The Stand

Doubleday (1978)

EPIC TERROR TO CHILL YOUR DREAMS
June 16, 1985. That is when the horror began - the evil that started in a laboratory and took over America. Those who died quickly were the lucky ones. For the scattered survivors, wandering through a country turned into a gigantic graveyard, life has become a nightmare struggle. They escaped death, but now something even more terrifying is waiting to claim them - the most fiendish force ever to seek all humanity as slaves and victims. A strange, faceless, clairvoyant figure that is reaching for their very souls...

Main Characters

Randall Flagg
the personification of evil also known as The Walking Dude, RF, Ahaz, The Dark Man, The Man with No Face, Anubis, Astaroth, Richard Fry, Ramsey Forrest, Robert Franq, John the Conqueror, The Midnight Rambler, Nyarlohotep, Old Creeping Judas, R'yelah, Seti, he can also be found in several other King works like The Dark Tower series.
Nick Andros
a deaf-mute who becomes a charter member of the ad hoc committee in the Free Zone.
Glen Bateman
a sixtyish assistant professor of sociology who met up with Stu Redman, a charter member of the Free Zone ad hoc committee, and he traveled to Las Vegas to fulfill Mother Abagail's final instructions.
Kojak (Big Steve)
Glen Bateman's dog
Rita Blakemore
Met Larry Underwood in Central Park, they travelled together until she died.
Ralph Brentner
Fortish man who picked up Nick and Tom on their way out of Kansas, became part of the final company who went to Las Vegas to confront Flagg
Charles D. Campion
the government employee who fled from the biological testing site when Project Blue fell apart and hit the gas pumps at Hapscomb's Texaco.
Nadine Cross
Woman Larry Underwood met at a New England Farmhouse. Flagg eventually chose her as his wife, and she cheated him out of a son by jumping out of a window in Las Vegas.
Tom Cullen
retarded man Nick met on Main street in May, OK. He was sent as a spy to Las Vegas. He saves Stu Redman's life.
Donald Merwin Elbert (Trashcan Man)
He liked to set fires. One of Flagg's men who brought the atomic bomb to Las Vegas
Richard (Dick) Ellis
The veterinarian who was part of Nick Andros's company that went to Mother Abagail's.
Judge Richard Farris
70 year old man who joined Larry Underwood's group. He was one of three spies sent to Las Vegas
Mother Abigail Freemantle
the 108 year old black woman who summoned the good guys through dreams
Frannie (Frances Rebecca) Goldsmith
Travelled with Harold, met and married Stu and had the first baby in the Free Zone which managed to survive after the plague
Lloyd Henreid
Became Flagg's right hand man in Las Vegas
Harold Emery Lauder
Traveled to the Free Zone with Stu and Frannie. He eventually gave into the powers of darkness and blew up Nick Andros' house.
Julie Lawry
the 16 year old girl Nick met in the drugstore, she wound up in Las Vegas and identified Tom as one of the spies from the Free Zone to Flagg.
Stu Redman
Became the marshall of the Free Zone, married Frannie and was the only survivor from the journey to Las Vegas.
Larry Underwood
a singer-songwriter who becomes one of the charter members of the Free Zone ad hoc committee, and makes the journey to Las Vegas.
Notes of Interest:
  1. Flagg at one time tells his men that Anubis is another of his names, Anubis was an Egyptian god of Mortuarey, circa 2700 BC - 400 ad. Anbus is a son of Re and either Nephthys or Isis. He takes the form of a black dog or jackal with ears pricked and long tail hanging. He was sometimes known as the claimer of hearts.
  2. Flagg at one time tells his men that Ahaz is another of his names. Ahaz reigned 735-715 BC as the 12th king of Judah. Judah was attacked early in his reign by King Pekah of Isreal and King Rezin of Syria, who attempted to force Ahaz into a coalition agains Assyria. Additional incursions were made into Judaean teritory by the Edomites, to who Ahaz was forced to give up the important city of Elath (now Aqaba, Jordan). Ahaz asked help of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III, who drove out the invaders but in return exacted tribute from Judah. Ahaz made various changes in the temple service and paid homage to the Assyrian gods. He was denounced for infidelity to Jehovah by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, who opposed the alliance with Assyria.
  3. When Larry is taken into custody in Utah he tells Flagg's men that staroth is another of his names. Astaroth is a plural from of the name Astoreth and used as a collective anem for godesses. Astyoreth is the Palestinian and Philistine Fertility and war goddess, circa 1200 bc - 200 bc. She was adopted, typically, as goddess of both love and war. She is usually depicted waring a horned headdress.
  4. When Larry was taken into custody in Utah he tells Flagg's men that Nyarlathotep is another of Flagg's names. Nyarlathotep is a god of the Cthulhu Mythos created by H.P. Lovecraft. He is said to take on the appearance of a tall dark man. He is the crawling chaos, and a messenger of the gods. His progress across the face of the land is followed by riot, war, mass murder, suicide and insanity.


The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition

Doubleday (1990)

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 Abigail - 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 in 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 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.

February 1975 - December 1988


[Stephen King's books]

Ed Nomura

Last updated: Mar 28, 1996