This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error
in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that
form the links in a chain letter of death.
And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its
institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a
handful of panicky survivors choose sides--or are chosen. A world in which
good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail-- and
and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile
and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.
In 1978 Stephen King published The Stand, the novel that is now
considered one of his finest works. But as it was first published, The Stand was incomplete, since more than 150,000 words had been cut from the
original manuscript.
Now Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and
embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil has been restored
to its entirety. The Stand: The Complete & Uncut Edition includes more
than 500 pages of material deleted, along with new material that King added
as he reworked the manuscript for a new generation. It gives us new
characters and endows familiar ones with new depths. It has a new beginning
and a new ending. What emerges is a gripping work with the scope and moral
complexity of a true epic.
For the hundreds of thousands of fans who read The Stand in its original
version and wanted more, this new edition is Stephen King's gift. And those
who are now reading The Stand for the first time will discover a
triumphant and eerily plausible work of the imagination that takes on the
issues that will determine our survival.
The Stand
Stephen King
First published : 1978
Second published : 1990
