same. Get the Complete And Unabridged edition as there is a lot more detail and even an interview with the man himself at the start.

A great and terrifying book from the master of this genre.

(All typos removed now - Thanks)

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