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Under the Dome

by Stephen King

3.84 · rating details · 28,519 ratings · 4,693 reviews

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 fro...more

Hardcover, 1072 pages

Published November 10th 2009 by Scribner (first published January 1st 2009)

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Community Reviews

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Nov 28, 2009

brian rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. in the 2008 film max payne, there's a point in which the gloomy hero is, of course, offered casual sex by this ridiculously beautiful woman:

aware that payne is mourning the murder of his wife she says something to the effect that he can call out his wife's name as he fucks her. ok. this is kinda interesting. if i was the director i'd hard cut to payne banging away and, yes, squealing his dead wife's name. play it straight. sad and tragic but also kinda funny and very human. a...more

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Jan 28, 2010

karen rated it

Shelves: it-is-for-class, icky-sex

in brief, because i am nearly starting my first day of readers advisory class (yay!) and i have to prepare mentally for the schoolplace after the long break, plus i'm not really in the mood to write this review what with salinger and all casting a pall over my day, but book report compulsion gets the best of me, so.

this book ... whole lotta length, not much depth. and as any lady will tell you...etc etc... i don't have a problem with stephen king. i stopped reading him when i was a ...morein brief, because i am nearly starting my first day of readers advisory class (yay!) and i have to prepare mentally for the schoolplace after the long break, plus i'm not really in the mood to write this review what with salinger and all casting a pall over my day, but book report compulsion gets the best of me, so.

this book ... whole lotta length, not much depth. and as any lady will tell you...etc etc... i don't have a problem with stephen king. i stopped reading him when i was a teenager not because i felt "better" than him or was too snobby for mass market fiction, but because gerald's game was so so so laughably bad that i could not carry on. oh, god even thinking about it now makes me chuckle a little bit. go, read it - it is dreadful. but the stand i think is a bunch of fun, and i have read that one a number of times. king is also the only author to terrify me to this day with a story i read when i was about 7 or 8 on my way to the fair (yeah, i know, but what better to read trapped in a car on the way to some fair?) and even thinking about it now (the boogeyman) gives me delicious shivers.

this one started off pretty good - engaging plot, fast-paced, numerous characters to keep straight in the head. but then...it just goes nowhere while going everywhere, you know? much of it seems tacked-on, in a way. he attempts to give the characters more dimensions than they deserve and he somehow fails to follow through with this promise. by trying to complicate them, he makes their shallowness stand out even more. bad guys melt in the face of abandoned children, good guys have secret shady pasts... but i'm not buying it.

all the action takes place in about a week, even though this thing is the size of the bible (which is much more willing to sacrifice some details in the interest of economy; learn from god, s.k; we like a little mystery....) i am a huge fan of the "aftermath" novel, but i think i prefer a little more time to have passed before the story begins... when we had the blackout here in nyc, and we allll had to walk home to our respective boroughs, vendors were handing out bottled water along the way and the atmosphere was actually kind of fun. if this had lasted longer than it did, those vendors would probably be huddled in their bodegas, guarding their chips and gum like gold... and that's when it gets interesting. it's true there is some bad behavior in this book. some hugely antisocial behavior. but no one seems panic-stricken, until provoked. come on, maine, act like survivors!! stop making pancakes for everyone and hoard some shit.

there are cool moments - how the dome affects pacemakers is pretty awesome, there is some nice description in places of sunsets, meteors, nightgowns - also a shout-out to librarians (smart stephen king, smart...) and i like it when authors name-drop themselves in their books. if stephen king were on goodreads.com he would be a total votewhore, say these two facts.

the resolution is just awful. truly. i was hoping for something really cool, or at least plausible/comprehensible. it was like the happening in my epic disappointment, only this took longer than 2 hours to get through. ON MY VACATION!

i am scattered right now - i will probably tidy up my thinking on this book later, but i wanted to get a start while it was mostly fresh in my head. it was overlong, and i hated the ending, but fun enough for me to not hate it overall. but i have no desire to reread it ever, the way i did with the stand, several times over. schooltime now!

okay - school is over - i had one other thing to say I AM NOT FLOATING!! but here is the good librarian comment: "who better to recruit than a librarian when you're dealing with a fledgling dictatorship?" yes sir!

but so this is about language, and i might be nitpicking a huge book's tiny problem, but while i love (and will in the future use) king's word "joyshit", it troubles me that he uses "debark" instead of "disembark", which is just more elegant and honestly, i have never heard the word "debark", and i thought he made it up. he hadn't. and also, he should know the difference between "unbelievingly" and "disbelievingly". just things that stuck out in my jerky mind that i felt would be exciting to share. was it?(less)

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Nov 24, 2009

Kemper rated it

Shelves: sci-fi, horror

Here’s a nightmare scenario. A mysterious disaster occurs. The area is completely cut off from any outside help. Resources are limited. People are confused and scared. And Dick Cheney is in charge….

