Under the Dome: A Novel Hardcover – by Stephen King

Don’t miss the “harrowing” (The Washington Post) #1 New York Times bestselling thriller from Stephen King that inspired the hit television series, following the apocalyptic scenario of a town cut off from the rest of the world.

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.

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan Reviews Under the Dome

Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan share their enthusiasm for Stephen King's thriller, Under the Dome. This pair of reviewers knows a thing or two about the art of crafting a great thriller. Del Toro is the Oscar-nominated director of international blockbuster films, including Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy. Hogan is the author of several acclaimed novels, including The Standoff and Prince of Thieves, which won the International Association of Crime Writer's Dashiell Hammett Award in 2005. The two recently collaborated to write the bestselling horror novel, The Strain, the first of a proposed trilogy. Read their exclusive Amazon guest review of Under the Dome:

The first thing readers might find scary about Stephen King's Under The Dome is its length. The second is the elaborate town map and list of characters at the front of the book (including "Dogs of Note"), which sometimes portends, you know, heavy lifting. Don't you believe it. Breathless pacing and effortless characterization are the hallmarks of King's best books, and here the writing is immersive, the suspense unrelenting. The pages turn so fast that your hand--or Kindle-clicking thumb--will barely be able to keep up.
You Are Here.

Nobody yarns a “What if?” like Stephen King. Nobody. The implausibility of a dome sealing off an entire city--a motif seen before in pulp magazines and on comic book covers--is given the most elaborate real-life alibi by crafting details, observations, and insights that make us nod silently while we read. Promotional materials reference The Stand in comparison, but we liken Under The Dome more to King's excellent novella, The Mist: another locked-door situation on an epic scale, a tour-de-force in which external stressors bake off the civility of a small town full of dark secrets, exposing souls both very good...and very, very bad.

Yes, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," but there is so much more this time. The expansion of King’s diorama does not simply take a one-street fable and turn it into a town, but finds new life for old archetypes, making them morally complex and attuned to our world today. It makes them relevant and affecting once again. And the beauty of it all is that the final lesson, the great insight that is gained at the end of this draining journey, is not a righteous 1950’s sermon but an incredibly moving and simple truth. A nugget of wisdom you'll be using as soon as you turn the last page.

This Is Now.

Along the way, you get bravura writing, especially featuring the town kids, and a delicious death aria involving one of the most nefarious characters--who dies alone, but not really--as well as a few laugh-out-loud moments, and a cameo (of sorts) by none other than Jack Reacher. Indeed--whether during a much-needed comfort break, or a therapeutic hand-flexing--you may find yourself wondering, "Is this a horror novel? Or is it a thriller?" The answer, of course, is: Yes, yes, yes.

"...the blood hits the wall like it always hits the wall."

It seems impossible that, as he enters his sixth decade of publishing, the dean of dark fiction could add to his vast readership. But that is precisely what will happen...when the Dome drops.

Now Go Read It. --Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

The Story Behind the Cover
Click on image to enlarge

The jacket concept for Under the Dome originated as an ambitious idea from the mind of Stephen King. The artwork is a combination of photographs, illustration and 3-D rendering. This is a departure from the direction of King's most recent illustrated covers.

In order to achieve the arresting image for this jacket, Scribner art director Rex Bonomelli had to seek out artists who could do a convincing job of creating a realistic portrayal of the town of Chester's Mill, the setting of the novel. Bonomelli found the perfect team of digital artists, based in South America and New York, whose cutting edge work had previously been devoted to advertisement campaigns. This was their first book jacket and an exciting venture for them. "They are used to working with the demands of corporate clients," says Bonomelli. "We gave them freedom and are thrilled with what they came up with."

The CGI (computer generated imagery) enhanced image looks more like something made for the big screen than for the page and is sure to make a lasting impact on King fans.

Meet the Characters Dale Barbara
Barbie, a drifter, ex-army, walks with a burden of guilt from the time he spent in Iraq. Working as a short-order cook at Sweetbriar Rose is the closest thing he’s had to a family life. When his old commander, Colonel Cox, calls from outside, Barbie's burden becomes the town itself.

Julia Shumway
The attractive Editor and Publisher of the local town newspaper, The Chester's Mill Democrat, Julia is self-assured and Republican to the core, but she is drawn to Barbie and discovers, when it matters most, that her most vulnerable moment might be her most liberating.

Jim Rennie, Sr.
"Big Jim." A used car dealer with a fierce smile and no warmth, he'd given his heart to Jesus at age sixteen and had little left for his customers, his neighbors, or his dying wife and deteriorating son. The town's Second Selectman, he’s used to having things his way. He walks like a man who has spent his life kicking ass.

Joseph McClatchey
Scarecrow Joe, a 13-year-old also known as "King of the Geeks" and "Skeletor, a bona fide brain whose backpack bears the legend "fight the powers that be." He’s smarter than anyone, and proves it in a crisis.

