The Best Stephen King Novel?

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Sunlight Gardener

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Jul 22, 2013
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I wish so badly that I felt the same way about the 2nd half of The Stand as I do the 1st half. I love the1st half so much but the 2nd half just does not hold my interest at all. I don't know why. Maybe I don't care about the characters all that much, I'm not sure. Something just doesn't grab me once the "decimation of society from the virus" section ends and the group is banded together and are traveling. Can't figure out why.

I have read it all the way through one time. I have tried two more times since then and did not make it past the halfway point either time. It's frustrating because I feel like I am missing out of what so many others are seeing.
 
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Feb 5, 2015
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I wish so badly that I felt the same way about the 2nd half of The Stand as I do the 1st half. I love the1st half so much but the 2nd half just does not hold my interest at all. I don't know why. Maybe I don't care about the characters all that much, I'm not sure. Something just doesn't grab me once the "decimation of society from the virus" section ends and the group is banded together and are traveling. Can't figure out why.

I have read it all the way through one time. I have tried two more times since then and did not make it past the halfway point either time. It's frustrating because I feel like I am missing out of what so many others are seeing.

I think that the last half of The Stand is impressive because of its moral weight. I love how everything comes together, how the different characters are used. The first half is a little cheaper; it's entertaining, and of course incredibly well written, the story of how the virus killed the world. The second half, though... the second half is where things start getting really interesting. You have God come into play, as well as Satan. The characters have their limits tested. There's a lot of really interesting philosophy that gets discussed. But what I like about it is that there is so much purpose -- like, all these coincidences happen in the book, and they all are planned out by God or someone.
 

SpazzTheBassPlayer

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Dec 16, 2014
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I think that the last half of The Stand is impressive because of its moral weight. I love how everything comes together, how the different characters are used. The first half is a little cheaper; it's entertaining, and of course incredibly well written, the story of how the virus killed the world. The second half, though...

The Stand, to me, was almost Stephen King's more elaborate version of "Lord Of The Flies", but where Lord Of The Flies was a subcosm of a Democracy Vs. Socialism 50s world view (and a subcosm of its own storyline), The Stand was deeper:

Proving that , no matter what mankind does, mankind's "human nature" is always going to be there: the nature to do both good and evil. Greed, power-hunger, empathy, to take, to give, good, and evil - its all there and never goes away. Wipe out the world to a clean slate and we are prone never to learn from our mistakes and we will rebuild it with all the same previous bullshit. I thought that was very deep and philosophical. On any world, this one, King's mental image world, or any parallel one, humans will be humans - One of the reasons why I believe that The Stand is the representative King book
 
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Grandpa

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Mar 2, 2014
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I know people who don't like Mr. King's books all that much but who gobble up The Stand like so much popcorn.

It's one of my favorites. There's a few "didja haveta go there?" moments that are a little offputting, enough to take it off the very top for me. My own favorite is The Dead Zone.

I'm more with GNTLGNT though. Different things appeal to different people so remarkably differently that having a list that says, "These are my favorites," is most relevant by far to the person making the list. In which case, the list doesn't really have to be made.
 
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