Stephen King, The Stand Review

Overall Rating

The Stand by Stephen King is a classic story of good versus evil. It starts with the spreading of a virus from a government research facility that goes on to ravage the population of the United States - I can't recall other continents being mentioned - save for a few survivors.
The survivors are then seperated into two camps. Those that serve evil (in the shape of randall flagg) and those that serve good (in the god-like form of Abigail). As the good camp, set-up in Boulder, Colorado attempt to live in peace, the evil camp begins salvaging weapons for an attack to wipe out their fellow survivors.

it's a gripping read from start to finish, with a Tolkien-esque split of good and evil (there are no in-betweens). The characters are well developed and their individual story arcs blend nicely when they meet up in their respective locations.
It suffers from pacing issue due to the density of some chapters (a popular fault with Kings work) but it levels out towards the end.

An excellent book. A little dense in places but Kings best by far.