The stand comic pdf

Jul 05, carol. Shelves: end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it. Dear Stephen, I'm sorry. I just don't like you in that way. I know we've been friends for a long time, but I just never developed those kind of feelings for you, even after eleven hundred pages. I feel like we only moved forward in fits and stops, and we were just never able to sustain a kind of even-handed development of the kind of chills and thrills a person really likes.

Shock someone enough times with snot running out of their nose, and it just becomes a little meaningless. And there are onl Dear Stephen, I'm sorry. And there are only so many ways to view a dead body before one gets kind of numb instead of apprehensive.

Using the journal device to move things forward seems a little crude, when what we really need to do is talk. I have to confess, I've felt kind of uncomfortable watching you struggle with religion and spirituality. You sparked my interest when you posited that this might be the battle between the age of reason and that of "irrationalism," and the dark man was the last vestige of doomed rationalism.

I thought for a few minutes we were headed somewhere really special, but you didn't seem very confident, and the theme fell apart. I will say there were a few surprises along the way, which I found pleasant.

I appreciate you avoiding the obvious character arcs, especially when it comes to redemption. Your military friends bored me out, though, especially Starkey; I don't even get why you like spending any time with those guys. Such a bunch of fossils. I do have to say, I was really impressed with how you must have studied disease modelling and progression--I almost felt like was there.

Sometimes I get the feeling that you don't really see me as a person, just a baby-maker. You even have an extended soliloquy about it, as if I wasn't even here reading your words.

It bothers me, because you took the time to develop nuanced male relationships Larry, Stu, Lloyd , but the women were about reproducing or were cannon fodder. Since you allowed technology to remain, I'm not going to buy into your lowest most-functional society mentality, no matter how many sociological theories you throw at me. And then there's the elderly black woman as representation of all that's spiritual. Perhaps even Mother Earth? If I'm rolling my eyes, it's because it's another aspect of compartmentalizing women as either maiden, matron or crone, and people of color as closer to God s being savage and all, as you so helpfully illustrate in your "The Circle Closes" afterward.

Honestly, it's kind of juvenile, and a little disappointing when I know you are capable of so much more. It's time for me to move on. I'm sure you'll find someone special eventually, Stephen, because you are such a really great guy. And so unusual, too. Oct 10, Lyn rated it it was amazing. The best post apocalyptic novel ever? My friend Michael has a profile statement, something to the effect of finding our next 5 star rating.

I like that sentiment, and am excited by the opportunity th M-O-O-N. I think I was always a little intimidated by the length. King weaves in an allegory about the viruses amongst us.

There is also the spiritual quality of the book, King shows how we are sinners in the hands of an angry God, and that dreamers will survive — and survivors can still dream.

This makes me appreciate his The Gunslinger series and I want to search out Flagg and read more about him. This is also an American epic and in its context an American eulogy. King shows us the good the bad and the ugly of what we are and what we can be. An observant reader will see references to Ursula K. I know Mr. King and have enjoyed many of his works and I have now been amazed by his finest. View all 82 comments. Mar 20, Mark Lawrence rated it it was amazing.

I loved this book. I read the uncut version years back when I lived in the States, maybe in I loved everything about it except the ending. I'm a big fan of Stephen King and have 23 of his books on my shelf. Stephen King can only write a good ending to a book by chance.

One of the things I like best about King's writing is the way he breathes life into characters and every day settings. For a horror wri I loved this book. For a horror writer this is crucial. You have to make everything utterly believable so that when the monster comes and the stakes are raised the reader feels it's all real and cares about what's at stake. The short story, The Body, on which the film Stand By Me is based is a great example of King's genius at making complicated, flawed, awkward, real characters.

Anyway, The Stand, is not typical King as the main core of it is an apocalypse, and the super natural horror element is rather secondary and low key for most of the story. The apocalypse is a believable one, a flu pandemic with a mortality rate so high that only a tiny fraction of the population survives.

King tears the world down in terrifying slow motion and playing on our fears of pandemics it is at once horrifying, touching, and fascinating. King is great at slowly pulling everyday reality apart. The cast of characters who survive this catastrophe is sizeable, diverse, and interesting. A pyromaniac with an array of mental issues, a man with learning disabilities, a singer who was in the act of breaking big, others more ordinary but no less fascinating under pressure.

