Until this past summer, the only Stephen King books I had ever read were The Dark Tower series. Then when I was reading up on LOST at the end of the season, I came upon a bit of info that the one book that LOST writers kept in their room when working on episodes was The Stand... so I went and got it from the library.
30 years old now, the book tells the story of what happens to the world when a superflu virus that kills off 99.4% of the population, leaving the rest to rebuild civilization. It follows various survivors of the flu and their trek across the U.S. after having a similar dream about an old woman. Alongside these survivors going to the woman, there is also a group that begins to follow the epitome of evil, Randall Flagg - the Walkin' Dude. Both groups know of the other's existence and Flagg's crew is intent on destroying the woman's batch.
I just realized that there is really no point in trying to summarize the 1000 page book for you here, so instead I'll say that King does a great job of bringing all of the characters together and forcing them to realize that the world has to be started anew. The main problem with the book (and I had similar issues with The Dark Tower) is that King seems to have trouble ending stories. The end of The Stand is completely appropriate for where the story was headed, but it seems way too abrupt, particularly after the amount of time that is spent on the rest of the plot.
As to how it all ties into LOST, I'm still not exactly sure, but you can definitely see echoes of Larry Underwood in Charlie, and I kind of think Locke is a bit like Stu Redman, but I guess it can only be truly compared when LOST ends in a few years.
30 years old now, the book tells the story of what happens to the world when a superflu virus that kills off 99.4% of the population, leaving the rest to rebuild civilization. It follows various survivors of the flu and their trek across the U.S. after having a similar dream about an old woman. Alongside these survivors going to the woman, there is also a group that begins to follow the epitome of evil, Randall Flagg - the Walkin' Dude. Both groups know of the other's existence and Flagg's crew is intent on destroying the woman's batch.
I just realized that there is really no point in trying to summarize the 1000 page book for you here, so instead I'll say that King does a great job of bringing all of the characters together and forcing them to realize that the world has to be started anew. The main problem with the book (and I had similar issues with The Dark Tower) is that King seems to have trouble ending stories. The end of The Stand is completely appropriate for where the story was headed, but it seems way too abrupt, particularly after the amount of time that is spent on the rest of the plot.
As to how it all ties into LOST, I'm still not exactly sure, but you can definitely see echoes of Larry Underwood in Charlie, and I kind of think Locke is a bit like Stu Redman, but I guess it can only be truly compared when LOST ends in a few years.
No comments:
Post a Comment