October Group Read: The Stand by Stephen King, Book Three

The Stand by Stephen King



Book description from Amazon - "This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man."

From Wikipedia - "The Stand is a post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy novel by American author Stephen King. It expands upon the scenario of his earlier short story, "Night Surf". The novel was originally published in 1978 and was later re-released in 1990 as The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition; King restored some text originally cut for brevity, added and revised sections, changed the setting of the story from 1980 (which in turn was changed to 1985 for the original paperback release in 1980) to 1990, and updated a few pop culture references accordingly"

August Book One link https://www.librarything.com/topic/178358

September Book Two link https://www.librarything.com/topic/179007

I hope you join us for the August-October read of The Stand by Stephen King. For October we will be reading Book Three. I have not read this book before. If it is a reread for you let us know if you are reading the original version or the newer expanded version.

Please post spoilers using the spoiler feature like this. Also, post the chapter you are referring to if you are talking about something specific. General comments, thoughts or rants are welcome.

Well I finished the book (for the umpteenth time, cause I love it). Given the way I read (especially audiobooks, which this was), there was no way I was going to be able to stretch this out 3 months.

So, one discussion point I will put here for future reference was something that I realized for the first time.

The main climax of the book (and if/when you get there, you know where it is), I feel happens way too quickly. It feels like a Star Trek ending (To explain, we always felt that Star Trek the TV series always resolved everything quickly right before the last commercial break).

In terms of the Stand, we spent a whole lot of time setting up the ultimate confrontation, and when it happens (while a good and satisfying situation) it happens in an instant.

Still love the book and I'm sure I'll read it again in a couple years. Its always nice to revisit old friends.

Thoughts, rebuttals, diatribes.... :)

It's been too long since I read it for me to attempt a rebuttal, the only thing I can say is that I know I didn't feel that way about it.

This was my first time reading it, but I have to agree with >3 mahsdad:. I was quite surprised at how easily the Walking Dude was beaten. Well, perhaps not easily per se - I'm sure lugging that bomb wasn't light work - but it kinda just happened and our heroes didn't get to do anything real.

I have put the mini-series in my Netflix-queue now - let's see how bad it is (I've heard very few god words, unfortunately).

Not looking! ;-)

Just finished "The Stand" (complete edition) ironically about the same time I'm reading in the newspaper about the hospital in Texas that sent home an Ebola patient not realizing he had the disease. Oops. Hope they don't let that particular demon out of the bottle.

This is the second time through The Stand for me having read the edited version a number of years ago. Must say that I liked the longer version more than the shorter. This is a very character driven novel with wonderful character development and the more time you get to spend with these folks the better. A great story but not a particular scary one. Well, the subject matter is scary enough, but not "made the hair on the back of my neck stand up" scary like some parts of "Salem's Lot" or "Bag of Bones". This is not to say the book isn't as good as it should be, matter of fact, I think one of the finest King novels I have read is not scary in that sense either and that was "The Green Mile". (Speaking of scary...I'm curious...what do you folks consider to be the scariest King novel that you have read?)

King has a talent for making you believe the unbelievable as you read along. Some of the most improbable events seem perfectly reasonable in the context of the story even if after finishing the book you think back and say "hmmm...I wonder." After all, Randal Flagg is a demon and that is perfectly believable within the context of the story but to my knowledge there ain't no such thing. (At least I hope not.) But every once in awhile even King does something that pulls you out of the story. One small and nit picky example is when the guys are walking to Vegas, Larry is keeping track of their progress with a mileometer and on one day they made 37.2 miles. Now just a second, these guys aren't Marines fresh out of boot camp and that is an unbelievable distance. OK, you can say that "The Stand" isn't taking place in our world and therefore who is to say in their world they were not really speedy walkers but my point is that it pulled me right out of the story and momentarily shattered my suspension of reality. Remarkably, for a book of 1100+ pages that happens very few times. A good read.

>7 FlamingRabbit: That's a great summation, Rabbit! I would have to say I agree with pretty much all of it, with the caveat that I have never read the edited version (I wanted to but was unable to find a copy), and this was my first-ever read of The Stand, which is still unbelievable to me considering what a huge King fan I am.

I agree that The Stand is not one of King's uber-scary horror books. I think for me the scariest is still always and forever The Shining. I just re-read it and still got completely wigged out by several scenes that I knew and remembered were coming. That's good writing, that is.

I know what you mean about little moments that pull you out of the story. I know there were a handful of those for me, too, but I'm having trouble remembering after having finished the book in early September. Also remarkable to me is that there were only a couple-three places where I thought the story dragged a bit, which as you say in a book of more than 1,100 pages is pretty remarkable.

I'm glad I finally read this one!

>7 FlamingRabbit: I agree with you about some things pulling you out of the story. That made it a good read for me instead of a great read. I also enjoyed a lot of the characters and that kept me going.

Presently reading "Stephen King-On Writing" the 2010 edition. Beginning on page 201 a very interesting discussion about "The Stand". I believe any one who enjoyed the novel (and perhaps those who didn't ) would find it fascinating to hear what King has to say. Actually the whole book is a wonderful read even for people like me who don't have ambitions of becoming a writer. Neat to lift up the curtain and see what goes on backstage.

>10 FlamingRabbit: I'll definitely look that book up. My library does not have it but a branch in the system does.

>10 FlamingRabbit: & >11 luvamystery65:
I'll second that recommendation - a great read!

I finished The Stand in October, and despite the early start, even counted it as one of my Halloween reads for the month. A good read with excellent characters, but I still didn't like it as much as I thought I would (maybe it was the satisfaction per page read thing).

Thought you guys here would be interested in this link:-
http://www.openculture.com/2014/11/stephen-kings-top-10-all-time-favorite-books....

>13 PiyushC: Thanks for that link Piyush. It seems Mr. King likes those wordy authors best. ;-)

I just saw this link on Twitter:

The Stand Will Be Four Movies, Not One

I could see two movies easily, because it's a humongous book. But four? That's just crazy.

>15 rosalita: That's just crazy is right!

Could it be that producers are tired of hearing complaints about how things have been cut out of the book and have decided to add to the book to create more movies? Or are they simply trying to capitalize on the success by multiplying their output? It's quite a gamble to commit to such a huge amount of screen time. It better be worth it! What they did with The Hobbit or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows does not convince me.

I'm late to the party, but I read they picked Matthew McConaughey to play Randall Flagg:

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/24/matthew-mcconaughey-the-stand-stephe...

3> This is only the second Stephen King novel I've read since I don't like horror. What I figured out about his writing after reading 11/22/63 is that the ending isn't the point. The ending is just there because the book has to end somehow. The story is the whole point of, well, the story. Life's a journey, not a destination. I think King makes this point with the journey of Stu, Larry, Glen, & Ralph. The could have driven to Las Vegas but they had to walk because the journey was more important than the destination.

>18 BookLizard: Excellent observation, BookLizard. Another King book I've read recently where the ending was very much not the point was Under the Dome. I think you'd like that one, as it doesn't contain any of the gore and horror that King made his name with. It's a nice little psychological study of a small town, IMHO.

>18 BookLizard: Very good point about the journey BL.

>19 rosalita: Julia!

19> I might try Under the Dome. The TV series sounded interesting, but I never watched it. Books are less scary.

>21 BookLizard: I hope you like it. It has suspense but I didn't really find it scary at all.