This book is heavily tied to a dark vs. light storyline, with a side of human ambition being our downfall. The U.S. government has secretly created a bio-weaponized disease in a secret facility in the Mojave Desert that is accidentally released when something in the facility goes wrong. One! Just one person, does not follow protocol and flees the hidden post with his wife and daughter. Within hours, they are succumbing to the disease and end up crashing into a gas station where a group of 5 men are hanging out. This begins the spread of this superflu, which is dubbed “Captain Tripps”.
Imagine all the worst-case scenarios you’ve seen in movies where the spread of disease is on an apocalyptic level, like Contagion from 2011 where it’s like a number to the exponent of itself, but then the result does the same thing. Here’s an example. This is taking place in the first, probably, 500 pages of the book, with a select number of people who are immune to Tripps, and while this is happening we are following several primary characters (good and bad) through their own journeys to survive. There are dreams brought on by either Mother Abigail (good guys) or Randall Flagg (bad guys) that bring groups of them together and they end up traveling to either Boulder, Co. or Las Vegas, Nv., respectively. The thing that I liked about this was the immunity had NOTHING to do with someone’s character, it was purely a luck of the draw. So you still end up with all varieties of people from genuinely good to horribly evil.
There is a lot of disability rep in this book as well, but don’t expect it to be handled with the same sensitivity as we have today. This is approached from a mindset of the 1970’s when people were not nearly as careful with how they spoke. If you are one who is opposed to certain dated terminology, like “deaf and dumb” to refer to someone who is deaf and mute skip this book or be prepared. There is a lot to get mad about in this book, so skip it if you are a member of the sensitivity police. It’s just going to piss you off, and this book is not intended to be PC.
If you are a fan of apocalyptic or dystopian fantasy I would highly recommend this book, it is an amazing book even if it is one of the chunkiest around. The story is intricate and compelling and proves just how amazing a storyteller Stephen King is, and while he can be the “king” of overkill when it comes to his descriptions, he balances it well in this story. I was highly invested in the characters, and that says a lot for how much they grew and developed through the story. If you really enjoy a light vs. dark trope, this book has all the elements that make a battle between these entities interesting.
Originally posted at youtu.be.
This book is heavily tied to a dark vs. light storyline, with a side of human ambition being our downfall. The U.S. government has secretly created a bio-weaponized disease in a secret facility in the Mojave Desert that is accidentally released when something in the facility goes wrong. One! Just one person, does not follow protocol and flees the hidden post with his wife and daughter. Within hours, they are succumbing to the disease and end up crashing into a gas station where a group of 5 men are hanging out. This begins the spread of this superflu, which is dubbed “Captain Tripps”.
Imagine all the worst-case scenarios you’ve seen in movies where the spread of disease is on an apocalyptic level, like Contagion from 2011 where it’s like a number to the exponent of itself, but then the result does the same thing. Here’s an example. This is taking place in the first, probably, 500 pages of the book, with a select number of people who are immune to Tripps, and while this is happening we are following several primary characters (good and bad) through their own journeys to survive. There are dreams brought on by either Mother Abigail (good guys) or Randall Flagg (bad guys) that bring groups of them together and they end up traveling to either Boulder, Co. or Las Vegas, Nv., respectively. The thing that I liked about this was the immunity had NOTHING to do with someone’s character, it was purely a luck of the draw. So you still end up with all varieties of people from genuinely good to horribly evil.
There is a lot of disability rep in this book as well, but don’t expect it to be handled with the same sensitivity as we have today. This is approached from a mindset of the 1970’s when people were not nearly as careful with how they spoke. If you are one who is opposed to certain dated terminology, like “deaf and dumb” to refer to someone who is deaf and mute skip this book or be prepared. There is a lot to get mad about in this book, so skip it if you are a member of the sensitivity police. It’s just going to piss you off, and this book is not intended to be PC.
If you are a fan of apocalyptic or dystopian fantasy I would highly recommend this book, it is an amazing book even if it is one of the chunkiest around. The story is intricate and compelling and proves just how amazing a storyteller Stephen King is, and while he can be the “king” of overkill when it comes to his descriptions, he balances it well in this story. I was highly invested in the characters, and that says a lot for how much they grew and developed through the story. If you really enjoy a light vs. dark trope, this book has all the elements that make a battle between these entities interesting.
Originally posted at youtu.be.