February/March - The Stand "The Stand and The Circle Closes"
Talk King's Dear Constant Readers
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2jseger9000
Okay, I’m on page 771 out of… 812 pages? I’ll probably finish the book at lunch time.
I have to say that with ‘The Stand’, The Stand is back on track. Overall, it feels like the book gets off to a strong start with ‘Captain Trips’ then bogs down in ‘On the Border’. Lots of important stuff happens there, but I think it just takes too long to get to where it’s going. ‘The Stand’ returns the sorely missed forward momentum, but maybe by then it was just too late for me.
Also, is it just me or is the ultimate resolution in Las Vegas (literally) Deus Ex Machina-y? I don’t want to go on too much about it and spoil it for those who haven’t hit it yet.
I have to say that with ‘The Stand’, The Stand is back on track. Overall, it feels like the book gets off to a strong start with ‘Captain Trips’ then bogs down in ‘On the Border’. Lots of important stuff happens there, but I think it just takes too long to get to where it’s going. ‘The Stand’ returns the sorely missed forward momentum, but maybe by then it was just too late for me.
Also, is it just me or is the ultimate resolution in Las Vegas (literally) Deus Ex Machina-y? I don’t want to go on too much about it and spoil it for those who haven’t hit it yet.
3jseger9000
Finished The Stand last night.
I have to say I enjoyed the 100 pages of the trip back to Boulder a lot more than I was expecting to.
Very good book overall, but I'm glad to have finished it. I'm working on churning out a review on it.
I guess I'm not done with the end of the world, because my next book is the non-fiction Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels in End-Time America. A report on various nutty cults out there that predict the end of the world. Looks to be much lighter in tone than The Stand...
I have to say I enjoyed the 100 pages of the trip back to Boulder a lot more than I was expecting to.
Very good book overall, but I'm glad to have finished it. I'm working on churning out a review on it.
I guess I'm not done with the end of the world, because my next book is the non-fiction Apocalypse Pretty Soon: Travels in End-Time America. A report on various nutty cults out there that predict the end of the world. Looks to be much lighter in tone than The Stand...
4cal8769
Congrats! I'm still a couple hundred pages in.
That sounds like a good one. Be sure to let us know.
That sounds like a good one. Be sure to let us know.
5jseger9000
Okay, I just knocked out a review for the abridged version of The Stand (for some reason I can only touchstone the extended version). I'm worried that my review is a little too long, yet I didn't even touch on so much of what I wanted to say about the book.
6Moomin_Mama
I am finished but for about 20 pages - I left my book at the shop I volunteer in and won't be back til next week! I'm considering cheating and digging up my old, extended copy but that's buried in a cupboard somewhere and will take almost as long to find...
Things do get moving again in this portion of the book, but a bit too quickly for me. After a long section that is mostly taken up with events in Boulder, I found this bit somewhat rushed. I didn't spend long enough in Vegas with Flagg's people for my liking, as much of the action seemed to be taken up with the comings and goings of the Boulder people both to and from Vegas. I had no problem with the way things ended in Vegas, it was what happened afterward that I had a problem with. Does the shorter version end with "The Circle Closes"? I'm assuming it doesn't. I liked that ending; without it I would have liked the book a little less by the end.
This version I'd give 3 stars, while I'd give the longer version (from what I remember) 4. I couldn't suspend THAT MUCH belief, but the way SK has drawn his characters sucks you into the story and carries you along. It's a good book, but not his best.
Spoilers:
I didn't think there was anything too Deus Ex Machina-y about the resolution, once I got to it. Yet again, it is a couple of the Boulder people who see "The hand of God", and they are all wrapped up in events. After everything that happened they would be seeing things biblically. They were also in a blind panic, about to be pulled apart. And it didn't come out of nowhere - there were hints aplenty that Trashy was going to come back with a nuclear weapon, and that Flagg was losing it and all sorts of inexplicable things were taking place as a result. In this sense the book stayed true to its own logic, and if you could believe in a post-apocalyptic tug-of-war between good and evil, you could believe in the ending of the Vegas community.
Where I DID have a problem suspending disbelief was when Nick turned up to show Tom Cullen which medication to use to cure Stu. Nick's visits to Tom could have been Tom's subconscious remembering things from his time with Nick, or something more spiritual or supernatural, but a ghost that turns up to give such specific medical advice? Not only did it strike me as silly, it then brought in the issue of an afterlife, which is where SK maybe went too far in favour of Mother Abagail's God. And Stu getting that sick in the first place, needing all that care and that little interlude in the hotel? Wasn't getting back with his broken leg, Kojak looking after him before Tom Cullen finds him to save him and take him home, exceptional enough without flu, infection, and Nick the friendly ghost-dispenser?
Things do get moving again in this portion of the book, but a bit too quickly for me. After a long section that is mostly taken up with events in Boulder, I found this bit somewhat rushed. I didn't spend long enough in Vegas with Flagg's people for my liking, as much of the action seemed to be taken up with the comings and goings of the Boulder people both to and from Vegas. I had no problem with the way things ended in Vegas, it was what happened afterward that I had a problem with. Does the shorter version end with "The Circle Closes"? I'm assuming it doesn't. I liked that ending; without it I would have liked the book a little less by the end.
This version I'd give 3 stars, while I'd give the longer version (from what I remember) 4. I couldn't suspend THAT MUCH belief, but the way SK has drawn his characters sucks you into the story and carries you along. It's a good book, but not his best.
