I just recently finished reading The Stand by Stephen King, and I must ay, it was an incredible book. King is seldom a disappointment, and this book simply reinforces that idea.

Begining in June, 1990, it follows, day by day, the spread of a military-created superflu across the USA, let loose from a lab by one single vector. The virus, codenamed Project Blue, but better known as Captain Trips, is 100% deadly to the 99.4% of the population that is vulnerable to it. This, however, is only the first of three parts of the book, following a number of immune people as they watch the world they know completely die before their eyes.

The second part, On the Border, begins in July, and follows the ragged groups of the immune as they travel from their respective locations to Nebraska, and later, Boulder, Colorado. It tells of how people begin to die of ailments that, before the Plague, were common and curable, such as a burst appendix, infected wounds, and diabetic comas. They are all drawn to Hemmingford Home, Nebraska, by prophetic dreams of a 108-year-old woman whom they call Mother Abagail. However, as this is happening, another group is moving towards Las Vegas, fueled by dreams of a “Dark Man”, Randall Flagg. Nearing on a representation of Satan himself, Flagg has the ablility to make people insane just by looking upon them.

The third part, titled The Stand, tells of the residents of the Boulder Free Zone preparing to defend against the residents of Las Vegas. In doing so, they send a group of four men to confront Flagg, leaving Stu Redman along the way due to a broken leg. He is eventually saved by Kojak, one of the few dogs to survive the plague, and later Tom Cullen. The remaining three men arrive in Las Vegas, only to be apprehended immediately by Flagg’s men, and taken into custody. One of them, Glen Bateman, is shot to death when he refuses to beg for his freedom. The reamining two are about to be publicly executed when the Trashcan Man, seeking redemption, brings a nuclear bomb found in the desert, to Flagg. As everybody begins to realize what it is, the Hand of God descends from the sky and detonates the bomb, killing everybody in Las Vegas and destroying the city. The remainder of the book chronicles Stu Redman’s journey back to Boulder in the dead of winter. He arrives to discover that Fran Goldsmith’s baby is only partially immune to Captain Trips, but is able to fight it off. The book ends with a short chapter telling of Flagg waking up on a beach at an unspecified time, quickly taking control over a group of pre-literate people.

All-in-all, The Stand is one of the best books I have ever read, showing the destruction of mankind by his own means. Although it is long, it is also very difficult to put down, captivating you with every word. I would give it a score of five out of five.