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Loading... Under the Dome (edition 2010)by Stephen King (Author)
Work detailsUnder the Dome by Stephen King
My first Stephen King. Exciting, but not as well-written as I was expecting. It seemed slap-dash. Plus, the town went downhill awfully fast, and the blind devotion to Jim Rennie made the townspeople seem like a bunch of simpletons. Not a lot of nuance or subtlety here. (  ) Talbin | May 15, 2013 |  I hate to be derivative, but I agree with Pam Gearhart's review (http://www.amazon.com/review/R151XJEX34KOFN/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1...). There just is no "there" there. King has rarely disappointed me in the past and I have many of his books. Sadly, I just can't like this one. King is known for his characters who feel like they are really here, that they are real people. I identify with so many of his characters. Roland Dechain, Pennywise the Clown (shudder!!!!), Delbert Grady in “The Shining”. And I remember all the characters in “The Stand.” However, with “Under the Dome” there just isn't that connection as there is with so many of the other King characters. The book is terrifically long, over 1,000 pages. Normally, like with the Uncut Edition of The Stand (1472 pages), I am so deeply into the story that I am still disappointed when the book is over. In this case, I got about 200 pages into the book (with difficulty) and just fizzled out. I tried picking up again several times, thinking I was just in the wrong mood for the book, but I never could get through it. I just didn't care what happened to any of the characters. And if I can't care about the characters, I won't waste my time reading the book. Life is too short, there are too many books out there, to waste time on something I can't get into. I know some people really love the book, which is understandable. But, thankfully, not everyone likes the same thing, and this is just my own opinion. Take it or leave it, I still love many of King's works. (  ) Leiahc | May 4, 2013 | I really liked this book all the way up to the end. The conclusion was a little more science fiction oriented than I like, but it was still a pretty great book. I really liked Barbie and his friends, and I loved to hate his antagonists. All of the townspeople had distinct personalities - a real feat considering there were so many of them. Despite its immense length, I kept coming back to it; it was a highly entertaining story. The build-ups and promises all paid off. Really great. One of King's best if you ask me. (  ) frozenplums | May 4, 2013 | Loved the book. Can't wait for the series!! ( ) VPbookseller | Apr 17, 2013 | What a great adventure. I am really sad that I have finished this book. I tired to not read so fast and really enjoy and I think I managed but last night i did finish. Wish there were another 900 pages ;) The end could have been a bit longer. Love to read more about the leatherfaces. or what were they called? More More!! (  ) Marlene-NL | Apr 12, 2013 |
 Though his scenarios aren’t always plausible in strictest terms, King’s imagination, as always, yields a most satisfying yarn.  It’s a fun and clear-headed fury, though. This is King humming at the height of his powers, cackling at human folly, taking childish glee in the gross-out and all the while spinning a modern fable that asks some serious questions without sounding preachy. If the fury left a few excessive typos and a dog’s name that mistakenly changes on occasion, well, these are (mostly) forgivable sins. After all, few of us can resist such nightmares and dreamscapes. King says he started "Under the Dome" in 1976 but then "crept away from it with my tail between my legs. . . . I was terrified of screwing it up." Fortunately, he found the confidence to return to this daunting story because the result is one of his most powerful novels ever. The King book that is most readily brought to mind by “Under the Dome” isn’t an earlier large-scale apocalyptic fantasy like “It” or “The Stand”; it’s “On Writing,” the instructive autobiographical gem that cast light on how Mr. King’s creative mind works. In the spirit of “On Writing,” “Under the Dome” takes a lucid, commonsense approach that keeps it tight and energetic from start to finish. Hard as this thing is to hoist, it’s even harder to put down. 1,100 pages of localized apocalypse from an author whose continued and slightly frenzied commerce with his muse has been one of the more enthralling spectacles in American literature.
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0743597923, MP3 CD)Amazon Exclusive: Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan Reviews Under the DomeGuillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan share their enthusiasm for Stephen King's thriller, Under the Dome. This pair of reviewers knows a thing or two about the art of crafting a great thriller. Del Toro is the Oscar-nominated director of international blockbuster films, including Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy. Hogan is the author of several acclaimed novels, including The Standoff and Prince of Thieves, which won the International Association of Crime Writer's Dashiell Hammett Award in 2005. The two recently collaborated to write the bestselling horror novel, The Strain, the first of a proposed trilogy. Read their exclusive Amazon guest review of Under the Dome:   The first thing readers might find scary about Stephen King's Under The Dome is its length. The second is the elaborate town map and list of characters at the front of the book (including "Dogs of Note"), which sometimes portends, you know, heavy lifting. Don't you believe it. Breathless pacing and effortless characterization are the hallmarks of King's best books, and here the writing is immersive, the suspense unrelenting. The pages turn so fast that your hand--or Kindle-clicking thumb--will barely be able to keep up. You Are Here. Nobody yarns a “What if?” like Stephen King. Nobody. The implausibility of a dome sealing off an entire city--a motif seen before in pulp magazines and on comic book covers--is given the most elaborate real-life alibi by crafting details, observations, and insights that make us nod silently while we read. Promotional materials reference The Stand in comparison, but we liken Under The Dome more to King's excellent novella, The Mist: another locked-door situation on an epic scale, a tour-de-force in which external stressors bake off the civility of a small town full of dark secrets, exposing souls both very good...and very, very bad. Yes, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," but there is so much more this time. The expansion of King’s diorama does not simply take a one-street fable and turn it into a town, but finds new life for old archetypes, making them morally complex and attuned to our world today. It makes them relevant and affecting once again. And the beauty of it all is that the final lesson, the great insight that is gained at the end of this draining journey, is not a righteous 1950’s sermon but an incredibly moving and simple truth. A nugget of wisdom you'll be using as soon as you turn the last page. This Is Now. Along the way, you get bravura writing, especially featuring the town kids, and a delicious death aria involving one of the most nefarious characters--who dies alone, but not really--as well as a few laugh-out-loud moments, and a cameo (of sorts) by none other than Jack Reacher. Indeed--whether during a much-needed comfort break, or a therapeutic hand-flexing--you may find yourself wondering, "Is this a horror novel? Or is it a thriller?" The answer, of course, is: Yes, yes, yes. "...the blood hits the wall like it always hits the wall." It seems impossible that, as he enters his sixth decade of publishing, the dean of dark fiction could add to his vast readership. But that is precisely what will happen...when the Dome drops. Now Go Read It. --Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
The Story Behind the Cover The jacket concept for Under the Dome originated as an ambitious idea from the mind of Stephen King. The artwork is a combination of photographs, illustration and 3-D rendering. This is a departure from the direction of King's most recent illustrated covers. The small town of Chester's Mill, Maine, is faced with a big dilemma when it is mysteriously sealed off by an invisible and completely impenetrable force field. With cars and airplanes exploding on contact, the force field has completely isolated the townspeople from the outside world. Now, Iraq war vet Dale Barbara and a group of the town's more sensible citizens must overcome the tyrannical rule of Big Jim Rennie, a politician bent on controlling everything within the Dome.… (more) (summary from another edition) |
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