That terrifying idea is what makes Under the Dome one of the best books King has done.

Chester’s Mill, Maine, is a typical Stephen King small town, filled with people both good and criminally insane. One fall day, a force-field crashes down around the area, causing a fair a...moreHere’s a nightmare scenario. A mysterious disaster occurs. The area is completely cut off from any outside help. Resources are limited. People are confused and scared. And Dick Cheney is in charge….

That terrifying idea is what makes Under the Dome one of the best books King has done.

Chester’s Mill, Maine, is a typical Stephen King small town, filled with people both good and criminally insane. One fall day, a force-field crashes down around the area, causing a fair amount of carnage and disaster. The Dome is quickly found to be impenetrable, and while the townspeople can communicate with the outside world via cell phones or wireless internet, they’re essentially on their own. If the situation wasn’t bad enough, the town is now in the hands of Big Jim Rennie.

Forget about Randall Flagg or Annie Wilkes or the Crimson King or Pennywise the Clown. Big Jim, a used car salesman and town selectman, is King’s scariest villain ever. Why? Because America lived through a Big Jim-like reign after 9/11, and it’s all too easy to picture how much worse it could have gotten while reading this book.

King isn’t very subtle in the allegory here. Chester’s Mill is the stand-in for America, and Big Jim is obviously based on Cheney, a corrupt political weasel hiding behind the dim-witted first selectman of the town as a front to cover up his shenanigans. He doesn’t drink or smoke and talks about his love for Jesus, but Big Jim is utterly ruthless about destroying his enemies. And to Big Jim, just disagreeing with him makes you an enemy.

Big Jim has spent years refusing to spend money on needed town improvements while involved in all kinds of criminal enterprises. While he demands total power and authority, he’s actually completely incompetent at leadership except for placing blame and manipulating people. When the Dome comes down, his first concern is covering up his criminal activity, but he quickly realizes that with the outside world at bay, he can create his own little dictatorship inside the bubble. And of course, he’s doing it for the good of the town.

A small group of people realize what Rennie is doing and try to stop him, but they vastly overestimate what the threat of eventual punishment from the outside will do. They just can’t believe that anyone would actually go as far as Big Jim is prepared to do, and while the federal government tries in vain to assert its authority, Big Jim is all too happy to thumb his nose at them and continue to consolidate power even as the air inside the Dome is getting awfully stale.

King’s always been terrific at depicting the strengths and weaknesses of a small town in books like ‘Salem’s Lot or Needful Things, but this is something different. He claims that he’s had the idea for this book since the mid-70s, but never completed it because the science of what would happen within the Dome was beyond him. Delay may have been a blessing, I don’t think this would have been the same book if it wasn’t for the Bush/Cheney administration after 9/11.

It’s being routinely pointed out in various reviews that the plot here is eerily similar to The Simpson’s Movie where the government puts a giant dome over polluted Springfield. I’ve read an interview where King claims that he had no idea about this until the book was written and someone told him. I’m going to cry bullshit on that. He writes a column about pop culture for Entertainment Weekly and has played himself on the show. I find it really hard to believe that he somehow missed The Simpson’s Movie having a giant dome in it. It’s very weird that none of the people within the Dome ever mention the movie since King has never been shy about incorporating pop culture references before.

