Publishers Weekly
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Survivors of a chemical weapon called superflu confront pure evil in this updated and even more massive version of King's 1978 saga. ``The extra 400 or so pages . . . make King's best novel better still,'' said PW. `` A new beginning adds verisimilitude to an already frighteningly believable story, while a new ending opens up possibilities for a sequel . '' (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Library Journal
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Released in 1978, King's apocalyptic novel, even at a whopping 1200-plus pages, had been trimmed by 150,000 words. A restored version followed in 1990, and that unexpurgated text here makes its audiobook debut-and it's well worth the wait. The story offers the author's signature scenes of horror, but King devotes much time to describing a world gone mad and the people left to populate it after a virus wipes out most of the planet's population. Even though there are hundreds of characters, only a handful are primary, and King shows his skill at making them real, as the uncanny talent of narrator Grover Gardner brings them to life. His reading is flawless, his timing is spot-on, and his slightly Southern accent makes even curse words sound amusing. VERDICT Despite the price and the daunting listening time, this audiobook belongs in every library.-Joseph L. Carlson, Vandenberg Air Force Base Lib., Lompoc, CA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Striking a far less hysterical tone than in The Shining, King has written his most sweeping horror novel in The Stand, though it may lack the spinal jingles of 'Salem's Lot. In part this is because The Stand, with its flow of hundreds of brand-name products, is a kind of inventory of American culture. ""Superflu"" has hit the U.S. and the world, rapidly wiping out the whole of civilization--excepting the one-half of one percent who are immune. Superflu is a virus with a shifting antigen base; that is, it can kill every type of antibody the human organism can muster against it. Immunity seems to be a gift from God--or the Devil The Devil himself has become embodied in a clairvoyant called Randall Flagg, a phantom-y fellow who walks highways and is known variously as ""the dark man"" or ""the Walking Dude"" and who has set up a new empire in Las Vegas where he rules by fear, his hair giving off sparks while he floats in the lotus position. He is very angry because the immune folks in the Free Zone up at Boulder have sent a small force against him; they get their message from Him (God) through a dying black crone named Abigail, who is also clairvoyant. There are only four in this Boulder crew, led by Stu Redman from East Texas, who is in love with pregnant Fran back in the Free Zone. Good and Evil come to an atomic clash at the climax, the Book of Revelations working itself out rather too explicitly. But more importantly, there are memorable scenes of the superflu spreading hideously, Fifth Avenue choked with dead cars, Flagg's minions putting up fresh lightbulbs all over Vegas. . . . Some King fins will be put off by the pretensions here; most will embrace them along with the earthier chilis. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Publishers Weekly
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In its 1978 incarnation, The Stand was a healthy, hefty 823-pager. Now, King and Doubleday are republishing The Stand in the gigantic version in which, according to King, it was originally written. Not true . The same excellent tale of the walking dude, the chemical warfare weapon called superflu and the confrontation between its survivors has been updated to 1990, so references to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Reagan years, Roger Rabbit and AIDS are unnecessarily forced into the mouths of King's late-'70s characters. That said, the extra 400 or so pages of subplots, character development, conversation, interior dialogue, spiritual soul-searching, blood, bone and gristle make King's best novel better still. A new beginning adds verisimilitude to an already frighteningly believable story, while a new ending opens up possibilities for a sequel. Sheer size makes an Everest of the whole deal. BOMC selection, QPB main selection. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

King's fifth novel returns, 12 years after its first publication, with 230 of its original pages restored. There is also some new writing in the present 1,153 pages of what is now King's longest creation--all has been updated ten years to include references to AIDS, Roger Rabbit, and more recent happenings. But the plot is almost utterly the same, only with more incidents and details deepening the characters. Essentially, if you've read the novel in its shorter form, you've read the novel and don't need to read the new version--unless you're a King fanatic, of course. But what do the new pages do? They give a creamy expansiveness to the flow--but then also delay the book's getting into its big stride: the heat between the story's rival forces doesn't begin until about page 700. And, strangely enough, the long version is a faster, smoother read, less difficult to take in than the short version. Sadly, though, the story's most powerful pages--a very long description of N.Y.C. emptied of human life by a super-flu plague, and a trek through the darkness of a Lincoln Tunnel crammed with dead vehicles and dead people--comes around page 400 and is such a strong, intense passage that nothing that follows equals it. What one gets is King's proletariat cast enacting a story that takes itself seriously, but seems to spring from an imagination fed on comic books, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Bruce Springsteen. The story: a plague virus escapes from a California germ-warfare lab and knocks out nearly all human life. A small group of Americans, drawn from the East and West, gathers at Boulder, Colorado, and finds itself in psychic battle with the forces of evil--forces that are entrenched in Las Vegas and led by Satan in the guise of one Randall Flagg. A team of good guys infiltrates the bad guys, but it is the bad guys who bring about their own destruction with an atomic explosion--which is also seen as the hand of God engineering the Apocalypse. A last new touch has Flagg survive the bomb and start his campaign all over by perverting a primitive jungle tribe with civilization. For many, a haunting experience given its greatest life by scenes of devastation, although The Shining is artistically more complex and satisfying. And what can be said about the prole values King celebrates in book after book? Tiresome, man. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.