Under the Dome
Ratings326
Average rating3.7
Read this before watching the TV show. It's a story that's told better in print than on screen. There's a lot to the book, took me about a week to finish it.
Well, for me, I'm surprised how quickly I got through this book. It is 1072 pages long but right from the get-go you're hooked and the pace of the book is brilliant. Yes there are a ton of characters but King handles their introductions with the skill he showed in The Stand, we like and care for the people who we are supposed to and we hate and dread those who deserve it. The story is not so much about the dome as it is about the town. Just as The Mist was more about the horrors of humanity trapped i the shop rather than the beasts in the mist outside, for the most part the dome itself is simply a means of containing a town.
There are a full range of characters and they all feel realistic, especially the ‘villains' and for the most part the actions of everyone is realistic also. I cannot remember at any point question what people did.
There are very tense moments in this book, the main tension develops steadily and is done extremely well and there gradually develops two main sides to be on, unfortunately the bad side is a lot bigger.
If you love Stephen King books, especially The Stand and The Mist, then you will love this book. If you have never read a King book, this wouldn't be the one I'd recommend first, however, it is so easy to get through that if it was your first then you should have no problems at all with it. If you don't like King then why are you reading? Anyway, still try this book and you may change your mind.
This is another one of SK's non-horror books and I figured I'd really like this one since I liked The Stand so much. It was good, definitely got better as the book went on - in the start when there was lots of character-building, the bad guys were just a little too depraved to be enjoyable reading.
But then, as the story got rolling, I couldn't put it down. I was just so CURIOUS to see how it ended and what would happen next. If you've read The Shining, he uses a similar tactic in this book by giving certain characters psychic visions of what is going to happen. You don't know when or how, but you can just feel it coming and it gives a super fun pressure and intensity to the book.
Age range: 18+
Violent. Gross at times. If you still want to read it, do your research on triggers warnings.
O clonă de The Stand, dar complet nereușită, personajele fiind ridicol de sablonarde si exagerat de rele sau bune, la nivel de desene animate, iar finalul... zău.
O carte care pe de o parte e narativ la nivel de copii (unde King poate scrie foarte bine, vezi Talismanul), nici măcar ya, dar pe de alta se bazează pe “gore” exagerat și ultra-violență. Totalul iese complet necredibil, nelegat și efectiv enervant de prost, cu unele din cele mai proaste personaje scrise de King vreodată.
Mai bine citiți separat Apocalipsa sau Talismanul.
Complet nerecomandat.
I buddy read this book with Nina over on Instagram. We've been making our way through some King books that pretty much everyone in the #KeeperofKing readalong group has already read.
This was a massive book. I listened to the audiobook while following along in the eBook on Scribd and this version came in at almost 1500 pages. Nina and I read this over a couple of months and while the ending was pretty disappointing the buildup was amazing.
I loved the buildup so much. There were a few characters that I liked a lot and there were several characters that I hated so much right from the beginning. I don't think I have hated any characters as much as I hated a lot of characters in this book. There were times I wanted to throw my phone across the room because the injustice was pissing me off so much.
I was hooked on the entire story up until the end. The explanation is pretty disappointing and how things were wrapped up for some of the characters I hated was disappointing. Everything about the end was just anticlimactic compared to the awesome buildup to it. Usually with Kings books if the ending isn't good then it ruins the whole book for me. Luckily, I loved the majority of this book so much that the ending didn't ruin it completely for me.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it for the buildup alone. Just don't expect much from the ending.
It took me a long time to read this. The premise is interesting and the characters are great, but it's just so bloated. I feel like 2/3 of the book could be cut out and it would be the same story. Big Jim Rennie is an all-time SK villain. Ending is silly. Blah blah, I won't go on...
I preordered this book back in 2009. It traveled with me to California and back and I finally decided to read it. It was worth the wait.
This book is dark, grim, but more than anything else it is disturbing and relentlessly so. It is one punch in the guts after another. Basically one of Steve's best books. I loved it, I got into it pretty worried about hating the length, but the story was so good that the long ride felt great.
What an unmitigated mess!
While I appreciate that “Under the Dome” is a response to 8 years of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney (in which the unqualified run the country in an opaque and corrupt way, driven by various conservative values), I do feel that a commentary on this period in American history could have been done better. Just the concept of a mysterious dome crashing down on a small town leaves all kinds of options open for a truly engrossing story. Yet, we have the town leaders acting a way they'd be unlikely to act until the dome's tenure lasted more than a day!
None of the characters were interesting, especially not the snotty head of the town newspaper, who I find it highly unlikely would address a US General the way she did when it meant getting her story out. And why were we to believe that she and Barbie would suddenly fall in love and start getting it on when the breathable air in the dome was eking away?
Frankly, by the time we learn that alien children are using the dome as a game, I just didn't care. “Under the Dome” is right down there with Stephen King's earlier “Tommyknockers,” which is the book that made me stop reading his work for years after being a die-hard fan. It wasn't until the more recent “11/22/63,” which I think is his best work, that I starting getting back into his work. So, I'm glad I listened to the audiobook version of this novel while working so that I didn't waste my time on physically reading this doorstop when I could have been reading something better.
