the stand

L

leviathan

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Jun 15, 2006
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hi all,

i have spent the last 6 WEEKS!!! ploughing through the stand.

neevr have i taken so long to read a book in my life, granted this book is 1300 pages. (not that that is an issue...)

the thing is, it should be mentioned in the foreward that you should keep a characters list!! it would have helped me immensely.

but now i got just about 300 pages left!

the countdown begins now! :D
 
Is it the unabridged edition?

I spent about the same length of time reading through it. Let me tell you - you'll wish you'd never started it, never even finished it, but in a good way. I doubt you'll ever again read a book like it.
 
...unless you read another King book, hint hint.

And well done, Lev...despite being a huge King fan, I've always got halfway through The Stand (usually to almost exactly the same point, strangely enough) and then ran out of steam. I shall definitely finish it one day (although at the moment I re-he-heally haven't got a spare month in which to do it!)

Anyway, enjoy the last few pages. And be sure to keep reading the King novels!
 
I once read it in 2 days while off school with the cold.


Scared the c&*p out of me.

It's probably my favourite King novel.
 
This is by way far my favorite King book. I am not a huge fan of his but I love this book.
 
Honestly, this is one of my least favorite King books. I know that that makes me the minority across America, but I really wasn't too crazy about it. It wasn't scary (chlling maybe, but not scary) and as a non-scary book it wasn't half as good as any of the Dark Tower books. It was good, IMO, but not the excellent book that everybody claims that it is.

But, as I said, I am the minority.
 
the stand *potential spoileration!*

WOOOOOO!!!!

i finished it!

i thoroughly enjoyed it too :)

i did think the ending was a lil ambiguous - both aspects....

is it to be assumed that the flagg returns to the beginning of time? existance? or just some island of pygmies? :p

thoughts?
 
Gosh, that monster took me six months off and on. I did thoroughly enjoy the last 100 pages, but the middle was tough slogging, I can tell you.

Tri
 
Re: the stand *potential spoileration!*

I reckon Flagg turned up on an island of pygmies, shortly after the events at the end of the book.
 
Yeah, he is cool in that. I'm planning to reread the Dark Tower series over Christmas so I'll get to see him again in all his psychotic glory. But, seeing as The Eyes of the Dragon was possibly the first King book I ever read, it's that Flagg that I remember the best. Especially at the end when he just goes absolutely crazy and starts swinging his axe around.
 
HoopyFrood said:
Yeah, he is cool in that. I'm planning to reread the Dark Tower series over Christmas so I'll get to see him again in all his psychotic glory. But, seeing as The Eyes of the Dragon was possibly the first King book I ever read, it's that Flagg that I remember the best. Especially at the end when he just goes absolutely crazy and starts swinging his axe around.
Click to expand...

Yeah that was good as well.
 
This is my fave SK book too! However, Dark Tower Series, The Shining, Bag of Bones, and Hearts in Atlantis are some of my favorite books as well.
 
I recently got hold of a copy of the uncut version of The Stand, for those who have not got access to it it contains deleted chapters, some of them concerning the journey of Trashman across country, and a particularly nasty character he meets along the way. There is also more detail concerning the other parties and well worth making the effort to find in my opinion.

I like The Stand, it is one of those books that is not going to run out on you if you take it on holiday and leave you prowling the airport bookshop through gopping romances with mounting despair. But it is a long way from being his best, for sheer drag-you-along-into-the-story-screaming power that has to be IT, and for creepie stuff? The Shinning, I still can't walk into a circle of animal statues ;)
 
By far my favourite King book. However, haven't read it for mant years and I'm sure I read the original 'abridged' version, and I don't think I'd want to plough through the other one! There's a lot to be said for a good editor.
 
I loved The Stand! I read it when I was about 14 years old, and I still wax lyrical about it, to anyone who might be interested ...
 
Briareus Delta said:
By far my favourite King book. However, haven't read it for mant years and I'm sure I read the original 'abridged' version, and I don't think I'd want to plough through the other one! There's a lot to be said for a good editor.
Click to expand...

This is exactly the thinking that lead me to hold out until I stumbled onto an old paperback copy of the abridged version. If his version added 100 pages it'd be one thing, but the unabridged version is like 600 pages longer and I just can't believe even the most vicious editor would cut 600 pages of necessary writing, which leads me to believe the unabridged is more ego-driven like the Wheel of Time books after #4 or George Martin's series after book 3, when the authors felt compelled to describe every side quest in endless detail. 850 pages is still a hefty book, if I finish it and feel like the characters were too thin maybe I'll try the unedited one someday.
 
I'm not sure if ego is the right word to describe it. From the way King, and others, spoke about the full version it seemed almost like he considered The Stand to be his magnum opus and that is why he wanted to release it as he imagined it. That is partly speculation my part because I do not recall him ever using that term, but that was the impression I got.
 
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