Under the Dome: A Novel by Stephen King (MOBI)

Description

Don’t miss the “harrowing” (The Washington Post) #1 New York Times bestselling thriller from Stephen King that inspired the hit television series, following the apocalyptic scenario of a town cut off from the rest of the world.On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when — or if — it will go away. Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens — town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing — even murder — to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Amazon.com Review Amazon Exclusive: Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan Reviews Under the Dome Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan share their enthusiasm for Stephen King’s thriller, Under the Dome. This pair of reviewers knows a thing or two about the art of crafting a great thriller. Del Toro is the Oscar-nominated director of international blockbuster films, including Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy. Hogan is the author of several acclaimed novels, including The Standoff and Prince of Thieves, which won the International Association of Crime Writer’s Dashiell Hammett Award in 2005. The two recently collaborated to write the bestselling horror novel, The Strain, the first of a proposed trilogy. Read their exclusive Amazon guest review of Under the Dome: The first thing readers might find scary about Stephen King’s Under The Dome is its length. The second is the elaborate town map and list of characters at the front of the book (including “Dogs of Note”), which sometimes portends, you know, heavy lifting. Don’t you believe it. Breathless pacing and effortless characterization are the hallmarks of King’s best books, and here the writing is immersive, the suspense unrelenting. The pages turn so fast that your hand–or Kindle-clicking thumb–will barely be able to keep up. You Are Here. Nobody yarns a “What if?” like Stephen King. Nobody. The implausibility of a dome sealing off an entire city–a motif seen before in pulp magazines and on comic book covers–is given the most elaborate real-life alibi by crafting details, observations, and insights that make us nod silently while we read. Promotional materials reference The Stand in comparison, but we liken Under The Dome more to King’s excellent novella, The Mist: another locked-door situation on an epic scale, a tour-de-force in which external stressors bake off the civility of a small town full of dark secrets, exposing souls both very good…and very, very bad. Yes, “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” but there is so much more this time. The expansion of King’s diorama does not simply take a one-street fable and turn it into a town, but finds new life for old archetypes, making them morally complex and attuned to our world today. It makes them relevant and affecting once again. And the beauty of it all is that the final lesson, the great insight that is gained at the end of this draining journey, is not a righteous 1950’s sermon but an incredibly moving and simple truth. A nugget of wisdom you’ll be using as soon as you turn the last page. This Is Now. Along the way, you get bravura writing, especially featuring the town kids, and a delicious death aria involving one of the most nefarious characters–who dies alone, but not really–as well as a few laugh-out-loud moments, and a cameo (of sorts) by none other than Jack Reacher. Indeed–whether during a much-needed comfort break, or a therapeutic hand-flexing–you may find yourself wondering, “Is this a horror novel? Or is it a thriller?” The answer, of course, is: Yes, yes, yes. “…the blood hits the wall like it always hits the wall.” It seems impossible that, as he enters his sixth decade of publishing, the dean of dark fiction could add to his vast readership. But that is precisely what will happen…when the Dome drops.Now Go Read It. –Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck HoganThe Story Behind the CoverClick on image to enlarge The jacket concept for Under the Dome originated as an ambitious idea from the mind of Stephen King. The artwork is a combination of photographs, illustration and 3-D rendering. This is a departure from the direction of King’s most recent illustrated covers. In order to achieve the arresting image for this jacket, Scribner art director Rex Bonomelli had to seek out artists who could do a convincing job of creating a realistic portrayal of the town of Chester’s Mill, the setting of the novel. Bonomelli found the perfect team of digital artists, based in South America and New York, whose cutting edge work had previously been devoted to advertisement campaigns. This was their first book jacket and an exciting venture for them. “They are used to working with the demands of corporate clients,” says Bonomelli. “We gave them freedom and are thrilled with what they came up with.” The CGI (computer generated imagery) enhanced image looks more like something made for the big screen than for the page and is sure to make a lasting impact on King fans. Meet the Characters Dale BarbaraBarbie, a drifter, ex-army, walks with a burden of guilt from the time he spent in Iraq. Working as a short-order cook at Sweetbriar Rose is the closest thing he’s had to a family life. When his old commander, Colonel Cox, calls from outside, Barbie’s burden becomes the town itself. Julia ShumwayThe attractive Editor and Publisher of the local town newspaper, The Chester’s Mill Democrat, Julia is self-assured and Republican to the core, but she is drawn to Barbie and discovers, when it matters most, that her most vulnerable moment might be her most liberating. Jim Rennie, Sr.”Big Jim.” A used car dealer with a fierce smile and no warmth, he’d given his heart to Jesus at age sixteen and had little left for his customers, his neighbors, or his dying wife and deteriorating son. The town’s Second Selectman, he’s used to having things his way. He walks like a man who has spent his life kicking ass. Joseph McClatcheyScarecrow Joe, a 13-year-old also known as “King of the Geeks” and “Skeletor, a bona fide brain whose backpack bears the legend “fight the powers that be.” He’s smarter than anyone, and proves it in a crisis. Chester’s Mill, Maine (click on image to enlarge) From Publishers Weekly King’s return to supernatural horror is uncomfortably bulky, formidably complex and irresistibly compelling. When the smalltown of Chester’s Mill, Maine, is surrounded by an invisible force field, the people inside must exert themselves to survive. The situation deteriorates