The Fireman

I read a review for this book a few months back in a review journal that praised Hill's "sophomore effort" and I laughed. I guess the reviewer was unaware of "Heart Shaped Box" or "Horns". At any rate, I liked "Horns" and I loved "Nos4a2", so I was really looking forward to this one. He cribbed some things from his dad's "The Stand" (a blind boy named Nick, one of the bad guys named Harold Cross, a pregnant lady as a heroine, etc.) which he did in "Nos4a2" as well but this time around it just seemed a lot more blatant and it bugged me a bit.
A virus known as Dragonscale is sweeping the world, and it causes the infected to spontaneously combust. Society falls apart quickly, as expected. A young nurse named Harper promises her husband Jakob that if they're infected they'll commit suicide rather than burn, but when Harper finds out she's pregnant and then discovers she's infected, she realizes she'll do anything to protect her unborn child. She runs from Jakob, who is determined to make her uphold her end of the bargain, and ends up at a type of refugee camp for people infected. They've learned how to control the Dragonscale, however, so it doesn't burn them alive. One of them, a man named John who is known as the Fireman, has even managed to figure out how to use it as a weapon.
It was good, but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would, and I think because of all "The Stand" references. It just made me hyper-aware of what he was doing and I compared, even though I didn't want to. I'm really curious if anyone out there has read this one but not "The Stand" and how they feel about it.