The Stand, Part III, by Stephen King

In the end, I think I was kind of disappointed by the Stand. Now, here's where I stand on supernatural elements in fiction. I completely understand why writers or filmmakers choose to leave certain things unstated. It adds to the mystery. I haven't read Stephen King's the Shining yet, but I'm told he leaves a lot less to the imagination than Stanley Kubrick does in his film adaptation of the work. But the thing is, I'm sure after I've read the book I'll end up loving both. I love that in Jaws that you never see the shark. Or that in LOST we don't ever specifically find out what that damn island was for. I think the introduction of midichlorians was a terrible idea for the Star Wars universe.

But I also love when things get explained. And in the Stand, they really don't. You never find out what the bad guy is, or why he needs a son, or why the good guys need to stop him. You never find out what's going on in the rest of the world with all of the other people that have survived. I mean, the climax features an atomic bomb going off. The good guys did not need to go marching out to Las Vegas to die needlessly. Trashcan man blew half the state to hell. So, at the end, I guess the moral of the story is to not make fun of the mentally handicapped. I just wish that after spending 1,141 pages with this story, King could have given me a little bit more to work with. I also could have done without the fifty pages of Stu and Tom Cullen walking home. Talk about a buzz kill.

In the end, though, I liked the book. The pacing was great for a novel so large, though I would have tinkered with the structure a little bit. Character development was spectacular though. Enough lingering, though. It's on to the next book.