rapidly due to the dome’s ecological effects and the machinations of Big Jim Rennie, an obscenely sanctimonious local politician and drug lord who likes the idea of having an isolated populace to dominate. Opposing him are footloose Iraq veteran Dale “Barbie” Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a gaggle of teen skateboarders and others who want to solve the riddle of the dome. King handles the huge cast of characters masterfully but ruthlessly, forcing them to live (or not) with the consequences of hasty decisions. Readers will recognize themes and images from King’s earlier fiction, and while this novel doesn’t have the moral weight of, say, The Stand, nevertheless, it’s a nonstop thrill ride as well as a disturbing, moving meditation on our capacity for good and evil. (Nov.) From Bookmarks Magazine Stephen King. Come for the story, stay for the, well … stay for the story. Even the most positive reviewers of King’s latest doorstop felt compelled to mention King’s writing style: how he drops a bad sentence every now and then or knocks out a few lines of tinny dialogue. Whom are the critics kidding? After keeping the publishing industry solvent since the Ford administration, King has become review proof. Sure, Under the Dome is a bit of social commentary and satire thinly disguised as a bloodbath. In Chester’s Mill, the only thing higher than the price of propane is the body count. But that’s the fun, and King is at full throttle. Read the book. Enjoy it. There will be no quiz. Review “Propulsively intriguing… Staggeringly addictive.” — USA Today”Tight and energetic from start to finish… Hard as this thing is to hoist, it’s even harder to put down.” — New York Times”The work of a master storyteller having a whole lot of fun.” — Los Angeles Times”King returns to his glory days of The Stand.” — New York Daily News”A wildly entertaining trip.” — People (3.5 stars)”Under the Dome moves so fast and grips the reader so tightly that it’s practically incapacitating.” — Newsday”Stephen King’s Under the Dome was one of my favourite books of the year so far.” — Neil Gaiman”Dome is classic King, sure to please any fan.” — Baltimore Sun”Spellbinding.” — ABCnews.com About the Author Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, and Doctor Sleep are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. From The Washington Post From The Washington Post’s Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by by Graham Joyce In 2002 Stephen King announced that he’d given up writing. Yes, and the Queen of England said she’d had it with servants and fancy carriages and was off to do volunteer work in Somalia. . . . You can’t write 2,000 words a day for more than three decades and suddenly stop. Because, as King knows perfectly well, you don’t give up writing; writing gives up you, but only when it’s good and done with you. And writing isn’t done with King, not by a long shot. Here we are, several years after this putative abdication, with a novel that comes thumping in at more than 1,000 pages. In an author’s note, King says he started “Under the Dome” in 1976 but then “crept away from it with my tail between my legs. . . . I was terrified of screwing it up.” Fortunately, he found the confidence to return to this daunting story because the result is one of his most powerful novels ever. On a beautiful, crisp October morning in Chester’s Mill, Maine, a plane falls from the sky; a farmer’s John Deere blows up, taking the farmer with it; a woman’s hand is severed; a truck crashes into nothing. A transparent dome has mysteriously descended over the town’s perimeter, sealing it off from the outside world. This science-fiction premise isn’t new, but there is more than one way to seal a dome. It’s a literary technique we might call the crucible: a simple device to contain the characters and restrict flight from the drama ahead, enabling the author by increments to turn up the heat. “Lord of the Flies” is a classic example, circumscribing events by trapping those boys on an island. The dome itself is not terribly important, and once it is in situ, it allows the author to get on with his real purpose. That purpose reveals King’s greatest qualities as a writer. Life under the dome, with finite resources and with the best and worst of human nature emerging, soon deteriorates. Small-town politicians and newspaper publishers adopt conflicting positions. There is a scramble for resources. The air quickly becomes polluted. Citizens start to panic, and corruption, in the form of sleazy, villainous alderman Jim Rennie, drives the town and its police force as martial law takes over. Outside, the government’s efforts to puncture the dome are useless. Federal officials think they have a man on the inside, ex-captain now short-order cook Dale Barbara, a disillusioned veteran of the Persian Gulf War. The government wants to concentrate its efforts through Barbara, and we see the town through his eyes, too. Only trouble is, Rennie and his ragtag police force take exception to the idea of Barbara exercising any authority. Rennie also wants to keep hidden his lucrative sideline in the manufacture of crystal meth. Very early the story begins to trigger strange echoes, because we are deep in the world of a cleverly operated allegory. Yet never once do we doubt the veracity of this large cast of characters. The psychological insight into these small-town people is pin-sharp, vivid and utterly convincing. King’s greatness lies in his uncanny genius for creating characters and understanding the hive-mind of a community. The dome itself remains pretty much the only supernatural element in the novel (give or take some references to the super-sensitivity of dogs). Unlike “The Stand,” another book with a large cast and often considered to be King’s best, this is a realist novel. It’s also a foot-on-the-gas-narrative told in breathless idiomatic style. King couldn’t give two hoots for ornamental language or lyrical phrasing, but you’ve got to admire him for making this so compelling. Although he’s an undisputed master of suspense and terror, what gives King’s work heft is his moral clarity. The harrowing climax of “Under the Dome” stems from a humane vision. It’s another work in an oeuvre that identifies compassion as the antidote to evil, whether that evil be human or supernatural. And our stock of literature in the great American Gothic tradition is brilliantly replenished because of it. bookworld@washpost.com Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐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!