But that’s nitpicking and doesn’t change the fact that this story and Big Jim scared the crap out of me. (I grew up in a small town, and I could easily think of some of the locals who would have tried to take over after a crisis if left unchecked, and some of them probably would have been worse than Big Jim and his crowd of hand-picked bullies.) Although this is a huge book and King has been bad about over-writing in the past, this one flies by and I actually found myself wanting a little more detail about some of the people since many of them don’t get much of a wrap up. I was a shade disappointed in the eventual explanation to the cause of the Dome, and how it is resolved, but overall, this is going to end up being one of my favorite Stephen King books.
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Feb 14, 2010

Amanda rated it

More like 3 1/2 stars. This is my first full-fledged Stephen King novel, so I'm not sure how it measures up against other King classics like The Stand, It, Salem's Lot, or Carrie. Sure, I've read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, but only because it was described as a young adult novel (King-lite, if you will). I have spent most of my life actively avoiding Stephen King and here's my story as to why Mr. King and I parted ways before I even read anything by him.

When I was but a wee ...moreMore like 3 1/2 stars. This is my first full-fledged Stephen King novel, so I'm not sure how it measures up against other King classics like The Stand, It, Salem's Lot, or Carrie. Sure, I've read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, but only because it was described as a young adult novel (King-lite, if you will). I have spent most of my life actively avoiding Stephen King and here's my story as to why Mr. King and I parted ways before I even read anything by him.

When I was but a wee little girl, full of innocence and a precocious love of reading, my mom was also a voracious reader. As I was consuming Little House on the Prairie books (my earliest encounter with book rape--thanks, grandma) and Nancy Drew, I began noticing that mom was always reading these big ass books with KING running down the spine. When she wasn't reading these books, they were always placed on top of the refrigerator which was well out of my grasp. Eager for us to share this love of reading (Mom had no interest in the plight of the Ingalls family), I begged and pleaded to be allowed to read the King books. "Gee, wouldn't it be fun if Mom and I read the same books? Then we could talk about them!" I thought. Days, weeks, months went by and, eventually, my constant wheedling became too much. She relented, but the deal was that she would pick the scene I was allowed to read. She chose a particularly horrific and descriptive scene from The Stand. I read with increasing horror--Nancy Drew never encountered messed up shit like this! When I finished that scene, I handed the book over and never asked to read King again. And I stepped lightly around Mom from that day forward. I suddenly understood that, if that woman snapped, it would be ugly--and she would know what to do with the bodies.

Therefore, unlike most teenagers, I skipped over the desire to consume everything King between junior high and high school. And this brings us to present day and my first King novel. At 1,072 pages, this is definitely a doorstop of a book. However, it read fairly quickly. My main complaint was that many of the characters were one dimensional stereotypes. There are no shades of gray in the small town of Chester's Mill. At first, this bothered me; however, I think maybe individual characters had to be sacrificed in order to portray the real character--small town America and how it reacts to cataclysmic events. If King shorthands individual characterizations, he nails the panic and herd-like mentality that takes over when uncertainty is the order of the day.

The premise of the novel, as blatantly presented by the title, is that Chester's Mill one day finds itself cutoff from the outside world by a mysterious dome that perfectly conforms itself to the borders of Chester's Mill. In the days ahead, the people wait and worry as the United States government desperately tries to free them. As hope begins to dwindle, reason is in short supply as people trade in their humanity for mass hysteria and panic.

The dome is not, however, the ultimate villain in this tale. The real villain is Big Jim Rennie, the town selectman who has been waiting for just such a "clustermug" so that he can claim control of the town. Big Jim is the most vile type of Christian, one who believes that being able to quote scripture and abstain from saying cuss words is all it takes to be amongst God's chosen. Big Jim does everything in the belief that God is on his side and damn anyone who tries to get in his way, for not only are they his enemies, but enemies of Christianity itself. It is possible to have religion without true faith, and Big Jim is proof of that. He has customized his religion to serve his needs; indeed, his belief in God is little more than a manifestation of his own belief in himself as superior, as "chosen," to be above all others.

