The Stand

Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil is a classic for our times. 

First came the virus. And then the dreams. A man escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out over 99 per cent of the world's population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge - the survivors must choose between them - and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.

"[The Stand] has everything  - adventure, romance, prophecy, allegory, satire, fantasy, realism, apocalypse, etc., etc... In many ways, this is a book for the 1990s, when America is beginning to see itself less and less in the tall image of Lincoln or even the robust one of Johnny Appleseed and more and more as a dazed behemoth with padded shoulders."  -  The New York Times Book Review

"A masterpiece . . . King says in the novel's introduction that he "wanted to write a fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting", and that's absolutely what he did . . . The Stand is dense and rich. Every character is full and alive."   -  The Guardian