The town of Chester’s Mill, ME is changed forever on October 21st, when an invisible force field materializes to quarantine it from the rest of humanity. Not truly a dome as the title suggests, the mysterious barrier is more like a capsule that fits exactly over the town’s borders.
The “dome” is 47,000 feet high, and extends far below the town as well. Pollutants begin to gather on the barrier, eventually giving it the look of a dirty windshield as the story progresses. Near its base, the “dome” emits a low level electronic frequency that gives anyone with a pacemaker a nasty surprise when it explodes in their chest. The barrier is as strong as it is thorough, it can withstand aircraft and cars collisions; rifle shots and cruise missiles tipped with bunker buster warheads are equally ineffective.
The military forms a perimeter around Chester Mills, and further cuts off the town from the rest of the world by shutting down Internet access and leaving the trapped town to fend for themselves. In accordance with whatever literary laws there are regarding towns mysteriously isolated, characters representing both the good and evil sides of the spectrum emerge. Evil is aptly represented by Big Jim Rennie, who owns the local used car dealership along with heading the town council. Rennie’s the proverbial big fish in a small pond; despite his claim he was born again in his teens, he’s more apt to steal a baby’s candy than kiss the baby. When the dome appears, Big Jim becomes more concerned with solidifying his power base than the welfare of his town. He’s also more than a bit concerned about the council’s dirty secret coming to light — that they’ve been using town materials to run a meth lab in order to give Chester Mills an economic boost. The dead corpses stashed in his pantry, courtesy of his psychotic and migraine prone son as well as himself, are starting to pose a problem as well.
Representing good is a man who was trying to leave Chester Mills before the barrier appeared, Dale “Barbie” Barbara. A former captain in the Army with traumatic memories of his time served in Iraq, Dale has been working as a short order cook before a fight with Jim Rennie’s son prompted his decision to move on. Instead, he now finds himself conscripted back into the military and promoted to Colonel. When the President declares martial law and puts Dale in charge, he finds himself in a power struggle with a pious sounding man willing to resort to any means in order to regain his control of the town. Dale also faces problems from a police force newly expanded by the council, and stocked with people more apt to commit crimes than prevent them.
In the closing Author’s Note, Stephen King reveals that he first began work on the novel in 1976. Intimidated by the scope of the work, he shelved the project before finally going back to it in 2007. “Under the Dome” is a huge undertaking at 1,074 pages, containing over 63 characters and requires an immense amount of research to make the novel plausible. But after almost thirty years, the storyline hasn’t improved with age; instead of a Stephen King frightmare, we’re presented with a cross between “The Simpsons Movie” and a social experiment run by a lunatic. It’s a tale that’s been told before, and told a lot shorter and to the point.
The opening of “Under the Dome” is promising, with body parts and wreckage raining down from a plane colliding with the “dome”. But from there King goes in overkill mode on things colliding with the barrier; we’re shown more auto accidents and enough bird deaths to send the National Audubon Society into mourning for life. King does do an excellent job handling the characters he creates, and it’s commendable that he allows his unlikable characters at least one moment of positive action instead of consigning them to be cardboard creations. He also puts enough care into the details of the novel, researching subjects from medicine to military weaponry to give his prose a ring of accuracy.
The Achilles’ Heel of “Under the Dome” is the length. The plot frequently feels drawn out, as if the author was trying to tailor the story to a page count. It feels repetitive, and scenes that could have been finished in a few pages go on for a chapter or two. As a result, the novel doesn’t kick into high gear until 700 pages in, far too long for an author of King’s caliber. There’s also the problem of the plot being a bit predictable, since from what previous books and films have shown, once society is isolated things will break down. Chester Mills is no exception, and King doesn’t hold back in that department. But much of it seems forced into the novel, as if King realized he needed to keep the readers amused until the plot reared its head.
“Under the Dome” is a decent novel, but certainly not up to the standard of King’s previous works. Despite being well-researched with well-drawn characters, the story feels drawn out with little to drive it forward but crimes the townspeople commit on each other for a large part of the novel. A good buy in its paperback format, but there isn’t enough in this effort to justify spending the price for a hardcover.
By Stephen King
Scribner (November 10, 2009)
1088 pages