It appears that my review may be destined to be as long as the book, so I'll cut it short. Weaknesses: there were a few clunker sentences that pulled me out of the story, there was an abundance of detail that I could have lived without, and I was disappointed in the reason for the dome because it seemed so obvious. Strengths: King deftly keeps his cast of characters straight and realistically interacting with one another, he captures the terror and bovine-like stupidity that takes over when day-to-day life is disrupted and threatened, there are some colorful cuss words that I hope to employ in the near future, and there's a catastrophic scene toward the end that is one of the most terrifying and well-written that I've ever read.
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Dec 17, 2009

Dorsi rated it

Shelves: owned-by-me, fantasy-paranormal-witchy

Whew! I finally finished it! It took me almost 2 weeks. That is the longest it has ever taken for me to read a book. This book was quite the undertaking but well worth it. I have never been much of a Stephen King follower but that has changed. I have converted to a SK fan! I take my hat off to King for the ability to write such a complex novel with so many characters & story lines merging into one. What a fantastic smooth read. The characters came to life! While reading it, I almost felt as if ...more

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Feb 26, 2010

Jason Pettus rated it

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Like millions of others, some of the very first grown-up books I ever read when a teenager were Stephen King ones, which kept me an avid fan of his throughout high school and college; but then also like millions of others, in my twenties I grew to have more and more problems with King's writin...more

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Sep 24, 2011

Gavin marked it as to-read

Third time is the charm...I am going to read a bit of this every night until I'm done...wish me luck! (9-24-11)
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Dec 26, 2009

Becky rated it

Shelves: stephen-king, 2009, dystopias, horror, mystery-and-thrillers, owned, political, science-fiction, reviewed

Wow. In the author's note at the end of this book, King wrote "I tried to write a book that would keep the pedal consistently to the metal." I think he succeeded. If there is one thing that this book is not, it's a leisurely walk through the park.

And this is what makes King my favorite author (well, the main thing, anyway), when he writes a fast-paced novel, I don't dare look away. Not only is it fast-paced, but King brings the characters and their community to life so con...moreWow. In the author's note at the end of this book, King wrote "I tried to write a book that would keep the pedal consistently to the metal." I think he succeeded. If there is one thing that this book is not, it's a leisurely walk through the park.

And this is what makes King my favorite author (well, the main thing, anyway), when he writes a fast-paced novel, I don't dare look away. Not only is it fast-paced, but King brings the characters and their community to life so convincingly that I'm afraid of what could be happening with my back turned, and I don't want to miss anything. It's more like watching than reading, and every time I closed the book, even for just a second, I would wonder what was happening that I wasn't there to observe. If this is what it means to give a book life, then King is like Dr. Frankenstein, only he knows exactly what he is doing and is more than willing to shape and guide and love these newly formed creations of his.

Under The Dome is like a return to an older, more ruthless version of King. I would not have been one bit surprised if this book had been published as "the last (and we really, really mean it this time guys... maybe) posthumous Richard Bachman novel". It reminds me of some of his older books, with little hints of The Tommyknockers, Dreamcatcher, IT, The Stand, and The Dead Zone, and then had minute references to the Dark Tower series and The Talisman.

There is so damn much packed into this book that I know I can't talk about it all without writing a review that's almost as long as the book itself.

Big Jim Rennie, your typical used-car salesman turned power-hungry politician, reminded me of Greg Stillson, only more Caligula-esque. He's narcissistic, and thinks that the world, or maybe at least the town, revolves around him and should kiss his feet in an offering of thanks for managing their pitiful little lives for them. He's selfish and cruel and greedy and manipulative. Let's just say that he takes full advantage of the Dome to achieve his personal agenda.

He pulls the strings behind the scenes that set in motion a series of events that aren't exactly pretty. He increases the size of the police force exponentially, making sure that the new recruits are all young, hot-blooded and authority-wielding men, creates a state of fear and panic, and effectively turns the town into a police-state.

There are a lot of references to Hitler, but I likened it quite a lot to the Patriot Act Mentality of the most recent Bush administration: You're either with US, or with THEM. It shows, at least on the reactionary side, what can happen when we lose ourselves to fear and want someone else to take care of us and make everything all better.

There is also a strong environmental warning here. Be careful what you manufacture, because you may just be forced to live with it and pay the price for it now, and not in some indefinite and indefinable future generation.

The characters in this book were of course brilliant, as I think all of King's characters are. They are fully realized and alive, and at any moment feel like they could walk off the page and into existence. I loved Barbie (Dale Barbara), Rusty, Twitch, Julia, Joe, Norrie, Benny, Linda and the kids... I loved the way that they acted the way that REAL people act, and not the way that over-the-top book characters act. I loved that they were who they were to the end, and rolled with the times, but didn't let the times change them.

