Review - Under the Dome

Title: Under the Dome
Author: Stephen King

I asked for this book last Christmas, and was happy to receive it. (Thanks for the gift, kids!) I had to finish some other things first, but I really was intrigued by the concept.

Imagine that, in a split second, a small town became encased in a transparent enclosure. Nothing anyone tries can break it. The Dome, as it gets named, completely seals the town off from the outside world. What would happen? How would it be explained?

Knowing Stephen King's work, it's not all going to go well. King populates Chester's Mill, Maine with people who we can imagine living in small town America, or at least small town New England. Some of them are less than admirable, even if they are admired by many in the town. Some are expecting to be there only for a short time, and fine their stays extended by this mysterious barrier. All, eventually, come to the realization that a town in modern day America does not have the resources to support all of its people for very long without some way to reach the outside world. And, again knowing Stephen King's work, some of the results will be gruesome.

This is a 1072 page mystery and "disaster" story, more than it is a horror novel. There are horror elements, and King certainly doesn't hold back in showing us the awful things that can happen to, and be perpetrated by, people. To be honest, and to warn others, there is graphic violence in this story which would cause me to dissuade the sensitive from reading it. Within paragraphs of the opening, King tells you someone is going to die, and then kills them quite blatantly. And then does it again. Oh, you can handle that? Well there's worse. I remember my good friend, Mike, being totally appalled in the very first "Thomas Covenant" book by an act of sexual violence. Well, if you're like that, you will find several parts of this story unreadable. (And it might make you wonder if King can ever bring himself to write about a sexual act in a loving way, but I digress...)

Aside from that, however, this was a truly fun read. The mystery of the dome's origin and purpose, while always in the back of people's minds, was almost always overshadowed by the manipulations of the power-hungry villain of the piece, and the concern over our many heroes. And the concern is warranted. Stephen King does not mind killing residents of Chester's Mill after getting his readers to care about them.

I will not, of course, spoil things, but I really enjoyed the twists & turns, but I also enjoyed the inexorable journey to the big conflict, and the unraveling of the final mystery. And very importantly, I liked the heroes (flawed though they were) and cringed at the villains, but believed in all of them. In my view, it's not quite as good as The Stand, but it's close enough. (And it's much, much better than Kings Cell, which I quit reading less than 100 of its 200 pages.) I hear it's going to be turned into an HBO series, and if that's true, I will want to see if they do it justice.

P.S. It was fascinating for me to read King's short afterward, which tells his readers that he initially tried to write this book in the mid-70's, but had to stop because he knew he could not do it justice. Thanks for realizing it, and waiting, Mr. King. The story deserved the attention it got, and it was worth the wait.