uncut and not

[Lily Sawyer]

It's a no-brainer: un-cut. You'll thank yourself when you DO get around to reading the abridged version and wonder what the hell Mr. King's editors were thinking at the time.

[JohnDalglish]

It's a no-brainer: un-cut. You'll thank yourself when you DO get around to reading the abridged version and wonder what the hell Mr. King's editors were thinking at the time.

Hi,

Mr. King's editors and publishers were thinking about profit margins and shareholders dividends, just as they usually do, unfortunately.

Long days and pleasant nights

[THISisWHEREiMAKEmySTAND]

I think uncut is the only way to go! The orginal was great, but its even better when you can read it as King himself intended

[moonhoney2]

I agree with the others. When it came out, the company I was working at packaged the books and displays. I nearly wet my pants when I found out it was in the warehouse. My boss took pity and gave me a copy before they shipped out. LOL

There is so much more background on the characters, it gives you more insight to them. I still have my tattered original, but it's only for show now. LOL

[BlackThorn]

Better? Do you like King or not? When I was younger, I was introduced to the cut version first. The only thing I had ever read otherwise, was some short stories. One of them was King's "Night Surf", where there are a few flu survivors that aren't effected by the plague at all, and no standing in it either, they just go to the beach. It was a separate shade of the story completely, in a way.

So I started with wanting to read 'The Stand' with what I got my hands on first, which was the original cut version.

I liked it just fine, it was great and everything, but it was abridged. Maybe it was right to be, because it is otherwise a very long story, and you have to appreciate King's writing style completely to want a 1,100 page book instead of a 700 page book about the end of the world.

Since I had already gotten into the story, and really enjoyed it, I absolutely loved getting my hands on the uncut and updated version. There were a few things King updated to the times within the change from original to newer, as well as King getting to put back in everything he was forced to chop out originally. They let him edit it down, so he got to hack pieces of the story away...

But if you love the longer extended directors cuts pretty much always, and enjoy what's going on with the characters and would be interested in hearing the extras, then you'd want to skip the original. When I reread, I don't even consider the original an option.

But I'm obsessed with deleted scenes and concepts the director decided to take out in order to mull the masses anyway... I never put in the non extended edition of The Abyss anymore either. The same with The Terminator Extended Edition. I remember the original, and it was just less. I don't care if it doesn't flow properly, I remember when it did, so the extra is just gravy on an old story I grew up with.

If King is kind of rambly to you, then obviously, take the original cut one. King left in all the sharp important stuff. And if your attention span is non existant, watch the tv-series version. Rita is somehow morphed into Nadine in that one. No pure white woman of prophesy and protector of Joe in that in that one. Flagg wants a trashy virgin pill head instead. Okay, well, she still made me hot...

[Checkman]

The only complaint I have about the Unabridged version was the Mr. King felt the need to update it to 1990. The story has a seventies vibe to it and the update felt out of sync to me. Now I don't have a solution for that. The first edition (hardback 1978) the story takes place in 1980, but for the 1980 paperback printing they moved the date to 1985 and kept it there for the next eight years. In 89 out came the unabridged version.

It was almost like a tradition by the time the unabridged version was released to "update" the time period. To keep it in 1980 whne the seventies "vibe" worked it would have to have taken place in an alternate timeline. Not sure that would have been real appropriate.

So my quibble is a minor one a best. The unabridged version is more powerful and just more interesting. But I own both copies.