The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition

Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil is a classic for our times. First came the virus. And then the dreams. A man escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out over 99 per cent of the world's population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge - the survivors must choose between them - and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity."[The Stand] has everything - adventure, romance, prophecy, allegory, satire, fantasy, realism, apocalypse, etc., etc... In many ways, this is a book for the 1990s, when America is beginning to see itself less and less in the tall image of Lincoln or even the robust one of Johnny Appleseed and more and more as a dazed behemoth with padded shoulders." - The New York Times Book Review"A masterpiece . . . King says in the novel's introduction that he "wanted to write a fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting", and that's absolutely what he did . . . The Stand is dense and rich. Every character is full and alive." - The Guardian This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man. In 1978 Stephen King published The Stand, the novel that is now considered to be one of his finest works. But as it was first published, The Stand was incomplete, since more than 150,000 words had been cut from the original manuscript. Now Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil has been restored to its entirety. The Stand : The Complete And Uncut Edition includes more than five hundred pages of material previously deleted, along with new material that King added as he reworked the manuscript for a new generation. It gives us new characters and endows familiar ones with new depths. It has a new beginning and a new ending. What emerges is a gripping work with the scope and moral comlexity of a true epic. For hundreds of thousands of fans who read The Stand in its original version and wanted more, this new edition is Stephen King's gift. And those who are reading The Stand for the first time will discover a triumphant and eerily plausible work of the imagination that takes on the issuesthat will determine our survival #1 BESTSELLER • NOW A PARAMOUNT+ LIMITED SERIES • Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting—and eerily plausible—as when it was first published. One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years! This edition includes all of the new and restored material first published in The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition.A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world's population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge—Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them—and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.'A master storyteller.'—Los Angeles Times

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.

And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

Publishers Weekly

Survivors of a chemical weapon called superflu confront pure evil in this updated and even more massive version of King's 1978 saga. ``The extra 400 or so pages . . . make King's best novel better still,'' said PW. `` A new beginning adds verisimilitude to an already frighteningly believable story, while a new ending opens up possibilities for a sequel."

A man escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out over 99 percent of the world's population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge -- Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the 'dark man', the apostate of death, the warlord of the charnel house and Prince of Evil. Now the survivors must choose between them -- and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity One man escapes from a biological weapon facility after an accident, carrying with him the deadly virus known as Captain Tripps, a rapidly mutating flu that - in the ensuing weeks - wipes out most of the world's population. In the aftermath, survivors choose between following an elderly black woman to Boulder or the dark man, Randall Flagg, who has set up his command post in Las Vegas. The two factions prepare for a confrontation between the forces of good and evil. ([source][1]) [1]: https://stephenking.com/library/novel/stand_the.html Soon to be a TV series starring James Marsden, Whoopi Goldberg and Jovan Adepo. First came the days of the plague. Then came the dreams. Dark dreams that warned of the coming of the dark man. The apostate of death, his worn-down boot heels tramping the night roads. The warlord of the charnel house and Prince of Evil. His time is at hand A monumentally devastating plague leaves only a few survivors who, in a desert world, experience dreams of good and evil in confrontation and, through their choices, move toward an actual confrontation The tie-in edition of the nine-part CBS All Access series starring Whoopi Goldberg, Alexander Skarsgard, and James Marsden, premiering in the USA December 17, 2020. Imagine America devastated by a vast killer plague and the group of men and women coming together to make a last stand against it. Hapscomb's Texaco sat on Number 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston. June 16, 1985. That is when the horror began--the evil that started in a laboratory and took over America