I could say a lot more, but I think I'll leave it at that. I loved this book, as I fully expected to. It was definitely a roller-coaster, and even though I was afraid of what the next brutal, cringe-inducing page would bring, I couldn't have stopped reading if you'd paid me. This is why King is my favorite author. (less)

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May 01, 2010

Sandi rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic-dystopian, horror

Once I got past the whole "Simpsons Movie" correlation, I really liked this story. It's more science fiction than horror, but it's got plenty for the horror fan too. The horror may have been a little too real though because it was about the terrible things people can do, not the supernatural. I would have given it 4 stars if it had just been shorter. The story rambled way too much and a lot of it wasn't even necessary.

ADDED MAY 1, 2010:

Oops! I forgot to tal...more

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Nov 21, 2010

Maciek rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: owned-books, own-in-hardcover, big-tomes, read-in-2010

Many things can be said about Under The dome, but tedious is not one of them. This is clearly King's most fast paced novel since Cell. He even states in the afterword that he aimed at writing a book that "would keep the pedal consistently to the metal" and in that department he succeeded.

However, that was not to be without sacrifice. King is well known for his famous characters, always well drawn and memorable - even non-readers know about Carrie and Jack Torrance. Those w...more

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Jun 01, 2011

Mark Souza rated it

When a transparent dome mysteriously cuts off the small Maine town of Chester Mill from the rest of the world, it serves to amplify the best and worst in those trapped beneath. An opportunistic bully, Big Jim Rennie, sees his chance to take control and cover his illegal exploits at the same time. Panicked townies who see him as a man who can get things done soon grant Rennie the near total power he craves. King delivers fantastic characterization (when doesn't he) and tension throughout that qui...more

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May 22, 2011

Braden Canfield rated it

Shelves: horror

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jul 22, 2011

Amy rated it

Shelves: read-in-2010, read-in-2011, all-time-favourites

I was about 50 pages into this book when a girl sitting opposite me on the tube asked if I was enjoying it. She was maybe fifteen or sixteen and seemed sweet, so I let her read the first chapter - and the first chapter is a doozy, a real hook you in starter - to see if she liked it. Reading on through the book later though, I felt guilty that I had recommended it to her as this book is full of bad thoughts, worse behaviour and blood and guts and gore. I was reading this sort of stuff at sixtee...more

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Oct 04, 2010

Debby rated it

· review of another edition

WOW! What a phenomenal story and cast of characters!! Under the Dome ranks right up there with The Stand as one of my favorite Stephen King books. It's long (over 1000 pages or over 33 hours on CD), but well worth the investment in time. The story is captivating and thought provoling and the characters are a full spectrum of the good, the bad, the weird and the truly wicked.
Imagine being a resident in a small town in Maine and suddenly being trapped inside the city limits by an invisible...more

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Jul 20, 2010

Jessie rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Not my favorite book, by far. I found it to be an easy read and rather compelling, but toward the end I just wanted to get to the end to find out how it ended, not because I engrossed in the book or the characters, I just needed to know why the dome was in place.

Oh, the characters. This book had every stereotypical small town character you can imagine. I mean every single one from the corrupt politician, his spoiled and violent son, only one really good cop, the lazy doctor (who misd...more

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Dec 14, 2009

Mitchel Broussard rated it

Shelves: apocalypse, dystopia, sci-fi, thriller-suspense, stephen-king, mind-equals-blown

First of all, this review contains no spoilers, because i wold kill someone a violent death if i had been told of the crazy twists towards the end of the book.

Okay, so i was pretty sure i'd like this book, i've only read 2 of King's other novels (Cell and The Mist) and i liked them enough, Cell especially, but i never thought i would love this book so much. The characters are so well developed, with individual back stories, relationships, families, dilemmas and problems. But it neve...more

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Nov 24, 2011

Felina rated it

Shelves: own-kindle, 2010, star-5, favorites, own-and-read, own-nook

Of all the King books I've read so far this one was my favorite. Because of my working situation I was only ever able to read this book in 10 to 20 minute intervals and it took me about 3 months. Even with the constant breaks and interruptions I still found this book very engrossing.