Chester's Mill, Maine (click on image to enlarge)

From Publishers Weekly
King's return to supernatural horror is uncomfortably bulky, formidably complex and irresistibly compelling. When the smalltown of Chester's Mill, Maine, is surrounded by an invisible force field, the people inside must exert themselves to survive. The situation deteriorates rapidly due to the dome's ecological effects and the machinations of Big Jim Rennie, an obscenely sanctimonious local politician and drug lord who likes the idea of having an isolated populace to dominate. Opposing him are footloose Iraq veteran Dale “Barbie” Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a gaggle of teen skateboarders and others who want to solve the riddle of the dome. King handles the huge cast of characters masterfully but ruthlessly, forcing them to live (or not) with the consequences of hasty decisions. Readers will recognize themes and images from King's earlier fiction, and while this novel doesn't have the moral weight of, say, The Stand, nevertheless, it's a nonstop thrill ride as well as a disturbing, moving meditation on our capacity for good and evil. (Nov.)
From Bookmarks Magazine
Stephen King. Come for the story, stay for the, well ... stay for the story. Even the most positive reviewers of King's latest doorstop felt compelled to mention King's writing style: how he drops a bad sentence every now and then or knocks out a few lines of tinny dialogue. Whom are the critics kidding? After keeping the publishing industry solvent since the Ford administration, King has become review proof. Sure, Under the Dome is a bit of social commentary and satire thinly disguised as a bloodbath. In Chester's Mill, the only thing higher than the price of propane is the body count. But that's the fun, and King is at full throttle. Read the book. Enjoy it. There will be no quiz.
Review
"Propulsively intriguing... Staggeringly addictive." -- USA Today

"Tight and energetic from start to finish... Hard as this thing is to hoist, it's even harder to put down." -- New York Times

"The work of a master storyteller having a whole lot of fun." -- Los Angeles Times

"King returns to his glory days of The Stand." -- New York Daily News

"A wildly entertaining trip." -- People (3.5 stars)

"Under the Dome moves so fast and grips the reader so tightly that it's practically incapacitating." -- Newsday

"Stephen King's Under the Dome was one of my favourite books of the year so far." -- Neil Gaiman

"Dome is classic King, sure to please any fan." -- Baltimore Sun

"Spellbinding." -- ABCnews.com
About the Author
Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.
From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by by Graham Joyce In 2002 Stephen King announced that he'd given up writing. Yes, and the Queen of England said she'd had it with servants and fancy carriages and was off to do volunteer work in Somalia. . . . You can't write 2,000 words a day for more than three decades and suddenly stop. Because, as King knows perfectly well, you don't give up writing; writing gives up you, but only when it's good and done with you. And writing isn't done with King, not by a long shot. Here we are, several years after this putative abdication, with a novel that comes thumping in at more than 1,000 pages. In an author's note, King says he started "Under the Dome" in 1976 but then "crept away from it with my tail between my legs. . . . I was terrified of screwing it up." Fortunately, he found the confidence to return to this daunting story because the result is one of his most powerful novels ever. On a beautiful, crisp October morning in Chester's Mill, Maine, a plane falls from the sky; a farmer's John Deere blows up, taking the farmer with it; a woman's hand is severed; a truck crashes into nothing. A transparent dome has mysteriously descended over the town's perimeter, sealing it off from the outside world. This science-fiction premise isn't new, but there is more than one way to seal a dome. It's a literary technique we might call the crucible: a simple device to contain the characters and restrict flight from the drama ahead, enabling the author by increments to turn up the heat. "Lord of the Flies" is a classic example, circumscribing events by trapping those boys on an island. The dome itself is not terribly important, and once it is in situ, it allows the author to get on with his real purpose. That purpose reveals King's greatest qualities as a writer. Life under the dome, with finite resources and with the best and worst of human nature emerging, soon deteriorates. Small-town politicians and newspaper publishers adopt conflicting positions. There is a scramble for resources. The air quickly becomes polluted. Citizens start to panic, and corruption, in the form of sleazy, villainous alderman Jim Rennie, drives the town and its police force as martial law takes over. Outside, the government's efforts to puncture the dome are useless. Federal officials think they have a man on the inside, ex-captain now short-order cook Dale Barbara, a disillusioned veteran of the Persian Gulf War. The government wants to concentrate its efforts through Barbara, and we see the town through his eyes, too. Only trouble is, Rennie and his ragtag police force take exception to the idea of Barbara exercising any authority. Rennie also wants to keep hidden his lucrative sideline in the manufacture of crystal meth. Very early the story begins to trigger strange echoes, because we are deep in the world of a cleverly operated allegory. Yet never once do we doubt the veracity of this large cast of characters. The psychological insight into these small-town people is pin-sharp, vivid and utterly convincing. King's greatness lies in his uncanny genius for creating characters and understanding the hive-mind of a community. The dome itself remains pretty much the only supernatural element in the novel (give or take some references to the super-sensitivity of dogs). Unlike "The Stand," another book with a large cast and often considered to be King's best, this is a realist novel. It's also a foot-on-the-gas-narrative told in breathless idiomatic style. King couldn't give two hoots for ornamental language or lyrical phrasing, but you've got to admire him for making this so compelling. Although he's an undisputed master of suspense and terror, what gives King's work heft is his moral clarity. The harrowing climax of "Under the Dome" stems from a humane vision. It's another work in an oeuvre that identifies compassion as the antidote to evil, whether that evil be human or supernatural. And our stock of literature in the great American Gothic tradition is brilliantly replenished because of it. bookworld@washpost.com
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
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Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner; 1st edition (November 10, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 1074 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1439148503
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1439148501
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.7 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 2.5 x 9.25 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #70,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#251 in Ghost Fiction
#5,541 in American Literature (Books)
#6,927 in Suspense Thrillers
Customer Reviews: 4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars    14,728 ratings