Customer Reviews

Under the Dome: A Novel

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read my first Stephen King book when I was 13 years old and have been hooked every since. As is expected with an author that has something like 50+ published novels of pretty substantial size, I have been disappointed a number of times. Under the Dome, however, is not one of those times. After getting my hands on an advanced reading copy through my work (a bookstore) I started this behemoth and was hooked from page 3. King starts this story with a bang and burns rubber throughout the entire novel, never letting up the hyper-speed pace. With a book this size, I was expecting a few parts to sag, to be boring, but nothing like that ever happened while reading this book: I was completely addicted.

The story is simple: a big ol' dome comes down and cuts off this one small town, Chester's Mill, from the rest of the world. No one can get in or out. What the novel focuses on is how that changes the society inside the dome, how people react to their new enclosed space. And, since this is a King book, you can expect that they don't act well. This town has a lot of bad apples and skeletons in the closet, and they all come out to play when the dome comes down.

There are a few times in this story where I had to suspend my disbelief a little bit farther than I was willing. Mainly, in that things turned south so fast. Perhaps it was just the fact that the book was hundreds of pages, but I couldn't help being jarred whenever I learned that only a day or two had passed in the world of the book, when it felt like it was more time to me. Perhaps this was a conscious decision to keep the pacing fast. Some of the characters can come across as cartoonish, especially the main villain. Most of the characters are well-written and interesting, with faults that make them more believable. But this book is a good one. Not as good as the book it's inevitably going to be compared to (The Stand), but good. King dives into some complex questions about authority, fear, and propaganda, drawing some comparisons between the tactics of George Bush and Dick Cheney and our Dome-villian government figures. There is also a pretty heavy dose of environmental catastrophe interlaced throughout that parallels well with our current global warming issue.

My advice would be not to start this book unless you're ready to turn off the phone, lock the door, and finish the whole thing in one go.

I have never read a Stephen King book before, but I have seen many movies based off his books. As expected his books are not much different than the movies. Stephen King seems to have the curse of writing great beginnings and then not knowing how to end them. Besides the lame ending, one thing that really bother me about this book was the gross technical inaccuracy. Many people do things like confuse GSM with Wifi, so I can't hold that against him. I can also forgive him for not thinking about using induction to transmit power to the people in the dome, and to create breathable air at the end, since Stephen King is not a scientist. However, Stephen King seems to lack even a grade school understanding of combustion engines. All combustion engines require three things: fuel, spark, and air. How in the world people could be driving cars when there is not enough oxygen to breath, is beyond me. I could ignore this flaw, and simply pretend like all the vehicles are battery powered. However, the generators would have the same requirement. The story makes too big a deal out of the propane for me to suspend my disbelief, or do something like pretend the generators are backup batteries or such...

My recommendation is read the book until the climax, and then make-up your own ending.

Well, as with any other Stephen King book, it's just amazing. I love everythign about it, the way he's in people heads and all that. you just have to read it! and i recommend it!

While "Under the Dome" is an enjoyable novel, I would not compare it with "The Stand" as is advertised on the cover. Given who the writer is, I was disappointed after reading this claim. There are many characters, but none as spectacular as most of the characters of that earlier work, nor those in many of his other celebrated books. Nor did the story feel (to me) as passionate, or full of promise, as the epic situations that unfolded with the super-characters of his other works.

"Under the Dome" is an examination of what happens when a town is physically cut off from the rest of the world, though it retains telephone and Internet services. Thus the theme is roughly like "The Lord of the Flies," in the setting of the modern American culture.

Of course, any work by Stephen King is enjoyable. I just don't feel that it is one of his greater works. It seemed that where something spectacular was about to unfold, the situation fizzled out. I kept waiting for something to happen.

Maybe that is the point of the story, that small-town American life is the boring product of "dim bulbs" and unethical, egotistical schemers, though that is difficult to understand, coming from this author.

Like many new books being released at this time, and not just in America, this one, too, reflects a loss of public faith in the government.