Spoilers:
I didn't think there was anything too Deus Ex Machina-y about the resolution, once I got to it. Yet again, it is a couple of the Boulder people who see "The hand of God", and they are all wrapped up in events. After everything that happened they would be seeing things biblically. They were also in a blind panic, about to be pulled apart. And it didn't come out of nowhere - there were hints aplenty that Trashy was going to come back with a nuclear weapon, and that Flagg was losing it and all sorts of inexplicable things were taking place as a result. In this sense the book stayed true to its own logic, and if you could believe in a post-apocalyptic tug-of-war between good and evil, you could believe in the ending of the Vegas community.
Where I DID have a problem suspending disbelief was when Nick turned up to show Tom Cullen which medication to use to cure Stu. Nick's visits to Tom could have been Tom's subconscious remembering things from his time with Nick, or something more spiritual or supernatural, but a ghost that turns up to give such specific medical advice? Not only did it strike me as silly, it then brought in the issue of an afterlife, which is where SK maybe went too far in favour of Mother Abagail's God. And Stu getting that sick in the first place, needing all that care and that little interlude in the hotel? Wasn't getting back with his broken leg, Kojak looking after him before Tom Cullen finds him to save him and take him home, exceptional enough without flu, infection, and Nick the friendly ghost-dispenser?
7jseger9000
#6 - You definitely see it from a different angle than I did. An angle I wish I could see it from, because it would help solve the problems I had with the book. I wonder if as I read King's description I was picturing the way the scene played out in the miniseries (where the Hand of God is much more blatant).
The thing is, I don't mind the post-apocalyptic tug-of-war between good and evil. That is after all the whole point of the book. I just wish it weren't so suddenly and heavy-handedly introduced in On the Border. King is usually pretty good at foreshadowing, yet here Captain Trips has a very different feeling that makes it seem almost... disconnected from the other two books (and I like it a bit better than the rest of the book).
I actually enjoyed the long epilogue. I do have to say that I'm totally with you on Nick's 'return'. (He continues to irritate me even when he's dead!)
Since you've read both, I'm wondering: Do the majority of cuts take place in Captain Trips and The Stand? It just seems like the book parks for a while in On the Border and I'm wondering if it is because it was the least effected by the condensing the book went through.
The thing is, I don't mind the post-apocalyptic tug-of-war between good and evil. That is after all the whole point of the book. I just wish it weren't so suddenly and heavy-handedly introduced in On the Border. King is usually pretty good at foreshadowing, yet here Captain Trips has a very different feeling that makes it seem almost... disconnected from the other two books (and I like it a bit better than the rest of the book).
I actually enjoyed the long epilogue. I do have to say that I'm totally with you on Nick's 'return'. (He continues to irritate me even when he's dead!)
Since you've read both, I'm wondering: Do the majority of cuts take place in Captain Trips and The Stand? It just seems like the book parks for a while in On the Border and I'm wondering if it is because it was the least effected by the condensing the book went through.
8Moomin_Mama
>7 jseger9000::
I haven't seen the mini-series yet. I caught the beginning on tv once and had to switch off, because I had such a vivid picture of the characters that I didn't want it ruined. So you might be onto something there.
I think Glen Bateman's comments here and there on events mirror my own take on the God angle, and I had the sneaky suspicion this is where SK's voice came through, but there I could be wrong.
I read the longer version when it first came out, and can't really remember where the cuts came in, but I'd say there was stuff missing from "Captain Trips" and "The Stand". Maybe from "On the Border" too - there was more to the minor people who travelled to Boulder, although that stuff may have been part of "Captain Trips". For me it was less to do with WHERE the missing stuff took place than WHAT was missing - some of it, I felt anyway, was integral to the build up.
I now have to wait about a year to see what you make of the longer one - I'm itching to know!
(And yes, Nick Andros was annoying. I always imagined him as a Ralph-Macchio-as-Karate-Kid take-off, and HE annoyed the living crap out of me).
I haven't seen the mini-series yet. I caught the beginning on tv once and had to switch off, because I had such a vivid picture of the characters that I didn't want it ruined. So you might be onto something there.
I think Glen Bateman's comments here and there on events mirror my own take on the God angle, and I had the sneaky suspicion this is where SK's voice came through, but there I could be wrong.
I read the longer version when it first came out, and can't really remember where the cuts came in, but I'd say there was stuff missing from "Captain Trips" and "The Stand". Maybe from "On the Border" too - there was more to the minor people who travelled to Boulder, although that stuff may have been part of "Captain Trips". For me it was less to do with WHERE the missing stuff took place than WHAT was missing - some of it, I felt anyway, was integral to the build up.
I now have to wait about a year to see what you make of the longer one - I'm itching to know!
(And yes, Nick Andros was annoying. I always imagined him as a Ralph-Macchio-as-Karate-Kid take-off, and HE annoyed the living crap out of me).
9Moomin_Mama
Finished (at last)!
The shorter version ends with "The Stand", which is a shame. It isn't as good a way to end the book.
This shorter version was okay, but frustrating. More cuts would have tightened it up and made it more dramatic, a real action-packed fantasy adventure. More left in (see longer version) turns it into a thrilling epic. This version tries to be a bit of both, and as such is neither. It is saved by King's characters - you carry on with it because you want to know what happens to them.
The shorter version ends with "The Stand", which is a shame. It isn't as good a way to end the book.
This shorter version was okay, but frustrating. More cuts would have tightened it up and made it more dramatic, a real action-packed fantasy adventure. More left in (see longer version) turns it into a thrilling epic. This version tries to be a bit of both, and as such is neither. It is saved by King's characters - you carry on with it because you want to know what happens to them.
