The Stand

If you woke up tomorrow morning and everyone else was dead, how would you feel as the last survivor?

"Silence was, in a way, worse than his fears of dying or being seriously hurt in an accident."

At first it would be devastating, until you moved on to find other stragglers.

The Stand is a masterwork of dystopian bleakness, new relationships and ultimate hope.

I could tell this book was a new favorite after 20%, not just because of the amazing character development, but by how destruction of society is contrasted by brilliantly alive personality portrayals in comparison to the bleakness of nothingness, no conversation, laughter, hatred, or anything.

Some of the writing is fantastically imaginative and alliterate:

"It must have been bad, dying in here, he thought, as claustrophobia wrapped its stealthy banana fingers lovingly around his head and began to first caress and then squeeze his temples."

Serve me stealthy banana fingers for breakfast, lunch and dinner, any time.

There are similarities to famous books such as Swan Song by Robert McCammon, such as the underground tunnel to get out of New York, the global battle between good vs evil, and the book’s enormous length, plus all sorts of other references to classics by H.G. Wells and ‘The Time Machine’ and its sinister Morlocks, the Martians from ‘The War of The Worlds’, and ‘The Invisible Man’.

Plus references to Lord of The Rings and similarities between the Shire and its seemingly doomed plight against relentlessly encroaching evil, with the Boulder community, as well as the palantir or third eye concept that can be looked into or cast out to observe and spy on the enemy, which Swan Song borrows from also. There's even a reference to Flowers For Algernon in relation to M-O-O-N, laws yes, Tom Cullen.

The Stand is one of those strange books that I rated five stars early on and never wavered from that opinion, but at the same time found it a giant slog to read. As a relatively slow reader I like to paw over the details in my good old time, whereas a faster reader might find it more exciting?

I opted for the extended version released in 1989, with its extra 400 pages and 1200 pages in total, and occasionally regretted it because of the length. All the extra details and nuances may not be appreciated by a first-time reader, so if you've read it before, read it again.

The Stand is now my favorite Stephen King novel and rises above Carrie and Pet Sematary in my personal canon of his works, which isn’t saying much coming from a self-confessed SK lightweight who's only read eight of his titles.

The Stand is undoubtedly brilliant and meticulously planned, but it isn’t perfect.

The character building is top class but still developing at 80%! The amount of hometown navel gazing feels self-indulgent at times, especially with all the politics and religion to churn through.

But this also emphasizes Stephen King's incredible knowledge of key subjects, as well as mechanics, vehicles, weapons, incendiary devices, and so on.

This is what SK does best, researches, tweaks, fills in the gaps and gets you to care about everyone, before throwing all the pieces onto the chessboard for the ultimate game of do or die.

You know there are going to be casualties, but it’s a question of who, when and where?

However, there are other minor caveats in The Stand that make little or no logical sense, such as the abandoned vehicles strewn absolutely everywhere. Did I miss something? Was there an electromagnetic pulse device to shut down all machinery? No. People died over days and weeks from a virus that that gradually decimated everyone, not all at once while traveling on the road. This grated with me.

And the references to the past can seem dated at times, such as "Lovely Rita, meter maid, may I inquire discreetly, when are you free to take some tea with me?" from Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which I totally appreciated, but younger readers may not.

But I’m seriously struggling to find more major criticisms with this book other than its other-worldly and sometimes dispiriting length.

What absolutely amazes me about The Stand is the way potential loopholes are always circumnavigated through perfectly planned logic, no matter how outlandish or stereotyped they may seem. With a book of this length you’d expect a few idiosyncrasies - and there are plenty in Swan Song - but hardly any in The Stand.

Even the ending, which a Goodreads friend advised me as not one of the best, is amazing. Yes, Mr. King, I did not expect that! It’s not quite a Samwise Gamgee moment and nothing will ever compare to Lord of The Rings trilogy, at least not in my lifetime, but it’s a really good wrap up.

A quick call out to my reading group, Horror or Heaven and co-moderator @Theresa from the Stephen King Korner, for putting this read together and for keeping it that way. Cheers!

I’m really pleased that I was kicked enough up the ass to read this marvelous magnum opus!