20250928 Sunday Book log: The Stand (1978/1990) Keeping up with my chronological Stephen King project I've made it to the 1400 page monolith that is The Stand. I was looking forward to this one, as it seems to be one of King's most popular books -- with not just one, but two (or more?) TV adaptations. My first introduction to the book's universe, although I didn't realize it at the time, was hearing Welsh rock band's hit single "The Stand" in the early 1980s. My next pop cultural exposure was Anthrax' 1987 album Among the Living, which title track refers to Randall Flagg and the narrative of the book, and which cover depicts Flagg in a clean cut cowboy-like outfit, raising his hat to expose two devil horns. Hand in hand with Anthrax was Metallica's second album Ride The Lightning, borrowed from a phrase in the book, but not referring to the story in itself. In the early 1990s my father spoke highly of the book and the first TV series, but it's funnily enough taken me 40+ years to actually get around to reading the book that has been so omnipresent in pop culture for most of my life. In typical Stephen King fashion, the book sets up several parallel narratives that each grabs the reader, and together start to form a highly immersive weave. In the style of disaster movies, small hints that something is very wrong start to appear in several locations. A plague is spread from a military compound, and 99% of the population is wiped out. After a couple hundred pages the book moves into a post apocalypse setting, with just a few, isolated, survivors trying to make sense of it all and set up a new society. The main antagonist Randall Flagg appears, possessing magical abilities, seemingly able to be in several distant locations at once. And a cast composing a handful of heroes crystallizes around Flagg's good counterpart Mother Abagail. People all over America start to have dreams about Flagg and Abagail, and are drawn to them, travelling by foot, bike, car or motorcycle across the continent. Flagg's people, the evil ones, congregate in Las Vegas, while the good people travel with Abagail to Boulder. King has stated explicitly that The Stand is his attempt at making an "American" Lord of the Rings, and the book itself contains a couple of references to Tolkien's main work. Flagg takes on the role of Sauron, while Abagail represents Gandalf. Flagg has abilities similar to The Eye of Sauron, being able to spy across the land with his eye. The world is very cleanly divided into good and bad characters, although there are some corruptible good characters and some redeemable bad ones. Trash Can Man reminds me of Gollum, his body becoming more and more perverted and distorted, his psyche becoming more and more single minded. And in the end it's he who ends up somewhat indavertently saving the day. Another motif that reminded me of Lord of the Rings is the long and slow treks on foot, across dry deserts, over snowy mountains and through dark dungeons (in the form of highway tunnels). Of course, King's story is riddled with sadistic, graphic violence and perverse, explicit sexuality that aren't part of Tolkien's world. The book was a very engaging read, it builds the tension very effectively for a long time. It does slow down a little bit in the middle part, the builds back up again, before the ending seems to come somewhat abruptly and anti climactically. I read the first 1200 pages or so in three weeks, then took a break for three weeks while recovering from a hospital stay. It was easy to pick it back up again, but the narrative was practically over a few pages into my second period with the book. This was the 1990 revised and expanded edition, including 400 or so pages that were edited out of the original release. Quite a few 1980s references are included in the revised edition, with actual movie titles, song titles, pop artists and politicians being named. I have the shorter 1980 soft cover edition as well, which is also a slightly revised version, maybe I'll get to that at a later stage.