03 November 2013

Under the Dome, By Stephen King

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when -- or if -- it will go away. Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens -- town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6320534-under-the-dome
This novel by Stephen King takes place in a small U.S. named Chester Mills, ME., where an enormous and transparent dome has descended over the entire town. This dome is bullet, laser and missile proof. The dome has an electrical force which protects it and anyone or thing that attempts to harm the dome gets a deadly electrical shock. Nothing on the earth’s planet is able to puncture or even leave a scratch on the dome; not only that but no one can get in or leave the dome either.

Stephen King has written such a compelling, harrowing and heartbreaking book about a current day apocalypse. You hate to put the book down as you know you’re going to miss it and it’s so hard to forget about these well-written characters. He does introduce a large amount of characters, which at times it was hard to keep track of.  But thankfully, he has included a 3 page character list to make it easier for us to follow.

One of my favorite characters is Barbie, yes a man can have that name, and Stephen even explains the origin of it. At first, you get the feeling that Barbie is up to no good as he gets accidentally locked in the dome causing him to be the only non Chester Mills citizen. You come to realize that he is actually a good person and without him the town would be controlled by someone not so good.

That brings us the second main character; Big Jim (tyrant-in-waiting), he is a local politician who takes over the police station. He starts to control the town for his own greedy agenda and that causes a battle between Barbie and Big Jim for the power of Chester Mills! The mayhem gets so out of control and there is no government or authority now that the dome has separated the town from the rest of the world.  With the town being shut off, this causes havoc and also general necessities to survive the separation.

The big question now is who put the dome over Chester Mills; was it the government, terrorism or Extra Terrestrial? How can they survive and more importantly, how do they escape the dome alive, if at all possible.  Thankfully, you do get to find out the reason for the dome by the ending of the book!

I strongly recommend this book, Under The Dome by Stephen King! You won't be able to put it down and you will feel after a while that your actually in the dome as well!
 


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