The Stand? (Destiny)

by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Wednesday, February 17, 2016, 02:50 (3202 days ago) @ cheapLEY

To be fair, I never finished The Stand. The idea was intriguing, but after over 200 pages without anything of real consequence happening (I feel like he was still setting up characters at that point, but it's been a while), I got bored. I also don't remember for sure, but I think I may have had the extended version.

I like most of his books that have been made into films. The Shining is one of my favorites (and Doctor Sleep is up there, too). Honestly, I like his short stories much, much more than any of his novels, except for The Shining.

Is The Stand really that good? It's been about a decade since I tried to read it, so maybe I should give it another shot sometime.

The Stand is the only one of his books I've really read. (One time I looked through a sort of meditation on fiction and horror and his own works called Danse Macabre, and a family member gave me The Dead Zone a few years ago and I have yet to pry myself away from electronics long enough to read it.) I liked it but it does take a while to get going and progress from one thing to another (at least in the unabridged version). I felt that was made less of an issue in the early parts by the inherent tension of the world falling apart, and in the later parts by the way the focus narrowed and the stakes raised; the middle could be called a slog. The chapters about the tail end of the conflict and die-off from the virus are some of the most affecting things I've ever read.