Finally... twenty years after beginning The Stand I finished it. Way back in my high school years I had started reading it and got about 300 pages or so through it and for some reason didn't continue on. I really can't remember why I would ever have put it down except that it is 1141 pages long. Oddly, I remembered very little from that first failed reading. I did remember the prologue in great detail... and then for the next 250 pages it all seemed brand new to me. After a while I was beginning to doubt that I had ever really read part of it before... until I got to a short passage where a character is thinking about the rabbits in Watership Down. That I totally remembered. Then 30 pages later a different character remembers what happened to his childhood pet rabbit. That part I also remembered and have also thought about from time to time. So I must have a good memory for horrible things happening to rabbits.
So, The Stand is about a superflu that wipes out most of the world's population and what happens afterwards. I'm not one for plot summary so that's all I'll say about that.
What I will say is that I enjoyed it from beginning to end and of the eight or so Stephen King books I've read this one is easily the best. While it is pretty long, it doesn't feel bloated like 11/22/63 or have unnecessary characters like Under the Dome. The set up for the story is so expansive that it could probably have sustained an entire series of books. I almost wish it was longer. Some of the characters really deserved more space (maybe a bit more back story for Tom Cullen? another sequence with the Trashcan Man?). And like any good Stephen King book it has several scenes that are good and scary (like Larry's trip though the tunnel, Harold's bombing, and most any scene with Randall Flagg).
A few quibbles... *spoiler* The ending was satisfactory but the defeat of Flagg isn't really accomplished by any great plan by the 'good guys'. It is basically that they're willing to sacrifice themselves that gets the job done. Maybe King's message is that evil will ultimately defeat itself or that good will always win out in the end... but I'm not sure if those themes are present enough through the book to really justify that type of ending. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the ending, just that the bad guys basically defeat themselves which is slightly less satisfying. Also, there are almost too many interesting characters here... so much so that there'll be a great chapter about one character and then we don't see what happens next to them for 400 pages (such as when Flagg rescues Lloyd from prison... and then you have to wait forever for him to show up again).
Overall... The Stand easily gets an A and makes my own personal top 50 list. An easy recommendation for anyone into horror or end of the world stories.
-Dan
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