This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.<br><br>And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides -- or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abigail -- and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.<br><br>In 1978 Stephen King published <i>The Stand</i>, the novel that is now considered to be one of his finest works. But as it was first published, <i>The Stand</i> was incomplete, since more than 150,000 words had been cut from the original manuscript.<br><br>Now Stephen King's apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and embroiled in an elemental struggle between good and evil has been restored to its entirety. <i>The Stand</i> : <i>The Complete And Uncut Edition</i> includes more than five hundred pages of material previously deleted, along with new material that King added as he reworked the manuscript for a new generation. It gives us new characters and endows familiar ones with new depths. It has a new beginning and a new ending. What emerges is a gripping work with the scope and moral comlexity of a true epic.<br><br>For hundreds of thousands of fans who read <i>The Stand</i> in its original version and wanted more, this new edition is Stephen King's gift. And those who are reading <i>The Stand</i> for the first time will discover a triumphant and eerily plausible work of the imagination that takes on the issues that will determine our survival.