How I miss you Las Vegas...
A new story entry has been added:
Why I Hate The Stand
If you haven't read Stephen King's The Stand you should turn back now. Trust me. If you find out the ending prematurely, you are going to end up missing out on everything good in the novel and you won't be able to enjoy it the way you should. And yes, despite the fact that I hate it with every fiber of my being, it is a very enjoyable book.</p>
Now then. Are we only left with people who are familiar with the story and probably think I have no taste for trashing it? Good.
Except for that angry fist of God thing, I always thought Vegas sounded like the better choice.
So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.
You know, I have often thought that Stephen King has problems with his endings, although I suddenly can't think of other examples. Except the Dark Tower, obviously.
Last edited by Orual; 02 Nov 2010 at 11:13 AM.
Actually IT was a pretty bad ending to a compelling book.
I never read the book, but I watched the miniseries. I, too, was left with a big dose of "What was the point of all that?"
Unless the point is that God is just plain nuts. Which is possible, I suppose, but lacks something from a story-telling point of view.
Thank you for making me choke on my tea.
Yeah, there really didn't seem to be much of a point. I'm totally willing to accept that within the confines of The Stand's universe God is not omnipotent and requires the Boulder people to take action. But coupling that with "God is gonna nuke ya" just makes the whole thing very bizarre.
So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.
Yeah, he does get a bit weak on his endings. The Dark Tower, The Stand, and IT are probably the worst, but they're usually a bit lame in comparison to what came before. Firestarter had a good climactic battle and all, but the resolution always struck me as lame. Maybe Rolling Stone magazine was very different back then.
I had a similar experience with The Stand. Great first half; then all the supernatural crap starts. God, the Devil, visionary dreams. If I hadn't already been, that book might have made me an atheist.
I Stephen King's best stories work because of vivid characters and solid storytelling, not because of ghosts or monsters. Misery was my favorite book of his; nothing supernatural. And for Christ's sake, keep him away from aliens or any kind of science fiction. He has a bright ten-year-old's understanding of science. (I remember in The Stand, Trashman somehow manages to get radiation poisoning in the process of picking up a nuclear warhead and bringing it back to Las Vegas. Not sure how King thought that would happen.)
God, yes. Exactly. The plague and the aftermath was great. The supernatural elements that weren't even interally consistent were just awful. I considered pointing out that you couldn't set off a nuclear warhead in the way it was described in the book, but I suppose if it's the hand of an insane god anything is possible.
when i first saw this, i thought it was going to be about why SONES (snsd fans) hated the STAND (snsd haters)
sorry...