Despite what King claims in the afterword to be a lot of trimming, this book is still overlong. The characters are really well developed, which is typical for King (though Chester's Mill is FULL UP on terrible men) - and once the book gets to its climax everything is really riveting. But it took a loooong time to get there.
Raul Esparza does a great job reading the audiobook, too. He gives it a real relaxed storyteller vibe, and he does a lot accents for Mainers. Not sure how accurate they are, but he's definitely consistent.
Did you ever watch Lost? If not, here's a summary: A group of people on a plane crash onto an island. There are multiple casualties. Then the remainder of the town must band together to survive. Then some people get greedy, some try to establish authority, some just want to know what's going on. They start trying really hard to get off the island, more things happen. We get small filler plotlines for various characters. We get views into their life before landing on the island. People turn on each other. Then it is all wrapped up into a pretty poor ending.
How does this tie in with Under the Dome? Well, in all honesty, it felt just like lost. It started off with an excellent first season (or first few hundred pages). There are casualties, people try to set up a structure within the town. Panic ensues. We get side stories for characters we don't really care about. They start to panic about never getting out of this dome. What about if supplies all dissapear? Lots of slow, tedius chapters in the middle (although I admit they brought some realism into the book). Then an explanation for the dome. Oh, what's that? It's supernatural? Just like Lost?? SHOCKER. Then the ending comes, it starts to build up the tension and suspense again. Then, wow, all wrapped up nice and neat in a little bow. puke
This was my first full length Stephen King novel, and I have to admit I'm disappointed. It started out so strong, dragged in the middle, then had a pretty poor ending. I don't want to say too much without giving away spoilers, but seriously?? That's the ending? The only other Stephen King works I'm familiar with are The Shining (watched the movie), IT (watched the movie), and The Bizarre of Bad Dreams (collection of short stories). The first two both ended with the good guys finally beating the bad guy or monster in the end. This one too, has survivors. The short stories don't all have “happy” endings. I always assumed, with the realism of Mr. King's writings, that there would be realistic endings. Under the Dome was realistic to a point. The ending had TONS of realistic moments, but frankly, I wish everyone had died in the dome. To me, that would have been a satisfactory ending. Instead, the fact that people survived felt too campy. Just like Lost, when everyone reunited. It just wasn't what I expected.
Executive Summary: Classic King. Despite the supernatural setting, the real horror of the book is perpetrated by characters on one another.Full ReviewI've long since given up on reading every Stephen King book. But I try to read the ones with Dark Tower ties. This one was supposed to have minor connections, but I'd call them easter eggs at best.What really moved this one up my list was the TV show. I enjoy the show, though if was a Fall show rather than a Summer one, it's possible I would have dropped it already. My main reason for reading the book was to find out the mystery behind the dome before the show revealed it. I needn't have worried though.Like just about everything else though, the book is better. Not only is it better, it's almost entirely different. The plot seems to diverge from almost the very beginning. Some of the characters are similar, and they used some of the names. Most of them are drastically different though, or severely toned down.No one will watch the show and think the Rennie's are likable characters by any means, but they have some redeemable characteristics. In the book both of them are downright awful. And they are not the only ones.Mr. King's strength as a writer to me has always been his characters. They jump off the page. This book has some great ones. Though his best characters here are probably the worst. Jim Rennie, used car salesman, town selectman, and fervent Christian is absolutely despicable. His ability to do something downright awful and follow it up with prayers for strength to continue to lead the town just show how self delusional some people can really be. And his son is probably worse. Most of the town is behind the Rennie's, or at least willing to blindly follow their lead in this time of crisis.Thankfully though, there are plenty of likable characters, which will be somewhat similar to anyone familiar with the show. Primarily Dale Barbara, a drifter currently employed as a short order cook at the local diner. And there is Julia Shumway, the owner/editor of the local newspaper. They are rounded out If you pick this book expecting a supernatural horror story, you may be disappointed. Mr. King doesn't spend a lot of time explaining the how or why of the dome. It mostly serves as the setting and a bit of plot vehicle. The characters want to escape, or use the dome as the reason to do something they might not otherwise.Forget the fact that there is giant supernatural dome for a minute. The core of this story is really about all the horrible things people will do to one another when given an opportunity to get away with it, or simply not face real consequences.Mr. King paints a picture of the best and the worst (mostly the worst) of humanity when panic and isolation and puts them under the microscope (or a dome!) for us to see the results.I'm having a hard time trying to figure out other King book I've read this is most like to say “if you like book name, you'll probably like this one.” Maybe [b:The Shining 11588 The Shining (The Shining #1) Stephen King https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1353277730s/11588.jpg 849585]? You have that same sort of isolation and human driven horror with a bit of a supernatural flavor.My main disappointment with the book was that the ending felt underwhelming. This goes back to the dome not being very flushed out, but merely a plot device. Despite that once I got into this book it was really hard to put down and I kept reading more and more each night until I finally finished it.
I'd give it that extra half star if I could, but it's not up to 4 star material. We know why we come to King's books, and he delivers. Like many of King's works that were adapted for the screen, don't watch the show and expect to find that story here. In that regards, stick with the book, it makes more sense while still having definable beginning, middle, and end.
