To each their own Irish but my $0.02 is that The Stand is definitely worth the investment and you would slightly ruin your enjoyment of the book if you watch the miniseries first. shhh

King's done a lot in the years since and tied a lot of storylines together in his Dark Tower series and crossovers with Straub but I think The Stand is one of his top five works. I believe he's described it as in part his take on creating an American Lord of The Rings. There's a lot of stuff going on in there, at some points it's almost stream of consciousness type writing. I have to always go back to revisit subplots and characters I forgot about.

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.