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The Stand by Stephen King


Mogwai

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Bloody excellent book! Do you have the unabridged version? The tv film is decent too, albeit a little dated now and the recent comic adaptations are well worth a read when you are done with the stand.

Not sure if you have read the Dark Tower series but a lot of King's characters float in and out of other books all linked to the Dark Tower series. If you like The Stand then i recommend getting stuck into it.

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One of my all-time favourites!

I've actually only ever read the unabridged version, so can't really comment on the original version, but it's fantastic.

I believe one of the parts which was extended

Spoiler

is when Trashcan Man is walking through the desert, and that's the only part of the book that drags slightly for me, so I can understand why that was cut down.

Mogwai, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on the ending when you get there

Spoiler

I felt that, like a lot of King's books, it was a little rushed, as if he thought "Christ, I have to end this... Ok that hand of God appears and detonates a bomb"

The spoiler function is such a good addition for discussing books/films/tv!

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31 minutes ago, James K Polk said:

King is marmite author for me. Didn't enjoy The Stand, loved Under the dome (though the ending was poor) but Mr Mercedes is probably the worst book I have ever attempted to read (I gave up about 1/4 of the way through).

Surprised by that, I enjoyed Mr Mercedes a lot.

Get what you're saying about Marmite though, even as a fan there are some I couldn't finish.

Duma Key, The Eyes of the Dragon, Rose Madder and Lisey's Story I either didn't finish or don't remember finishing.

For anyone who hasn't read it, I'd really recommend The Long Walk. It's a lesser-known one (one of the Richard Bachman ones), it's pretty short and is a cracking read. Kind of like the Hunger Games before there was the Hunger Games.

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22 hours ago, killiefan27 said:

Surprised by that, I enjoyed Mr Mercedes a lot.

Get what you're saying about Marmite though, even as a fan there are some I couldn't finish.

Duma Key, The Eyes of the Dragon, Rose Madder and Lisey's Story I either didn't finish or don't remember finishing.

For anyone who hasn't read it, I'd really recommend The Long Walk. It's a lesser-known one (one of the Richard Bachman ones), it's pretty short and is a cracking read. Kind of like the Hunger Games before there was the Hunger Games.

As Maths says everyone has different tastes. I do agree on Duma Key but gave up on that.

With Mr Mercedes I struggled to work out if he was sending up some of the cliches of the genre as there were so many of them in the book and he kept on referencing a) some cop TV series b) his own work. Unfortunately I came to the conclusion that he wasn't. I also found neither of the main protagonists interesting and some of the twists were telegraphed.

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On 21/03/2016 at 9:40 AM, mathematics said:

Bloody excellent book! Do you have the unabridged version? The tv film is decent too, albeit a little dated now and the recent comic adaptations are well worth a read when you are done with the stand.

Not sure if you have read the Dark Tower series but a lot of King's characters float in and out of other books all linked to the Dark Tower series. If you like The Stand then i recommend getting stuck into it.

I've got the unabridged version. I like a lot of the backstories he gives his characters, so didn't see the point in getting the abridged version.

I've seen a bit about the Dark Tower series, and I'm going to start it after this to see how it ties in with some of the other novels.

 

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1 hour ago, Mogwai said:

I've got the unabridged version. I like a lot of the backstories he gives his characters, so didn't see the point in getting the abridged version.

I've seen a bit about the Dark Tower series, and I'm going to start it after this to see how it ties in with some of the other novels.

 

Glad to hear it!

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  • 4 weeks later...
On ‎20‎/‎03‎/‎2016 at 0:44 PM, mathematics said:

The ending to the Stand is like many of King's books: a little rushed and a little s**te. I normally really enjoy the first 2/3 of his books and then it often gets just too weird.

 

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The ending to The Dark Tower is just utter f**king pish though.

 

That was my experience of The Stand. Totally enthralling, well constructed, a great read and I really thought he was building up to something which would draw all of the various threads together.

Then, it was like he suddenly realised he had to finish the story off and he had no clue where he was going with it.

I really was left feeling there was a much better ending out there but Steven just never found it.

I preferred "Ghost Story" by peter Straubb.

  

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1 hour ago, gdevoy said:

That was my experience of The Stand. Totally enthralling, well constructed, a great read and I really thought he was building up to something which would draw all of the various threads together.

Then, it was like he suddenly realised he had to finish the story off and he had no clue where he was going with it.

I really was left feeling there was a much better ending out there but Steven just never found it.

I preferred "Ghost Story" by peter Straubb.

  

Agreed.

He famously doesn't plot his books out in advance, just goes where the story goes, and while that is often a good thing, it does often mean that his endings are crap...

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  • 3 months later...
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  • 1 year later...

Work caused me to fall in an out of the book, and after an 8 month hiatus, I finished The Stand on holiday.

Like a lot of you, I enjoyed the meat of the book, but the ending felt out of phase with the rest of the carefully woven story.

I liked Trashcan Man's story. I think the abridged version would have been poorer without it. The ending in particular would have been far more disappointing if you didn't know about Trashy's story.

Great book overall, though. Loved it.

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On 8/3/2018 at 3:15 AM, Mogwai said:

Work caused me to fall in an out of the book, and after an 8 month hiatus, I finished The Stand on holiday.

Like a lot of you, I enjoyed the meat of the book, but the ending felt out of phase with the rest of the carefully woven story.

I liked Trashcan Man's story. I think the abridged version would have been poorer without it. The ending in particular would have been far more disappointing if you didn't know about Trashy's story.

Great book overall, though. Loved it.

Graphic novel adaptation is well worth a look.

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