Easily my favorite too. The unabridged version where King lays out all the smaller tragedies during a plague is just incredible. And Gary Sinise will always be my Stu Redman.
I’m reading through it now! Initially I was a little impatient given the virus is really taking form now 200 pages in, but then I realized I was a dumbass and started to enjoy the stage setting and getting to know the characters. I don’t know if I’ve read a descent into the post apocalypse so interestingly explored before
King is SO incredibly talented, isn't he? Everyone praises his ability to create horror. But I think his real gift is creating complex relationships between multiple characters and, not just that, but getting you invested in their lives! Now that's what makes it impossible for me to put his books down :)
Incredibly based pick from King's bibliography. It's been over a decade since I read it, but I can still remember a lot of the story quite vividly. Is it his best? Not by a long shot, but it's a refreshing twist on the zombie narrative that was written before The Walking Dead brought the genre into the cultural zeitgeist and it became played out.
Also reading it now for the first time and I agree with you that the virus part is slow-burning but I like how he keeps dropping in references to it in most chapters but mixing it in with the other character storylines going on. I am enjoying the journey and intrigued to see where it will all go!
I didn't realize that was only in the unabridged version. I only remember hits and pieces of the stand as it blurs with other similar books, but those short tragedies were haunting and remained with me..
Same here, that's the only version I have ever read so never been entirely clear on the differences. That bit was so good, I remember it vividly. The farmer who gets bit by a rattlesnake, the kid who falls down a well, the paranoid woman who actually starts to enjoy life after the apocalypse only to be killed by her own exploding pistol when she tries to use it. Such a great little bit of world-building.
I couldn't get through the unabridged version. I got bored part way through.
I loved King's Dark Tower series and read it like it was a drug I couldn't quit, but all of the smaller-but-usually-unconnected tragedies in the Stand just bogged it down for me.
The dark tower series is probably my favorite by him and let me tell you I don't recommend reading it when feverish. I think I was reading the wolves of callah at that point and it made for some of the weirdest dreams of my life.
I remember having mild dreams from binge reading it, but I don't think I would like the experience of being trapped in a fever dream of any of those books. I loved the series for the most part, but it was not one I would want to experience first hand in any form.
Between that and the Amelia Earhart special I was watching at the time it was a rough week. I kept waking up confused and thinking about the dark tower
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u/Immateriumdelirium 21h ago
Easily my favorite too. The unabridged version where King lays out all the smaller tragedies during a plague is just incredible. And Gary Sinise will always be my Stu Redman.