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Under the Dome A Novel Stephen King 9781439148501 Books

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Under the Dome A Novel Stephen King 9781439148501 Books

This is a sumptuous tome that will hold you all summer long, unless, like me, you can't put it down. They say there are no stories that haven't already been written, and King has once again proven that saying to be untrue. Hugely original, and for those who like King but get squeamish when he's at his very goriest (think Cujo), you should be okay here. Brilliant work from a highly under-rated writer.


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Under the Dome A Novel Stephen King 9781439148501 Books Reviews

Let me start by saying that I've been a King fan from the beginning. But, I strayed to Dean Koontz (a hellava storyteller!) when King got weird toward the end of the 90's. Duma Key made me hopeful, although it wasn't King at his best. It was almost like he had ran out of ideas and was stringing us along with the short stories and the novellas. I had given up until 11/22/63. And, let's face it folks... the "KING" had never ran out of ideas, he was just holding back! I was back in the saddle with 11/22/63 and everything else he has written since then and it's my opinion that his work has gotten so much better with age. I never fail to be amazed that his work can seize me with fear and hope and disgust and rapture ALL AT THE SAME TIME! So, how did I manage to miss Under the Dome until now? This book popped up in my recommendations. I must have been on the outs with the Big Kahuna or under a rock when it was released. Got it in the mail on Monday. Started it during my lunch hour on Tuesday. Finished it on Saturday. It's 1074 pages. That's 1074 pages of Stephen King, folks. I had to put my life into limbo to get to the end of this novel. Hear me when I say it spun my world into a state of suspension! My family had to eat cereal, the laundry piled up, and the bed barely got slept in. I basically only showered, droned through work and rushed home to get back to this book. I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! It's The Stand meets Needful Things meets Tommyknockers meets Survivor. The basic concept is that an invisible force field claps down over a small New England town and seals them off from the rest of the world. But, throw in a megalomaniac and retired war-hero who begin trying to save the town in their own special way and what you get is King's magic. The characters you love become the characters you hate. What seems impossible becomes reality in the pages of the book and then the story begins to parallel with things that are happening in our real world. Then it's 3am and you're not sure who you hate in the book anymore because you see a little of yourself in the vilest villain King creates. But, you know one thing for sure... you can't put that book down because you're going to see where the next twist takes you!
I'm glad I saw the TV series before I read the book. I enjoyed the first two seasons; I could have done without the third. Still, although the TV series did convey the claustrophobic atmosphere of the Dome, the characters on the whole were much more likeable, and even "Big Jim" Rennie wasn't quite as villainous, although he was certainly no hero, either.

King himself, in the Author's Note, admits there is quite a large cast of characters in the novel. It seemed to me he was trying to balance the bad characters with the good. Perhaps I am overly optimistic, but I believe that most people are basically good, and especially in a town the size of Chester's Mill, with a thousand or so people, it would be hard to come up with a police force of a couple dozen people who were willing to ignore their conscience and follow Rennie's orders. And I don't think Rennie could have fooled so many people into trusting him. At one point, Colonel Cox mentioned that Rennie had done things like charging interest rates up to 40%, having people pay for their car two or three times over, and the like. There had to be enough people in Chester's Mill who knew Rennie for what he was - a greedy, heartless moneygrubber - to prevent him from acquiring so much power.

Another difference between the book and the TV series is Dale Barbara ("Barbie") spends almost three-fourths of the book in jail, whereas in the TV series he is one of the main characters and in almost every scene. Except for the few times Barbie is visited in jail, he is only active in the book in the very beginning and in the end, after his friends bust him out of jail.

Just because I liked the TV series better, that doesn't mean I didn't like the book. I did, it's just that there were times when I got really tired of reading about mean, nasty people, or people who were drug addicts or alcoholics or otherwise had serious problems. Like, for instance, Junior's brain tumor which caused him to act on impulses which must have already been there but he managed to control them until the tumor started eating away at his brain.

Speaking of which, even though the book for the most part didn't have the graphic violence of the TV series (I closed my eyes during the opening credits every time the Dome split the cow in half), there were plenty of descriptions of some pretty nasty stuff. Typical King, but somewhat restrained, for which I say a resounding "Thank you!"

I was glad that King offered an explanation for the origin of the Dome in the book (no spoilers), something the TV series never really dealt with. It reminded me of several Twilight Zone episodes, however. So many books are written these days, it's hard to come up with truly original ideas. The Dome as something that is done to people, as opposed to something that is done for people (which I've read in other science fiction books) is original. And the book doesn't have the easy answers for problems caused by the Dome that the series did.

Is the book worth reading? Definitely. But this is another case where I would advise watching the TV series first, before reading the book, simply because the series is more enjoyable - in my opinion.

It appears most people categorize this as horror/supernatural fiction, because Stephen King is a horror writer. There are a few instances where there are occurrences which could be labeled supernatural a dog hearing (and understanding) the voice of a dead person, for example. But considering the origin of the Dome and the detailed description of the effects of the explosion on the Dome, I would call this speculative fiction at the very least, if not science fiction.
This is a sumptuous tome that will hold you all summer long, unless, like me, you can't put it down. They say there are no stories that haven't already been written, and King has once again proven that saying to be untrue. Hugely original, and for those who like King but get squeamish when he's at his very goriest (think Cujo), you should be okay here. Brilliant work from a highly under-rated writer.