The Stand

''THE STAND is a masterpiece'' (Guardian)

Stephen King''s apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by virus and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting and eerily plausible as when it was first published.

First came the virus. And then came 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 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 ''dark man'', the apostate of death, the warlord of the charnel house and Prince of Evil.

Now the survivors must choose between them - and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.

''A masterpiece'' GUARDIAN
''His work plumbs, with unnerving accuracy, the hopes and fears of an entire nation'' OBSERVER

Stephen King''s apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by virus and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting and eerily plausible as when it was first published.


''THE STAND is a masterpiece'' (Guardian). Set in a virus-decimated US, King''s thrilling American fantasy epic, is a Classic.

First come the days of the virus. Then come the dreams.

Dark dreams that warn of the coming of the dark man. The apostate of death, his worn-down boot heels tramping the night roads. The warlord of the charnel house and Prince of Evil.

His time is at hand. His empire grows in the west and the Apocalypse looms.

When a man crashes his car into a petrol station, he brings with him the foul corpses of his wife and daughter. He dies and it doesn''t take long for the virus which killed him to spread across America and the world.