The literary institutions of this world sniff at horror writers as much as they do fantasy writers but I find King's prose and insights into the human condition to be as powerful as those in many of the more plodding works of literary fiction I've read. Readers often don't notice it because it's not what they came for. But King is interested in people and how pressure acts on them. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change.

You just come out the other side. Or you don't. The two communities we focus on centre on the supernatural aspect of the book, one of them is home to the 'good' folk, and the other to the 'bad'. The bad camp is ruled over by Randal Flagg who roams through the pages of quite a few of King's books, The Dark Tower in particular. The book concludes with the fight between these two camps and ultimately the ending was a touch unsatisfying for me, though not awful by any means.

The journey to that ending however was a fascinating thrill ride and well worth the price of entry! If you've not tried Stephen King before then this is a fine place to jump in - be warned though, it is perhaps the longest of his books with a page count to rival GRRM at his most long winded. Join my 3-emails-a-year newsletter prizes View all 22 comments. Shelves: library , bookstagram-made-me-do-it. Oh wow, it hasn't even been a year since I finished this and I'm rereading again?

I also really enjoyed it along the way, which says a lot due to my struggle with committing to massive books.

Anyway, I'm satisfied an Oh wow, it hasn't even been a year since I finished this and I'm rereading again? Anyway, I'm satisfied and a tiny bit relieved to be finished.

View all 60 comments. Mar 02, Mario the lone bookwolf rated it it was amazing Shelves: king-stephen. The definitive apocalypse masterpiece, maybe until reality writes a better story. Many different characters in slowly escalating situations of despair and tragedy. With the extra King spicing of terror, torture, and horror, this makes one, or maybe the best, description of armageddon. Apocalypse rocks if the King is in the house.

Better lose some cities and dozens of millions of people than all of them. Although I guess if a resident evil style biological warfare project would go really wrong, or be used by an enemy, nothing would help. It has its small crew and stays with it, close to no disposable sidekicks, and especially no big picture, meta, worldbuilding level.

Mission accomplished. No matter how dead the world is, we still have freaking everyday issues and relationship problems. Big city vs one horse town. So good to live on the countryside… Sorry if this may seem insensitive, but the really brutally penetrated ones will always be the metropolitan areas, not just because the slums and hellhole district actually are already a nightmare, but because the collapse and chaos will be worst there.

King uses this difference to construct completely opposite kinds of fear, the seemingly infinite solitude of the wild with some grains of small towns and the disturbing rests of a megacity now populated by corpses, cannibals, and crazy people. Characters and writers' block. Many cool secondary and one time use characters, extra plotlines, and groups consolidating and escalating together.

The reason for the extremely dense atmosphere is the combination of different sets of characters, weirdo antagonists, and a perfect mixture with the stellar characterization and atmosphere King is famous for.

Luckily, he found his way back, but just how he got until the point of hitting the wall without confusing the reader or himself, especially because, ahem, you know, booze and drugs and stuff, is amazing. Some psi, mind control, precognition, animal magic, elemental powers, but the real driving engine here is the madness, evilness vs goodness, and especially the shade of grey in between with protagonists switching sides, developing new disgusting goals, or refraining from doing necrophilic cannibalism and stuff.

Could be seen as a homage to the inherent bad in all of us and systems constructed by mentally unstable apes, philosophically vivisected until regurgitation, or just appreciated at what it most likely is. One of the most realistic, without the demonic superpower elements except secret military research has already reached new levels, descriptions of how a collapse of civilization would most likely end in new dictatorships.

The better, progressive, eco and human friendly alternative The good ones are seemingly helpless, just have their will, community, and some dream controlling power and soft psi magic to fight the armed to the teeth demonic hordes, but similar to many other deus ex machina solutions, the mind is stronger than tons of steel. Of course, in reality, our good team of friends would immediately be raped, tortured, and eaten, rape torture eat repeat style as some like to call it and not necessarily in that order , but hey, even King has to integrate some optimistic moments to help his readers to better handle the horror.

And to get a story too, of course. View all 17 comments. Want to catch the flu? Read The Stand. I caught it twice in the month it took me to read this book. I'm rarely sick so it's clearly a thing. Post-apocalyptic book where most people die from a super flu. That part was my favorite.