This book isn't conventionally scary. There are no monsters or creepers (well not really) but I think the villians in this story are much more terrifying because of the recent outbreak of fear-mongering in ...more

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Aug 26, 2011

Cheryl Landmark rated it

· review of another edition

This was a longggg book, but definitely vintage Stephen King. Mr. King has a very fertile, bizarre imagination and, in my opinion, has quite the gift for character development and for depicting the mentalities, prejudices, and secrets of small-town America. I think the most chilling part of the story was not how or why the Dome suddenly descended on Chester's Mill and cut the town off from the rest of the world, but how the citizens handled the terrible situation.

There were all the u...more

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Jan 19, 2010

Beth rated it

One random afternoon, an invisible, impenetrable dome seals off the town of Chester's Mill ME from the rest of the world. The car salesman selectman who runs the town is determined that the meth lab he's masterminded won't be discovered, and will go to any lengths to do so in this novel of small town politics gone awry that seems to be a microcosm for life in post 9-11 US.

King says in his author's note that he got the idea for Under the Dome 35 years ago, but it certainly resonates w...more

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Jan 30, 2010

Rosina Lippi rated it

Shelves: fiction, reviewed-here

I have purposefully not read other reviews for this book, because I didn't want to be influenced and I know people will have strong opinions.

To me, this feels like early King. It is a more classically structured novel -- which has in part to do with the containment of the village under the dome itself -- and the structure suits him. I imagine people will be talking about The Stand, and the similarities between the two (or lack of similarities). I loved The Stand, but I love Under the...more

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Mar 09, 2011

Rachel Penso rated it

· review of another edition

This book was a monster of a book to read (over 1,000 pages!), but it was fast paced so I got through it pretty quickly (considering). It was a real pain to carry it around, though.

It is about a small town in Maine which is suddenly trapped under a giant dome. There is no way to break it or remove it, so the people who are trapped in the town are left to cope on their own. The real villain in the book was not the dome, but Big Jim Rennie, a power hungry, Bible thumping town polit...more

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Mar 30, 2011

Emily White rated it

I really tried to love this book, but I couldn't. And it wasn't just because of the ridiculously inaccurate stereotypes that, quite frankly, made me laugh at just how wrong they were. No, I'd have to say what really made me give this book a low rating was how it became increasingly clear as I read it that Stephen King got lazy. Some of the details in the book were very spot-on, but other areas were absolutely, 100% inaccurate, and didn't have to be if he'd just done a little research.

...more

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Sep 27, 2009

Kathy rated it

Shelves: read-in-2009, stephen-king

Very excited and shocked about getting this copy! I have been looking forward to this for a long time! I hope it lives up to everything that I have heard! Here we go....

I wanted to share a letter, written by Nan Graham, Vice President & Editor-In-Chief at Simon & Schuster. It was inside the advance I got of Under The Dome.

"Dear All,
I hope you have three or four nights free for a 100 horse power, 1000 plus page read that is as mega in every way as THE STAND....more

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Apr 02, 2011

Derek rated it

The main thing I liked about this book was how it showed what mankind is capable of doing when a group of people are isolated from the outside world. Also, it was very interesting to read about how one corrupt businessman can effectively control a town through money and politics.

I don't know how many of you find this interesting, but the way the dome affected the environment was very interesting to me. The details on how the rivers and streams were cut off and how the air could bare...more

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Apr 30, 2011

Geo rated it

Shelves: reviewed

So....

Stephen King is someone I've always admired for one particular part of his writing. His "manner" and flow of writing is smooth as silk. I always feel like I'm wrapped in a warm blanket when I'm reading his books, and especially anything written in the last 5 years or so, perhaps _Dumas Key_ standing out with this quality especially. _Under the Dome_ is no exception, its still there, he hasn't lost it.

Characters develop well, despite there being a large pop...moreSo....

Stephen King is someone I've always admired for one particular part of his writing. His "manner" and flow of writing is smooth as silk. I always feel like I'm wrapped in a warm blanket when I'm reading his books, and especially anything written in the last 5 years or so, perhaps _Dumas Key_ standing out with this quality especially. _Under the Dome_ is no exception, its still there, he hasn't lost it.

Characters develop well, despite there being a large population to worry about, I only found myself having to look back once or twice (in over 1000 pages) when a name wasn't immediately familiar. With a supporting cast that numbered well over 50 people, I'd say that isn't too bad at all. As with Dumas Key, he has a fair host of humanity represented, character-wise. He never makes someone "pure good" or "pure evil", except maybe children. Good on you, Mr.King. Noone is without flaws, no matter how small, and that makes everyone more human, and in some cases, far more likable.

