On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day, a small town is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and rain down flaming wreckage. A gardener’s hand is severed as the dome descends. Cars explode on impact. Families are separated and panic mounts. No one can fathom what the barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away. Now a few intrepid citizens, led by an Iraq vet turned short-order cook, face down a ruthless politician dead set on seizing the reins of power under the dome. But their main adversary is the dome itself. Because time isn’t just running short. It’s running out.
On our flight up to Cleveland today I finally finished “Under the Dome” by Stephen King.
“Under the Dome” takes place in the small town Chester’s Mill where, suddenly and inexplicably, an impenetrable force field has cut off the town from the outside world: no power (except for propane-powered generators), no burbling river, no winds or breezes, no rain, no fresh air. It’s a chilly late autumn in Maine, but under the dome, it’s unseasonably warm and getting warmer.
Like many other of King’s books, the cast of characters is vast and there’s a lot of stuff all going on at once, described from multiple viewpoints, much like “The Stand.” This was initially hard to keep track of, but once you get sucked into the world of Chester’s Mill, everything flows together nicely. The novel also has the “benefit” of being confined to one place (under the dome) and thus the locations aren’t as spread out as they were in “The Stand.”
The themes of the story range from small town politics, religion, environmental issues, and emergency management to “Breaking Bad”-like drug lords and meth labs. And, of course, there’s the Dome. Where did it come from? Why does it only surround Chester’s Mill? Will the U.S. military be able to break through and free the trapped citizens of the Mill before it’s too late?
At over 1,000 pages, “Under the Dome” wasn’t a quick read for me (I started it back in April after I finished “11/23/63“), but it was definitely a page-turner.
