 "Popular fiction book of the year" | 2009-11-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: AABQDZOT67FDM |
Absolutely brilliant, a lot of fun and King once again shows us why he is the best popular fiction writer and one of the best character writers of all time.
In terms of pages, it is a long book, but you just seem to disappear in this world and when you come up you see you have read a few hundred pages, you then say no to work/sleep and then dive back in.
Am yet to read the Stand (shame on me, I know) but am compelled to pick it up after this and what I have heard about it.
If you love good writing, amazing characters and a great story pick this one up. |
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 "I don't know where to begin." | 2009-11-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: A27OQYXXPN2UY4 |
First, let's start with the sheer bulk of this book because I think this is where it all went wrong. Everyone repeat after me, bigger is NOT better. I read somewhere that pages in a book have to be divisible by 16 - it has something to do with how the pages are put together for binding - if not divisible by 16 you are wasting paper/money. Including the pages leading up to the start of the story, there are 1088 pages in this book and that IS divisible by 16. But I did some counting. Seventy-seven of these pages are either BLANK or have just a few words on them (these are the pages between chapters). Each chapter starts between 1/3 - 1/2 of the way down the page, so add about another 20-30 blank pages. The print is on the large side and there are 1" margins on either side of the printed material on each page, i.e., a 6" wide page has only 4" of print. Adult book publishers have a phrase for practices that make a book look longer than it seems so that customers think they are buying more then they are getting - fudgy f*#&$^%. This book contains so much fudgy f#*$&#$ that those tree-dwelling, cookie baking elves would never run out of chocolate if they could only tap into the amount of fudge in this book. The interior binding of my copy is already falling apart.
Now let's talk about the book itself. The first 65 pages are a never-ending retelling of the opening incident from multiple points of view. It reminded me of bad fan fiction - you know the type, 20 of your favorite characters get together to have sex and then the same act is described ad naseum from 20 points of view. It starts simply - a plane and a pulp truck crash into the dome. We don't need to be told on each of the next 65 pages by heaven knows how many people that a plane and a pulp truck crashed into a dome. So between the blank pages, the start-of-the-chapter pages, the margins and 65 pages of the same thing over and over again there are about 165+ unnecessary pages.
And it doesn't get any better. The map is a joke, as are the characters. There is no one to root for - not even the dogs. No one stands out. Most characters, take for instance Sammy Bushey, are merely throw-aways - they serve no purpose other than to add more unnecessary pages. Remember the bomb blast in halfway through The Stand that King admitted he used to get rid of a bunch of characters in one fell swoop so that the story could re-focus? A bomb blast somewhere around page 558 would have been nice. And let's not forget the plot. A line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to mind. "On second thought, let's not go there. Tis a silly place."
There is no horror here. No boogeyman. No monster under the bed. No Randall Flagg. And when a monster tries to rear its head about 30 some pages before the end, it's almost laughable. As King pointed out in Danse Macabre, the monster isn't scary when you see the zipper running down its back. This is nothing here but page after page of people behaving irrationally or badly. It reminded me of "Black House" - page after page of violence and depraved acts that don't serve to further the plot.
I don't understand the tangent Mr. King has been on lately. The last books that he wrote that still scare me today are It and Pet Cemetary back from the 1980s. I wish he would go back to being the Master of Horror as opposed to the Master of People Behaving Badly because people behaving badly are so commonplace they just aren't scary. |
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 "The Protocols of the Tea Party Elders" | 2009-11-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: A33GPZFWPU1L59 |
I have always loved Stephen King. I loved the heft of his books, the way his characters developed, slowly and rationally. With each nuance solidly rooted. Until things start slowly tilting sideways into utter chaos.
But in this case, though some of the writing is still good, I think that King has finally 'jumped the shark".
In this tome, which I will admit, it looked forward to and rushed to get as soon as possible, I find that King has traveled through the looking glass. Clergymen aren't men of the cloth, they're child-molesters and drug makers. Anyone politically to the right of Bernie Sanders is a mouth-breathing fascist, or a numbskulled dunce.
Maybe if I sat down and read none-stop cover to cover, as I usually do with his books, I would not think so harshly of it. But I have not, I cannot and I will not.
Maybe if and when Mr. King recovers from his Bush Derangement Syndrome and realizes that half the country does not consist or drooling idiots, I might return.
But not right now. |
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 "Errors" | 2009-11-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3VGA32ZHW7XW7 |
| I am the epitomy of the Constant Reader. I began reading SK at the ripe old age of thirteen, and have continued into my forties. When this tome arrived in my mailbox, on my birthday no less, I couldn't wait to get started, knowing I would love it. But I am afraid now, after finishing it, that I may be "outgrowing" Mr. King at last. It started with Duma Key and all the Republican bashing, and why does SK hate "Hummers". Twas a Hummer that ran down poor Gandolph, driven by a woman on a cell phone, and now the good ol boy everyone loves to hate drives one as well. But on to the errors. What exactly is a Beretta Taurus that the police officers were carrying? Is it a Beretta? Is it a Taurus? And the biggest one in my opinion - when the Cheif makes his arrest at the hospital, he draws his Beretta and lets off a round into the floor. When he gets the prisoner to the station, he puts his hand on his Glock in the holster. Maybe he is two gun Pete, I don't know, but you would expect better editing. All in all, diehard fans will love it and defend it to the end, it was just a "like" for this Constant Reader. |
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| "SSDD" | 2009-11-17 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1UZGFAL7ODO2K |
| I REALLY wanted to like this novel because it's been awhile since I've enjoyed a good King book. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything new here. King has done the "small town sealed off from the rest of the world...watch everybody degenerate except for a few heroes" story repeatedly. I disagree wholeheartedly with other reviewers who feel this is an epic like The Stand...this is more on par with Needful Things. This is one small town in Maine, not the entire world, a la The Stand. There were no characters that haven't already been written by King before, and so many of the characters were one-dimensional to the degree that I just could not care about them in the least. I realize that this is probably close to how we all would act if we were cut off from the rest of the world in such a manner, but this is not a new concept by any means. Stephen King is regurgitating plots and characters and I found myself wondering if people in Maine are irritated at King for always making them appear to be so stupid! While reading this book, I got the impression that over 90% of the people in Chester's Mill were so dumb that not only did they deserve to die but it was a wonder that they had lived as long as they had! And seriously, grown women burning Bratz dolls for fun, and not just once but repeatedly?! I bet they would have a blast with Bonk-the-Weasel. Sheesh. 1,000+ pages doesn't make an epic, and in this case it's really a waste of paper. I'm glad I got my copy from the library so I didn't waste my money in addition to my time. |
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| "Mesmerizing" | 2009-11-10 |
| - Reviewed By User: A33E0CODNP98PV |
This may be a bulky novel, but it is worth its weight in gold! Paranormal, seriously fasinating, and thrilling, this is by far one of Stephen King's best works to date. Chester's Mill, Maine is in terror, but what is the solution? How will residents who are trapped inside an invisible dome survive? How did this happen? Is it a government experiment or something even more evil? Will the puzzle be solved before it is too late?
Don't let the size of the book put you off. This supernatural horror story is so unique, so thrilling, so gripping, the reader will not be able to put it down!
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![Under the Dome: A Novel by Stephen King [Hardcover]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41%2BHQnGT-2L._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
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