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28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great, not perfect, but still great, 24 Nov 2009
I read this brick of a book in a matter of days which is saying something as I have a full-time job and not an awful lot of time on my hands... all the same I literally couldn't help myself. Stephen King is nothing if not a bloody good read!
The premise is great, well-written and spooky and there are some brilliant characters. Also for the first half of the book a kind of supernatural whodunnit is played out (Who made the dome, was it aliens, the army, something/someone else?) which I found really enjoyable. All in all I really do feel it does stand up to scrutiny when compared to his previous classics; like IT and the Tommyknockers which I feel it owes a lot. Then again (unlike some reviewers) I am not a hater of modern king, I really loved Duma Key for example.
I have but two qualms, one is the children. Now I really really feel that before Mr King next puts pen to paper (or finger to laptop) he should go out and have a talk to a real 12-18 year old of today. I say this because Kings writing of modern day children and teenagers in Under the Dome is sometimes stilted, occasionally cloying and once or twice plain bad. At it's worse King sounds similar to a middle-aged politician using 'catch-phrases' and 'hip anecdotes' and references 'things that young people like' in an embarrassing attempt to be 'down with the kids'. Maybe if King just tried less hard to use 'youth lingo' with his young characters they'd feel more natural. That aside... I did like the three main young characters even if I had to wince at their dialogue a couple of times.
Secondly, the payoff was a little disappointing. I think the idea was pretty good and the final sequence was actually pretty well written but I guess I was hoping for one final injection of fear... As is often the case (in film and in books) the monsters are always scarier when you can't quite see them, and once the evil force in Dome was revealed a lot of the fear and suspense was lost.
These criticisms out of the way I have very rarely been so easily taken hostage by a book. For the past 5 days the town and it's many inhabitants have taken over my mental landscape and I can honestly say that I actually miss them and didn't want the book to end. Setbacks aside if you like King, if you like clever sci-fi, nerve-jangling thrillers or a clever political allegory you'll love this.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The best of king and the worst of king (in one book), 2 Dec 2009
Every aspect of Stephen King fleshed out into almost 900 pages.
A typical Maine town is inexplicably sealed off by a dome, trapping the residents inside. No-body understands how it arrived and what it means, the Government are unable to penetrate from outside while inside things take a very dark turn.
King uses a very large cast of characters (which are sometimes hard to keep track of) and cranks up the tension (and the body count) as within the dome, the residents need to start taking sides as previously hidden evil comes to the surface. King also uses the dome as a microcosm of society and demonstrates how quickly things change if there is an event of significance. This was more of a disaster story then horror or sci-fi in my opinion, although it has the traditional dark elements of King's writing. Oh, and strangely a couple of name checks to Lee Child's character Jack Reacher as an off-stage character in this story!
**Minor spoilers** I know he writes long books, but this felt too long, but at times surprisingly rushed. Within the Dome, things fall apart within about 24 hours and I feel that a little more common sense would have prevailed, likewise bad guy Big Jim would have waited a bit to see if the dome lifted and he would have to answer for his actions before taking power in the way he does. The whole "it's an alien experiment" thing reminded me too much of numerous Star Trek episodes where mankind was 'tested' to really engage me as an interesting concept from within King could do his stuff. But he does flesh out his characters and the advantage of the length of the book is that you do engage with them and care what happens even if the story could have been told in half the page count!
So it is over long and over indulgent, but it also works and the author's legion of fans will probably love it, and vote my review unhelpful. Personally I thought the town went bad far too quickly and it was not convincing enough. So an okay book but not a stand-out one.
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42 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There's more to King than meets the eye, 19 Nov 2009
As a long term Stephen King fan, I've been of the view for some time that his best work was behind him. However, with Cell and Duma Key, he seemed to be heading back to the King that I knew and loved when he was churning out books like The Stand, The Tommyknockers and It.
It was thus with some trepidation that I started to read Under the Dome. I'd desperately wanted to like the last 'old' novel that King had published, Blaze, but found that a terrible disappointment. And the early signs weren't good with Under the Dome. There's a very daunting list of 'dramatis personae' at the start of the book, and confusion reigned as seemingly hundreds of characters were introduced in the first fifty or so pages. Whereas King has handled large number of characters very successfully before, most notably in The Stand, that relied on reasonably long chapters to introduce each new group of people. In Under the Dome, there are seemingly dozens of new characters on every page at the start, and I can see readers being put off from carrying on unless they concentrate VERY hard on keeping track of who is who.
However, get through this, and the rewards are rich. When the dome comes down on Chester's Mill, Jim Rennie, the evil second selectman of the town, quickly seizes the reins of power, and the battle for power begins. On the one side is Rennie and his henchmen; on the other, a small group of townsfolk lead by Dale Barbara, a veteran of the Iraq war who, when the dome came down, was on the verge of leaving town. What follows demonstrates superbly the fact that the crimes of the few can bring suffering to the poor, as Rennie's tyranny takes root. I got so absorbed in what was effectively the battle for the town, that it was easy to forget the main cause of the problems, and the main point of the book - that the town is under a mysterious dome, and almost completely cut off from the outside world.
King fans will love this - it's sort of a cross between Needful Things and The Tommyknockers, in my opinion. If one ignores the supernatural elements that King almost always brings to his work, the book acts as a great way of highlighting the everyday evil that can befall anybody or anywhere in time of crisis, and explores man's propensity to do wrong. In this regard, it reminded me of a latterday Lord of the Flies, and if there is any justice then it will gain King an army of new fans. Rumours of King's retirement have been written large since his near-fatal accident some years ago but, on this basis, his best work may be ahead of him. Five stars.
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