Oh, the stand. Everyone likes it. It's a masterpiece. It's King's at his best telling a post-apocalyptic epic mega-story lord of the rings style. It... it... 
 ..Sucks. 
 King's biggest problem in this story is size. It's too huge and too big even, and it seems a couple of times in the story he went "uhhh... how did I name this guy again? What did he do? ehh shiiit, let's just kill him and make anew dude." 
 Guys, I would give this book two stars, but the sheer effort King puts into it, it's length, and just knowing how much work this thing has been had earned him another. Honestly though, there's little more in this besides a collection of plot lines and characters stitched together to make some story take place. Yes, some of the characters develop throughout the tale (you'd hope so, with more than 1000 pages of character development opportunities), and there's even a hint that the ultimate protagonist and antagonist (god and the devil) have some sort of a plan they kind of, but not really, explain to their sub-protagonists and sub-antagonists, who then kind of, but not really, explain it to their followers. The entire novel I was waiting for the story to start, for someone to sit me down and say "OK dude, here's the plan," but it never happened. 2/3 into it I realize that King at his best means he kind of get the idea of his on epic, but not really. 
 There are little stories popping up in the middle that you can do without, character developments of a few chapters just so they can disappear in sudden death a few more pages in, living vaccum for other flat characters who popped out of no where halfway into the story, but end up having as a major role as the few who survived from the beginning. There are even parts in the book where King actually says "and so on, and so forth," which is a nice way of saying "this happened, yadda yadda, you get it, moving on." And it happens more than once. 
 Even the setting itself is boring. King might draw and OK (read: 6 out of 10) picture of post apocalyptic America, but he can't avoid places he knows well like Colorado and, of course, Maine. He counts on real-world events that could lead to such a catastrophe, but he leaves so many questions unanswered, and dumbs down the government to the point of infancy in terms of taking care of things so he could get away with a nice disaster to start everything. 
 I was very disappointed by this book, but that's what happens you judge a book by its cover - or by its author for that matter. I do like King, and I hope his "about writing" book close to heart, but this... this is bullshit man. Go get yourself something else.