⭐The story is entertaining though much of this book and the voice performance is really great (baaaarbie), but Stephen Kings loony left wing bias just pops it’s ugly head up way too often. It’s distracting and takes a lot away from the story. Really? Every white male christian is an evil crack addicted psychopath Nazi rapist and every journalist is like a cherub from heaven!? Come on dude. I know this is fiction, but these old cliches are not only unbelievable, they are tre booooooring. If I knew it would have been like this I would not have purchased this audio book.

⭐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.

⭐The influence for The Dome may well have come from the works of John Wyndham, but that’s where any similarities end. Wyndham wrote lean, intelligent stories, The Dome is neither lean or intelligent. It’s not just the sheer, exhausting, length of The Dome that is problematic. The quality of the writing and characterisation is notably poorer than in King’s earlier books, and you simply don’t care what happens as Chester’s Mill tries to make sense of being covered by a huge, invisible dome and quickly disintegrates as a community. Indeed, the first few pages of The Dome read like something that even James Herbert would have rejected, it’s that poor. King has explored small town America way better than this, so in lots of ways this feels like a mighty long and totally unnecessary addition to his list of titles. Even as a skim read, it is very hard going. Avoid.

⭐It has been a few years since I last read this, but re-reading it now and as time goes by, you start to notice more of the things that are wrong with this tale. Of course, we can all see inspiration for the dome of this tale coming from The Simpsons Movie, which came out the year Stephen King started to write this.There is a lot of action here as this goes from normal narration to at times panoramic narration with the author guiding us, which does work more than okay here. Set in a small town so we have what King is best at, small town characters and scenery, but here we also have the epic. As Chester’s Mill in Maine finds itself suddenly cut off from the outside world as a dome surrounds the environs so we read what happens, with deaths as the dome comes into being, and so on. This tries to then tackle corruption and politics, as well as environmental disaster along with the usual themes of the author’s works. Unfortunately, the baddie here in the town is James ‘Big Jim’ Rennie, who comes across by the end more like some pantomime villain, that you just want to boo and hiss at. Using his political office, so he has the town wrapped around his little finger and is determined to keep his grasp on it. His son James ‘Junior’ Rennie seems to be just as bad in some ways, but at least we know he has something wrong with him.We are certainly drawn in from the beginning as we read of the events that happen as the dome goes up, but this is a rather baggy affair, and long before the end you start to realise that the plot holding the whole story together is just too flimsy. We have Big Jim running affairs his own way, with his corruption and so on, with hardly anyone noticing, and we see this comes to a head, but the actual novel only takes us through about a week in the life of Chester’s Mill, where things are thus speeded up and the improbable, or the things that would happen over a much longer period become too exaggerated. On top of this we have aliens and ghosts, which do not fit in that well with the rest of the story, thus causing at times some unpleasant jarring.This book goes for a broad saga type tale, such as The Stand, but never really pulls this off, and although we do have a good build-up to the end we are let down with a fizzle, because as we all know King is not the greatest when it comes to dramatic closures. In all then this book is an okay read, indeed even a good one if you do not think about what you are reading. We all know that this was a bestseller, and millions of people have enjoyed this, and we know that it was a critique of the George W Bush administration, so it does make you wonder why people voted for Donald Trump, and in this country Boris Johnson, two people who have the moral vacuum of Big Jim.