It then becomes a battle between Good and Evil. Some fantasy elements were included. This part was still solid. I liked how we got to follow the characters and get to know them. I felt some similarities to Station Eleven so if you like The Stand I would give this one a shot too! View all 21 comments.

May 02, Nilufer Ozmekik rated it it was amazing Shelves: all-time-favorites , best-thriller. Of course I am! If you check a few reviews of mine, you already found out my true mental state! King earned his throne at the literature kingdom. The first edition of the book was published on and at the new editions, the cultural references have been changed to connect with the new generation readers.

I also read most of the editions This is my routine at the 8 to 12 hours international flights: I cannot sleep during the flight so I carry another edition with me to enjoy my vacation accompanied with lots of Bloody Mary. When I dive into the chapters and read about Texan Stu, very pregnant Frannie, chubby Harold, rising star Larry, I start to feel at home. At those disturbing Mother Abigail summons them or a very dangerous dark figure Randall Flagg wants to join him at the dark side.

Flagg for his big annihilation plan. I think the biggest challenge is not reading this book. The filmmakers who are brave enough to adapt this into series accepted the biggest challenge. From Ben Affleck, David Yates to Scott Cooper, too many directors wanted to be on board but later dropped out because of creative differences, schedule conflicts.

View all 4 comments. So I have had this awesome paperback door stopper for some time. Gift from friend I decided to get the audio through the library and of course now I have added it to my Audible wishlist. The narration is freaking awesome! The whole damn book is freaking awesome! The thing is, I didn't think I would like it because I barely remember the movie and am not sure I liked it.

That was a long time ago and who the hell knows! I'm just extremely happy I finally read it. It's long, but most b Wow!!

It's long, but most books I read or listen to are so that's neither here nor there. I just loved reading about all of the people and events. And I did laugh at times. YES, scary stories do have some comedy at times. Anyhoo, enjoy peeps!! Happy Reading!

View all 33 comments. M-O-O-N spells spectacular! It was during the Christmas break- I lived out in the boonies with my family, and after the holiday hoopla was over -I planted myself in my favorite chair and sat there for 4 days devouring every page- only leaving for bathroom breaks, meals and sleep.

I read it with my Goodreads friend Lisa- who had the uncut version, while I had the original- I stopped and started as she caught up- there were huge amounts of messages back and forth- on the characters, the differences in editions, who we loved- who we hated, and everything and anything we could think of to discuss.

It was a month long read At a remote U. Army base, a strain of influenza is accidentally released. Despite a lock down- soldier Charles Campion is able to escape with his wife and child.

By the time the military is able to track his whereabouts- Campion has spread the disease around parts of Texas- triggering a pandemic which kills off 99 percent of the population.

The one percent are left in survival mode- spread out over the entire country and plagued by strange dreams about two individuals which eventually draw some to Nebraska and some to Las Vegas. She is the embodiment of good.

He lives to cause death and destruction and has supernatural powers which allow him to be human, animal or demon. He is the embodiment of evil. King said that he "wanted to write a fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting"- and that is just what he did.

View all 50 comments. Jun 09, Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it Shelves: literature , 20th-century , fantasy , mystery , united-states , fiction , horror , apocalyptic , science. It expands upon the scenario of his earlier short story "Night Surf" and outlines the total breakdown of society after the accidental release of a strain of influenza that had been modified for biological warfare causes an apocalyptic pandemic, which kills off the majority of the world's human population.

King dedicated the book to his wife, Tabitha: "For Tabby: This dark chest of wonders. View all 5 comments. None of us want to really see a Star in the East or a pillar of fire by night. We want peace and rationality and routine.

It is over in a matter of weeks. Civilization grinds to a halt, then collapses, and then falls into chaos. A Mad Max world is born. A virus that kills The last thing any virus should do is kill the host. Death of the host leads to death of the virus. God had brought down a harsh judgment on the human race. This is man destroying himself. Since we are made in his image I do think sometimes what God, if he exists, likes least in us is what he likes least about himself. The whole theory of God is built on good and evil.

If evil exists, then oddly God exists. The Vatican has been working relentlessly to prove for centuries that pure evil exists to justify the whole need for their continued existence. The proof might be rising out of the ashes of this virulent plague. These dreams are as vivid as they are confusing. There is a battle for their souls going on. They must choose. Do they go to Randall Flagg, or do they flock to Abagail Freemantle? You would think it would be an easy decision.

