The Stand

Zusatztext "A master storyteller."     -- Los Angeles Times "[ The Stand ] has everything. Adventure. Romance. Prophecy. Allegory. Satire. Fantasy. Realism. Apocalypse. Great!"     -- The New York Times Book Review "As brilliant a dark dream as has ever been dreamed in this century."     -- Palm Beach Post “An undisputed master of suspense and terror.”     —The Washington Post   “King is one of the most powerful storytellers we have. His work satisfies on first reading and is even better the second time around.”     —Chicago Tribune   “Crackling . . . with explosive climaxes.”      —The Boston Globe   “[For] those who like their horror on a humongous scale.”     —Los Angeles Times   “Peerless imagination.”     —The Observer (London) Informationen zum Autor Stephen King Klappentext Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting and eerily plausible as when it was first published. Soon to be a limited series on CBS All Access A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world's population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge-Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious "Dark Man," who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them-and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity. (This edition includes all of the new and restored material first published in The Stand: The Complete And Uncut Edition.) Leseprobe CHAPTER 1  Hapscomb's Texaco sat on Number 93 just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston. Tonight the regulars were there, sitting by the cash register, drinking beer, talking idly, watching the bugs fly into the big lighted sign. It was Bill Hapscomb's station, so the others deferred to him even though he was a pure fool. They would have expected the same deferral if they had been gathered together in one of their business establishments. Except they had none. In Arnette, it was hard times. In 1980 the town had had two industries, a factory that made paper products (for picnics and barbecues, mostly) and a plant that made electronic calculators. Now the paper factory was shut down and the calculator plant was ailing—they could make them a lot cheaper in Taiwan, it turned out, just like those portable TVs and transistor radios.  Norman Bruett and Tommy Wannamaker, who had both worked in the paper factory, were on relief, having run out of unemployment some time ago. Henry Carmichael and Stu Redman both worked at the calculator plant but rarely got more than thirty hours a week. Victor Palfrey was retired and smoked stinking home-rolled cigarettes, which were all he could afford.  "Now what I say is this," Hap told them, putting his hands on his knees and leaning forward. "They just gotta say screw this inflation shit. Screw this national debt shit. We got the presses and we got the paper. We're gonna run off fifty million thousand-dollar bills and hump them right the Christ into circulation."  Palfrey, who had been a machinist until 1984, was the only one present with sufficient self-respect to point out Hap's most obvious damfool statements. Now, rolling another of his shitty-smelling cigarettes, he said: "That wouldn't get us nowhere. If they do that, it'll be just like Richmond in the last two years of the States War. In those days, when you wanted a piece of gingerbread, you gave the baker a Confede...

Product details

• Authors: Stephen King
• Publisher: Anchor Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 07.08.2012
• EAN: 9780307947307
• ISBN: 978-0-307-94730-7
• No. of pages: 1200
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 202 mm x 50 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature