This is the way the world ends: with nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world the day after: A world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in whice a handful of panicky survivors choose sides or are chosen. A world in whice good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail, and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakeable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.

In 1978 Stephen King published The Stand, this novel is now considered one of his finest works. The first book of The Stand had about 150,000 words cut from the manuscript. The Stand: Complete & Uncut has more than 500 pages of material that was deleted from the first book.