Of course, we would join Abagail, the self-anointed prophet of God. Not to mention that she knows there has to be a reckoning. But are they evil? When people from the Boulder Free Zone mingle with those from the Dark Side, they find them to be normal people, just like the people they left back in Boulder. The biggest difference is that they are afraid, and fear, as we know, is the most insidious and easiest way to control people.

Tap, tap, tap. The crow, looking in at him, seeming to grin. And it came to him with a dreamy, testicle-shriveling certainty that this was the dark man, his soul, his ka somehow projected into this rain-drenched, grinning crow that was looking in at him, checking up on him.

Their power grows as people choose to believe in them. As long as civilization exists and people are reasonably content, a person like Flagg is never given an opportunity to thrive. We through our own discontent empower evil.

This novel is one of the King epics. My favorite book, and the one that I feel will be considered his masterpiece, is IT , a book that I feel really brings together all of his best skills in building characters and shows off his gift for creating twisty, scary plots.

IT is 2 on the Goodreads poll. Once you have been introduced to Pennywise try walking past a storm drain without giving it a wide berth. The Stand has a large cast, and most readers will have a favorite character. I liked several characters, actually, and wondered if I was going to find myself in a George R. Martin universe where identifying with a character was tantamount to self-inflicted grief. I was fortunate to stick with Stu Redman. He is a hick from Texas who continues to show hidden depths as circumstances shape and reveal his character.

I always meant to read the suckers. Now it looks like I got the time. In the forward, Stephen King talks about the meeting he had with the publishing group about the size of The Stand. It was originally published at about pages, but then when they decided to reissue the uncut version, he was able to put back in about pages that he had been forced to excise. I think I did a fairly good job, for a writer who has been accused over and over again of having diarrhea of the word processor.

They were able to show him the sales from his previous four books, the profit margin, and if he sold the same number of books of The Stand , how much slimmer the profit margin would be, because of the cost to produce the extra pages. So the cuts were not made for editorial reasons, but for common sense accounting reasons. King was very happy to have the orphaned material reunited with the rest of the book.

The book does bog down at times for me. I think that is inevitable with a book this size. King is taking on some larger themes here and for the most part keeps all the plates spinning in the air. I have to admit, though, that I had to agree with lifestyle philosophy of the sociologist Glen Bateman. He seemed perfectly content—at least for the time being—to go for his walks with Kojak, paint his pictures, putter around his garden, and think about the sociological ramifications of nearly total decimation.

It is truly amazing any of us can think. View all 32 comments. View all 31 comments. The Stand is totally not what I expected.

I really thought this would be a super thrilling plot-driven with a lot of actions book due to the nature that the story revolves around a plague out 3.

I really thought this would be a super thrilling plot-driven with a lot of actions book due to the nature that the story revolves around a plague outbreak.

One of the two that stands out the most from this book—other than the gigantic size—in my opinion was the theological nature and the classic tale of a battle between good versus evil. That was an act of pure human fuckery. Once God or Satan is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance The characters developments in this book were astounding to say the least and it was awesome to see how far these characters changed from where they began.

It was a painful 70 pages chapter which in my opinion offer close to zero points to the story. Finally, with a book this HUGE, I really expected the ending to blow me away but the ending ended up being anti-climactic. Overall though, I think The Stand is still overall a great book. Thank you also to my good friend, Celeste, for giving me this book as a late birthday present! View all 64 comments. Dec 23, Gene rated it really liked it Shelves: horror. Humanity in general loves to play god trying to meddle in some very dangerous things.

Military is not an exception as they are obsessed with creating more effective and devastating weapons. Considering the progress from a simple stone to an atomic bomb we became quite efficient at killing others en masse. Suppose we create a new virus which would make HIV look like a common flu.

Great, now we can let it loose, wait and have all the enemy infrastructure intact with all the people gone. The proble Humanity in general loves to play god trying to meddle in some very dangerous things. The problem is virus does not care much about taking sides in a conflict. So such a virus was created paid for by US taxpayers and was accidentally released.

The said taxpayers were practically wiped out with some rare exceptions that were immune to it. The end result: some occasional survivors have practically everything created by others just for taking.