I would not say that it's not worth the trouble of reading. Be advised : the story stretches a long time in great detail, for a rather disappointing conclusion.

Very Good Novel. Reminisant of the stand in which a small town crisis has the town slowly dividing into sides of good and evil. Although more than 1000 pages in scope, not nearly as broad in locations as the story is set entirely in the small town. Some really great characters to root for and some evil ones too that I really loathed (Rennie!)I would recommend this book to King fans. He is the very best at articulating the tensions and development of characters in his books, and there are quite a few in this one. What gave this review a 4 star instead of 5 was the ending. Not a bad end to the book, but it tied up a little too quick considering the scope on a whole. (but I find that in 90% of all books in my opinion)

I recently read The Stand which I found on a list of the 100 best books of all time. Although I didn't quite get what was so fantastic about that book, I was intrigued by the new work of Stephen King Under the Dome. While I appreciate that the contents were very far fetched and somewhat sci-fi, I really enjoyed this book. I suppose it has the same premise as The Stand (good v. bad) but the multiple tragedies experienced by the `good people' and the ease with which the mayor unethically took control kept me interested. Although I thought the end was extremely far fetched, it was definitely tragic and as such, will make the book memorable for me. If you have seen the movie The Mist (which was based on a Stephen King short story), you can see how good he is at making you care for some characters while despising others, and relishing their deaths when their time has finally come to and end. This is also true with Under the Dome.

The first 1000 pages of this epic are brillant. There are numerous and rich characters good and evil. These characters are well developed even though some reviews say differently. The concept and plot itself are interesting and well thought out and researched. There are elements of Kings other novels but it never feels redundent of his earlier works, instead it feels fresh and unique.

This book has one huge flaw which could be a deal breaker for some who read it. The reason for the Dome being there isn't really explained in great detail and is pretty lame. There is only a small part in the middle that it is brought up and then it is brought up again in the last 200 pages. I don't want to give anything away, but read this book for the characters and character interaction not for some great conclusion that i have a feeling will let down alot of people like it did for me. I really hope they twique it for the Mini series.

If this is Kings last great epic, which I hope it isn't then it isn't a bad note to go out on. I think it will displease people who are expecting another Stand or It, but I still think it is better then %50 of the other new fiction out there for horror and sceince fiction fans. It could have benefited from a little more time in the oven, but all and all it's another home run for King.

I thought the best book I ever read was "IT" by Stephen King. Then I read "The Stand" and thought that was the best book I had ever read. Then I read "Under the Dome" and know for sure that this is the best book I have ever read. It only took me a few days to read the entire 1100 pages because it moved so fast and every page was so crazy that I was dying to know what would happen next. The characters (at first overwhelemed me because there are so many, but you quickly know each of them) are so well developed and I was so into everything they did. I really hope Stephen King write more books before he officially retires. He is such a genius. Best book ever. I highly reccommened it.

Ok, I'm one of those "rabid King fans" mentioned in a previous review. I had a hell of a time NOT buying this when I saw it in the bookstore, sure that it would be a Christmas gift, as King's newest always is, from my brother. And then I burned through the first 800 pages, gorging on Christmas chocolates AND Stephen King. Let's face it - he knows what he's doing. There were no slow spots (in a 1000-plus page book? Yes, really!) But it was all...familiar. The characters, the bad guys, the kids. Anyone remember the author in Bag of Bones? How he wrote more than a book a year sometimes, saved up the extras and then doled them out when he ran dry? Hm.

And while I saw (and loved) the environmental and political parallels (and for that reason sped through the book to find out if they can be saved - what's the magic potion? What do we need to do, to save ourselves from our larger, but sadly similar dome?) I felt a bit like Annie Wilkes in Misery: cheated. The ending was well, kinda phoned in. Sorry Steve - you're still the King in my book-reader's heart - the decent thing for me to do now is to write the rave reviews for all your books that are fantastic. And there are many, many of those. I'm going to go read one now.