SPOILERS
This was the first book of Stephen King's that I've read. I loved the way he played with words, played with the reader, and immersed the reader into the story. The cast of characters was huge, and King handled them masterfully. I was constantly impressed with his ruthlessness. The book begins and ends with killing, gore, and horror. The idea of a city being isolated from the rest of the world by an impenetrable, invisible dome is unique and entertaining. King did a great job exploring the possible consequences of an event like that, exploring the nature of human fear especially. The main villain became more and more horrifically inhuman as the novel went on (before dying a completely human death). The reader was taken to the very edges of hope and pulled along toward the end, constantly wondering how King was going to pull this off. Several times I thought he would just end it with everyone getting blown up, or suffocating, or killing themselves.
The only thing I was disappointed about was that it was aliens. I personally prefer explanations that are a little more terrestrial, since I tend to think that ‘it was aliens' is a bit of a cop-out.
I mean aliens? Seriously, cliche much? I thought that the minute I started & there was no twist. This book was slow & could have at least been good. But aliens? That ruins everything! I hope the show is better. That was a month of my life wasted.
This is a fun read, but it's not very good. If you're going on vacation, this is a good choice to keep you entertained on the beach. I doubt you will remember many of the details in a few months. The overall premise is very interesting, a town completely enclosed by a force field, unable to leave, unable to receive anything from the outside. It also has Stephen King's somewhat iconic level of violence and bizarre profane slang, by which I mean phrases like “cotton picking,” and genetalia refered to as his “love machine” and her “breeding farm,” generally used to highlight the flaws in the antagonists, and thankfully these are terms I do not hear often, if ever. People in Maine must have quite colorful language, if Stephen King's writing is any indication. (Really though, are there people who talk like that?)
There are some minor and major problems to this novel. The characters are very one dimensional. The antagonists, namely Rennie and the other local politicians, start out as merely arrogantly unlikable. But then, in what feels like a really bizarre turn, it turns out that they have been going to church by day, cooking meth by night.
Another minor flaw in the plot, the government almost immediately shuts down cell reception to the town, as a sort of media black out. However, they allow the much bigger threat, the internet. People can make phone calls using their computers, using Google, Skype, or other services. So this distinction, which is mentioned repeatedly, between cell phones and the internet is weird. I personally would much rather have the internet than my phone, I can get a lot more information and connect with a lot of people. I can share pictures, I can write articles, I can call my grandmother or Wolf Blitzer. In an age where the lines between cell phones and computers is increasingly blurred, for King to make such a big deal about the government shutting one down but allowing the other is really nonsensical.
Another thing that I thought was weird-Barbie advises people to stock up on perishable meat. “Everything, but especially meat. Meat, meat, meat. ... “ When they run out of gas for their generators there won't be any way to keep that fresh. Isn't that a really weird choice? How about grains? Rice, oats, beans, peanut butter, canned goods. Shelf stable, long lasting, hearty and filling.
So overall not a bad read, but not a great one either. If you're a Stephen King fan you will probably find something to like about it.
Pretty good, but loooong (I think over 1,000 pages). Didn't realize it when I first started because of the digital format. Concept was great, writing was so-so, pacing was good, ending was really good.
Starts strong, but this puppy went on farrrrr too long. Could have hacked 100 pages from it and it would have been a pretty good read. Ending was a little...erm... but by the time I got to it I was wishing I had cut a chunk out of the middle.
Not bad. This is the first of his books I've picked up since The Dark Tower ended in 2004. It's definitely a Stephen King book. It's got that thing going where all the characters talk like they're from 1970's New England.
According to the author's note at the end, he first came up with the idea and wrote a little bit of it in 1977, but stopped because he wasn't confident in his ability to plausibly describe the conditions that might obtain in a town sealed off from the outside world by an invisible wall. I'd be interested to find out which portions of the story were original and which were added during his 2007 writing sessions, because there are really two stories here. There's a sort of cosmic horror piece about being toyed with by unknown inhuman forces that bookends a political horror piece about living in a polity driven mad by fear and willing to suspend civilized government in favor of an authoritarian who promises protection. The former almost seems like it was a short story pressed into service as a setup for the latter, which reads like an obvious reaction to the Bush years.
There were some parts of this book that I would rate at four stars, and some at two stars, so I split the difference and gave it three.
There's a lot of interesting stuff going on here - there's the obvious ecological parable contained within the story, with the problems faced by those under the Dome being similar to the ones we all face in terms of global climate change and global warming. King's also commented that the story could be taken as a 9/11 parallel, with the first and second selectmen of Chester Mills filling in for Bush and Cheney. It also works as an exploration of the Stanford Prison Experiment and its real-life examples of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.
At the end of the book, though, it kind of all falls apart. We go through hundreds and hundreds of pages about how horrible people can be when the constraints of society fall apart, and how we are, ultimately, our own worst enemies. Then we find out that we are our own worst enemies - except for the god-like alien beings that can place us under a dome at will and destroy an entire city. It's completely inconsistent with the rest of the book, and for me it cheapened the entire story.