⭐Stephen King continues his reign as one of the best storytellers around. Under the Dome is an epic story about the small town of Chester’s Mill and its inhabitants who are cut off from the rest of the world by a mysterious dome.I’ve read quite a few of King’s books now and I’m always impressed by his ability to weave an engrossing story. Under the Dome is no different as it dives into the action almost immediately, introducing the town itself and the many characters. King explores how this small town and its inhabitants react to this extraordinary set of circumstances, revealing the best and worst of human nature as characters such as Barbie, Julia and Rusty attempt to hold things together whilst ‘Big’ Jim Rennie and his cronies exploit the fear and apprehension of residents for their own gain. It’s a fascinating insight into human nature.I would have given this 5* but as with other King books, it was a bit too long. This is definitely not a story that can be told in three or four hundred pages but I felt it didn’t need to be quite as long as it is. But don’t let this put you off! Under the Dome is worth the effort.

⭐I’m a big Stephen King fan so I wanted to love this, but I just hated every second. I got to 90% and decided I couldn’t be bothered to read the last bit properly so I just skimmed the last 10% as quickly as I could, and I still felt I’d wasted my time. The characters are so underdeveloped, I just found myself really not caring about any of them. Some of the dialogue is genuinely painful, it’s so cringey and unrealistic. There seemed to be a new character introduced every few chapters for no apparent reason, I’d say maybe 10% of the characters actually served a purpose in the story or helped to flesh it out, the other 90% were just pointless. The plot is ridiculous, the book is about three times longer than it needs to be… Just don’t waste your time, Stephen King has written some incredible fiction, read that instead and don’t waste your money on this drivel.

⭐I first read Under the Dome in 2010, just after it was first released. A long time fan of Stephen King, I was looking forward to getting stuck into another King epic. For me, Stephen King has the ability to make even a 1074 page book into a fast, addictive, page-turner, and Under the Dome was no exception (I read it for the first time over a weekend – yep, in two days).Since I’ve read about 300 books in between readings, my memory was pretty hazy as to the details, but I knew the major plot line – a small town in Maine is suddenly cut off from the outside world by a invisible, impenetrable dome. What follows is the story of what happens to the townspeople inside as s*** starts to get real.I was a huge fan of the opening of Under the Dome the first time, and the second time was no exception. It’s a real attention grabber – the dome falls within the first few pages, and the amount of detail in which King describes the event is so imaginative that once I started reading, I found it difficult to stop.As with many King novels, the cast of characters is huge, but there are only a few key characters – some of them average guys just trying to do the right thing and others are just plain crazy evil bastards. I love me a good baddie, and the baddies in Under the Dome are pretty despicable. Despite all the characters, I really liked how it gave me more perspectives – although I’m definitely a reader that will disregard less-than-stellar characterisation for a good plot line, so readers who need that strong character connection may not be able to forgive as readily as myself.Under the Dome sounds like it couldn’t possibly stretch to over 1000 pages – it’s a bunch of people stuck in a small area and it sounds like the problems they face could become pretty repetitive, but King finds ways to make each persons’ story unique. A pretty big deal considering the multitude of characters, but as always the amount of imagination and planning that goes into Under the Dome is pretty typical of King, and one of the reasons I enjoy reading his books so much.Perhaps my only disappointment in the book as a whole is the actual reason behind the dome and the ending. It’s kinda cool, and unique, but it also felt in the scheme of the plot it was over and done with pretty quickly – just not as balanced as I would have liked it to be, and perhaps even no real explanation would have worked better for me.On the second reading, I’ve rated it slightly lower than my first reading, but before blogging my ratings were pretty much on gut feeling and the speed of which I read a book rather than weighing up the pros and cons, but I still really enjoyed Under the Dome, and it’s definitely one of the most memorable Stephen King books I’ve read.

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