There is one area in particular, though, where I have to say that I'm unhappy with this one. In Dumas Key, I was really pleased to see that King had moved away from the "horror through grotesquerie" into a more cerebral sort of "horror through suspense and fear". A type of writing that, similar to some of old slasher films, didn't need to show you the axe splitting the guy in two, didn't need to provide some direct visual of the gore being enacted, they could just imply the act, and let your (hopefully, more than adequate) imaginations to fill in the detail. In that one regard, King seems to have fallen backwards into the more visceral style of writing that, while it may have done much to get him to where is he today, I was quite frankly hoping he had moved beyond permanently. Continuing along that same line of thinking, I think he also spends just a *tad* too much time glorifying violence against women in this one. I've never read his books and thought "He's a misogynist" before, but this comes close.

King has definitely let me down in the past. When I finished the one, I asked myself, honestly, whether I wanted to read any more of his work. I think I'm still coming up on the "net benefit" side of things, if for no other reason than because ... well, he just that good at writing. The story is excellent, the characters real (if violent), and I felt myself carried along and engaged the whole way through. To me, all hallmarks of the kind of writing I want to be reading.(less)

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Nov 16, 2009

Todd rated it

Shelves: fiction, horror

An 'epic' return (pun very much intended) by Mr. King.

It's no coincidence that King's past epics, The Stand and It, are often cited as his many of his fans' favorites. 'Regular' King novels are good, and often great, but there's something about the door-stopper books that seem to make him step up to the plate and really deliver.

Under the Dome is very much in the mold of The Stand particularly in that there is a Cecil B. DeMille cast of hundreds and, King's specialty, seve...more

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Nov 28, 2011

Heidi Ward rated it

Shelves: apocalypses-and-dystopias, psychological, horror, very-disturbing, 2011-best-read-in, death, 21st-century, small-town-life, family-dynamics, kindle, american-lit-contemporary, own, obtain-copy, new-england

Likely King's best novel in many years, UtD grabs you at the first page and never lets up, with a propulsive narrative that is both as disturbing as you might expect, and even more so. Everything you need to know is right there in the title: the town of Chester's Mill, Maine has become cut off from the world by a mysterious transparent "dome" which appears out of nowhere on a crisp fall day. No one can leave, and no one can enter. The town is on its own.

Less a traditional "...more

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Jul 29, 2011

Mary JL rated it

Recommends it for: Fans of horror/SF/Stephen King

Recommended to Mary JL by: I am a fan of this author

Shelves: main-sf-fantasy

Many persons regard this is King's best book since The Stand. I agree--I rate them both a very high four stars.

This is vintage KIng, with his usual large cast of characters facing a mysterious and horrifying danger.

One thing I found really chilling in this books was the realistic characterization of Big Jim Rennie. I don't believe in hauted houses or haunted cars; I doubt that a Dome could exist.

But corrupt politicians---correction, corrupt individuals of a...more

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Aug 22, 2010

Lori rated it

Shelves: read-in-2010, mystery-suspense

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Well, I have to say the concept of this story intrigued me. The daunting size didn't turn me off because I was looking for a good long read. King certainly knows how to tell a good story and while I have found a couple of his that I thoroughly enjoyed and could recommend in general which often shocks some of my friends, this probably wouldn't be one of those. I would like to give this two and a half stars. I enjoyed the story for the most part but there were aspects of it that I didn't.

...moreWell, I have to say the concept of this story intrigued me. The daunting size didn't turn me off because I was looking for a good long read. King certainly knows how to tell a good story and while I have found a couple of his that I thoroughly enjoyed and could recommend in general which often shocks some of my friends, this probably wouldn't be one of those. I would like to give this two and a half stars. I enjoyed the story for the most part but there were aspects of it that I didn't.

