Book: Under the Dome by Stephen King

1071 pages of Stephen King….enough for me for awhile. I actually got Dr. Sleep a few days ago (one of Adam's perseverations lately) and could only read about 3 pages…

Not that Under the Dome isn't a good story. It is.

With no warning, one fine day in Maine, the small town of Chester's Mill is trapped beneath an invisible dome. The story is what happens subsequently. Absolutely nothing is able to penetrate the dome, except a wee bit of mist and air, although not nearly enough to sustain life, especially after the big fire. Not even a Cruise missile….

There is one powerful bad guy (a local businessman) and many of his followers, including a sick and psychopathic son. They follow him because he makes them powerful and because they can now act on their socially unacceptable instincts and desires with little retribution. Their old grudges can be remedied. They aren't dirt balls anymore.

There are, of course, the good guys, especially a decorated veteran who was at Fallujah, who wants to forget his past and works as an cook in the local diner, his camouflage now anonymity.

But, with the mysterious dome, all goes awry and the universal themes of good versus evil are up front and on stage. And, being that this is SK, there is a also a bit of the irrational to this fascinating tale and that usually precludes my interest. Or maybe it's not so irrational???? It does make for a nice ending though.

The book reminded me of another novel, One Second After by William Forstchen, about what happens after an electromagnetic pulse event, which is definitely a concern to many. Check out the following if you want to know more about EMP:

On Saturday, June 19 at 7 p.m., and Tuesday, June 22 at 6 p.m., the National Geographic Channelwill replay a special episode about electromagnetic pulse, titled “Electronic Armageddon.” 

"Later on--much too late to do any good--Julia Shumway would piece together most of how the Food City riot started, although…If asked to write about the emotional heart of the event, she would have been lost. How to explain that people she'd known all her life--people she respected, people she loved--had turned into a mob? She told herself I could've gotten a better handle on it if I'd been there from the very beginning and seen how it started, but that was pure rationalization, a refusal to face the orderless, reasonless beast that can arise when frightened people are provoked. She had seen such beasts on the TV news, usual in foreign countries. She never expected to see one in her own town…..The town had been cut off for only 70 hours, and it was stuffed with provisions of almost every kind; only propane gas was in mysteriously short supply."

The domes descends:

"Then two things happened almost simultaneously. The first was the woodchuck. It was whole, then it was in tow pieces. Both were twitching and bleeding…It was as if an invisible guillotine blade had dropped. And that was when directly above the severed woodchuck, the little airplane exploded."