Under the Dome: A Novel

A Killer of a Book (2010-07-30) : 4/5
Stephen King's Under the Dome is a killer of a book at 1074 pages. When I started it, I thought it was one for about two weeks or so and that I might have to read it alongside another book. That did not happen. I read it like I used to read in my secondary school days when I could finish an M&B novel in 2 hours. I finished it in four days. The suspense is unyielding and will have you flipping the pages anxiously for the next event.

The town of Chester's Mill, Maine, is a pretty typical-seeming small American town with a popular song that says "Everyone supports the team". This means that its 2,000 or so residents are good, honest people who genuinely care for each other and for their town. However, when a mysterious and invisible force field materializes out of nowhere, and cuts the town completely off from the rest of the world, things deteriorate quickly. If you've read Stephen King you'll know a little of what to expect. You'll still be surprised though at the depth of human wickedness.

There is a message for everyone. This may be a novel, you know, fiction, but at its core is an allegory of what is happening today in the world. Who or where you are determines the meaning you'll read into it. In the villain, a confused character with a god-complex, we see how power corrupts and what the end of absolute corrupted power could be. There is also that aphorism from our great Wole Soyinka; "The man dies who keeps quiet in the face of tyranny" in those few citizens who stand against him. Other themes in the book include climate change, the moral standing of the police and military to maintain order and wage wars, among others. No matter the themes and messages you take from this book, what you'll certainly get is a rollicking if fearful(the death count is atrocious) read.

A Heart to Mend
Political statements took me out of the story (2010-07-28) : 2/5
I think King is a great story-teller and I couldn't put this down for about 700 pages. He kept taking me out of the story, however, with his political bias....The Evil Republican Villain has a picture of himself shaking hands with Sarah Palin...and has even been know to watch...wait for it...Fox News. It was just so obvious, exaggerated and ridiculous that it made me lose all respect for his story-telling abilities. I want to be in the story, not pulled out of it by King's love for CNN and Wolf Blitzer. I wish I had all those hours back, and I won't read King again.

King channeling Dickens (2010-07-28) : 4/5
This book has everything SK constant readers expect in his "big" novels: small stories stitched together into larger stories that quietly turn into epic stories. The only other author I can think of who did this so well for so long and so successfully was Charles Dickens. Someone needs to do a comparative treatise on the similarity between the authors' work. Quick, compare and contrast Pip's story in Great Expectations to Harold's in The Stand!

Like many others, I've been reading SK books since the mid-seventies and the quality continues to impress me. There were elements I loved (ex. the dome, the drug lab and the numerous pivotal points it plays in the story, the abrupt uses of violence by the "bad" guys who were quicker to recognize the opportunities the dome created) and elements I absolutely hated (ex. the source of the dome, Junior's and Senior's fates, the precognitive flashes various characters have without point or purpose).

More than anything, I loved how this story kept me guessing and speculating about the characters and their plight. Even when I was annoyed about certain developments, I was surprised that I CARED what happened. That's the real reason SK's constant readers are legion.
Great Read (2010-07-27) : 5/5
I really enjoyed this book though the last quarter of it seemed to drag a little. I thought the ending was great and the writing and use of characters was fantastic. I highly recommend it to someone that like's Stephen King Novels or needs a good wrist workout (1200 pages).
Go and read Gone, then we'll talk (2010-07-27) : 3/5
Last summer, I read Gone, a young adult novel and was thrilled with the premise - a town trapped under a dome and what happens after that. Then in the winter, along comes this novel, also about a town trapped under a dome and I was struck by how similar this was to Gone. I know King says that he started this book 26 years ago, but put it away. but when another book is published with the same theme, he decides to finish his. Hmmmm . . .