What bothered me most actually didn't just bother me, but offended me. King has a habit of wrapping good in evil and vice versa which is fine, but his political prejudices and obvious disdain for conservatism, be it news broadcasts, intelligent but obviously unenlightened reporters or his predictable use of the local religious radio station owner as the character who, of course, turns out to be the most reprehensible sort of human being that ever lived, became cliched. Hey, I've grown up in the Bible belt. We've ALL seen and been disgusted by our share of hypocrites and charlatans, but not EVERYONE who listens to Fox News or can quote scripture is a mindless unenlightened bigot. Kings friends and social circles must be very limited and inbred since he seems unable to conceive of sentient human beings with worthy moral convictions that don't listen to CNN.

So, besides the gratuitous gore which one must expect from King and the language, the majority of which spews forth from the town's religious station owner (but I've heard worse) and King's endless preaching of disdain towards anyone that I might ever call a friend, I was still taken in by the story since the time I first heard about the idea of The Dome. King does and has made some very relevant observations of human nature and I was curious to see what he would do with this. I felt like he weirded out at the end turning it into an out-there sci-fi story. I think it would have been much more interesting and impacting if he'd kept the source of the dome to an extreme scientific (think Star Trek type technology) phenomenon instead of the direction he took it. I'm sorry, but the aliens from outer space angle to me was just lame and I was really surprised that someone with his talent took that route. (less)

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Feb 23, 2010

Fred Maack rated it

Shelves: 2009-read

I've read a lot of Stephen King. I was a big fan when I was in my teenage years. The Stand and The Long Walk are among his best. Under The Dome is sadly one of his worst. It was a book which started as an idea for a project called "The Cannibals" in 1976. He never finished it. I was kind of disappointed, there are no cannibals in Under The Dome.

The book is colossal at more than 1000 pages. This isn't anything new for King fans as many of his books are more than 700 pages. I...moreI've read a lot of Stephen King. I was a big fan when I was in my teenage years. The Stand and The Long Walk are among his best. Under The Dome is sadly one of his worst. It was a book which started as an idea for a project called "The Cannibals" in 1976. He never finished it. I was kind of disappointed, there are no cannibals in Under The Dome.

The book is colossal at more than 1000 pages. This isn't anything new for King fans as many of his books are more than 700 pages. It was over 1000 pages and was one of King's better books (although the ending was disappointing).

Under The Dome should not have been 1000 pages. It should have been maybe 300 pages tops. The story meanders and meanders and nothing really happens of interest.

The characters are completely dull, lifeless, one dimensional. They're created with a stroke of the pen and quickly start dying off. I never cared for them so it really wasn't a big deal when they died.

The plot is another King rehash. A combination of much of his weaker work with a dash of The Stand here and there. It's part Tommyknockers (his worst book IMO), partly Dreamcatcher (also awful) and partly Needful Things (mediocre at best).

The book is also an anti-bush polemic. I'm not a Bush fan but this is a little late as far as anti-Bush messages go and very thinly veiled. The main bad guys in the book are two town politicians based on George W Bush (dumb, incompetent) and Dick Cheney (power hungry, ruthless, corrupt). It's so obvious and cloying that I didn't hate these characters or feel sympathy for them. Instead of creating real characters King has just taken Bush and Cheney and inserted them in his story.

Perhaps if King had any tact for writing political allegories this would have been a better novel. Under the Dome is partly based on Lord of the Flies which King frequently mentions in his work. 'Flies' was a much better novel than this, suspenseful and gripping and no more than 200 pages. Under The Dome is 5 times as long and 5 times as bad.

I felt like I've seen this situations and characters before. King has just changed a few minor details. The dome itself is just a setup for another town which drives itself crazy. It's Needful Things, Cell, The Stand, Dreamcatcher and The Tommyknockers all over again. A few elements have been changed but the plot is basically the same.

King can be a good writer at times but he can also be a god awful writer. In this case he's god awful. This wasn't particularly original. The idea is largely ripped off from an old Twilight Zone clone. The resolution is also utterly cheesy and practically an afterthought. It's Deus Ex Machina at its worst. Of course this is a tactic frequently employed by King when he doesn't know how to write a conclusion.(less)

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About Stephen King

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent...moreLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine in 1947, the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his parents separated when Stephen was a toddler, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of the elderly couple. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.

Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and then Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.

He and Tabitha Spruce married in January of 1971. He met Tabitha in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University of Maine at Orono, where they both worked as students. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.

Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many of these were later gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching high school English classes at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.(less)

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