It seems to be practically a Utopia, but the people decided it would probably be boring so they split into two camps trying to wipe out each other. To be fair one of the group only wanted to eradicate the other in self-defense. The book is the story of how the disaster came to be and the story of these two groups.

Before I begin rambling about the book I seriously need to get something of my chest. Other people call this phenomenon Typewriter Diarrhea, but I think my term is more general. I had a misfortune to read an unabridged edition of this. I lost count to the number of scenes that could be cut off without any impact on the remaining part. Just as an example: who cares about Fran's mother being a selfish bitch after her brother died?

How did it affect the rest of the story? Do not get me wrong, King is a talented writer, but exercising some brevity in writing would improve the quality even further. As it stands now I did not go outside with a physical copy of the book being afraid I would be arrested for carrying as assault weapon. The book is clearly split in three parts: events leading to the catastrophe and its unfolding, survivors trying to cope, and two groups trying to exterminate each other.

The first part was quite boring until the infection became widespread. I was not excited to read about day-to-day lives of the people that are about to die.

To add an insult to the injury the people that were destined to survive were either jerks, or plain boring. Yes, I said it: nice people are boring ; this was one of the lessons I learned from the book. What would you rather read about: a guy helping an old lady cross the road, or a guy torching an oil repository? If you answer "the former" you are lying. As you can see nice people have no chance of survival whatsoever; we are left with jerks.

In fact let me introduce Stephen King's apocalypse survival rule 1: the bigger jerk you are the better your chances. Here comes another problem: I did not care about jerks that much. This left me exactly one person to root for; that person had the least screen time.

Take Fran I mentioned above: she came out as somewhat unbalanced woman falling into giggling hysterics at a slightest reason; not the one to care for. This boredom continued until the military began a serious cover-up campaign. Military cover-up methods are taken straight from the Mafia books: dead people tell no tales.

This action brought much-needed well Here we finally get to the heroics and cowardliness of ordinary people. And then everybody died. Second part: the lonely survivors wonder around. I guess this part was OK, but I still have some things to say.

Here King uses only black and white for characters with no gray shades: you are either with us, or against. I was also appalled by how quickly the self-appointed leaders decided their own lives are sacred and irreplaceable, but they are perfectly fine with throwing away lives of people around them.

After all, they are good guys and as such Can Do No Wrong. Imagine how many wars we could prevent if only we would let the people that declare them to lead the first attack. We already established the good guys are boring. It turns out they are also stupid as several people were practically wearing signs saying, "I am a traitor" and it did not bother anybody.

No wonder the bad side managed to get more intelligent people - who wants to spend their time with stupid? Last part: confrontation. Finally things start moving alone. Probably the fastest-moving part all the way until last two chapters which were loooooong and felt like a complete filler. Every single plot thread was resolved at this point, so why the delay? The very end came in opposition of everything that was said before. Not a single human being in the book bothered with creating new things.

Supplies would run out, sooner or later. Does it mean another resource war is coming? By this time I read quite a few King's books and as a result I noticed some things I think worth mentioning. Practically all people in any King's story love to let their bladder go the moment they get even a little scared. No exception to this rule sorry one exception: tough as nails Roland the Gunslinger. The majority of bad guys often masturbate. Good guys never do. Reading King's stories never fails to make me hate the humanity.

The hate goes away though - after a while and until I read his next work. Finally some amusing references: in the first part one of the cops works at 87th precinct and has a colleague named Steve Carella. Does it ring any bells? The amusing part is that this guy thinks Carella is completely dominated by his wife. I will be generous and call him being heavily inspired by The Stand instead. It's all been building to this, True Believers: th… More.

Book The Stand is a classic tale of good vs. The Stand: L'ombra dello scorpione vol. Gli addetti ai lavori lo chiamano Progetto Azzurro… More. Shelve The Stand: L'ombra dello scorpione vol. Lo senti, Bruciabidoni? Lo vedi? Ti chiama, ti vis… More.

The Stand: Captain Trips. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Collected Editions. Loki On a secret army base in the Californian desert, something has gone horribly, terribly wrong. Something that will send Charlie Campion and his wife and daughter fleeing in the middle of the night. Unfortunately for the Campion family--and the rest of America--they are unaware that all three of them are carrying a deadly cargo: A virus that will spread from person to person like wildfire, triggering a massive wave of disease and death, prefacing humanity's last stand!

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