• Under the Dome

  • A Novel
  • By: Stephen King
  • Narrated by: Raul Esparza
  • Length: 34 hrs and 24 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (28,143 ratings)

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Under the Dome  By  cover art

Under the Dome

By: Stephen King
Narrated by: Raul Esparza
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Publisher's summary

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.

©2009 Stephen King (P)2009 Simon & Schuster

Featured Article: We All Quote Down Here—50+ of the Best Stephen King Quotes


It is King's versatility, his skills as a writer, and his ability to tap into our fears that makes Uncle Stevie so eminently quotable. Even though King writes mainly terrifying books, his works are also full of wisdom, heart, humor, and compassion. He can be scaring your pants off one minute, and really making you think about humankind the next. Here are the best quotes from the master of the macabre: Stephen King.

What listeners say about Under the Dome

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    17,128
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    7,270
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    2,458
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Story
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  • 4 Stars
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  • 3 Stars
    1,821
  • 2 Stars
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  • 1 Stars
    331

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Would read again!

The beginning is hard to stay with but after that you fall in love, hate many people, and are impressed in the end.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Classic!

Wonderful cast of characters, many you love, some you abhor! Great story, once again!!! Thank you, Stephen King.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Thrilling and hard to put down!

It was excellent! If you love The Stand you will love Under the Dome. I don't know why the reviews on here for it aren't better...the narrator was great too, he just needs to work on his Maine accent 😂

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Started out pretty good

Most of the story was pretty good, although it was chock full of Christian bashing, not too surprising, but near the end there were some pretty unrealistic events, I know it’s fantasy, but even in fantasy you can’t include events that are completely impossible as well as implausible (spoiler alert)
Vehicles with combustion engines don’t run in an atmosphere that doesn’t contain enough oxygen for humans to breathe, and properly inflated tires have at least 32 lbs of air in them and a valve stem to let it out. There were just some very unbelievable things that defies physics as we know them. And even in a sci-fi there has to be some believability. Those kinds of things spoil the fantasy when you think, yeah I know that wouldn’t work.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Couldn't even finish this book

Too much vulgar language for my taste. Terrible book in my opinion to even try

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

I have given other five stars, but

This one definitely deserves a top score. I haven’t seen the show on TV, but that is next on my list, because I loved the story! What a great idea. Who hasn’t tortured bugs or had an ant farm at least. I thought it was a wonderful idea and it was fast paced. I also love how Stephen King slips in humor. His humor to always seems to me to be an understanding of a persons character. He says something to only a person like that would say, and that’s what makes it funny. For example, when the kid was thinking, maybe he would win a prize for being so smart about some thing he thought “the ladies would probably be wearing sleeveless gowns or maybe even bikinis, but probably sleeveless gowns”. To me that seemed like such a funny and accurate thing for a young boy to be thinking there are many examples like that and I wish I could think of some more but maybe next time I’ll highlight them so I can mention the things he said that I thought were funny glimpses into human characteristics.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Fun!

Loved the voice actor. His take on Big Jim will stay with me as indelibly as the story itself.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

The narrator should stay away from doing women

But had a real feel for the villain. Also, I wonder if (no spoilers) what happened to the town at the end would have actually happened.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Couldn’t stop listening!

One of my favorite Stephen King novels and I’ve read many. I didn’t want to stop listening!

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Plainly Put: Boring

Maybe it's just me, I'm almost always in tune with King's works but this was a combination of bland characters, slow pacing, glacial plot development until far too late, and a deluge of character introductions so frequent and undeveloped I never cared about anyone. I couldn't finish it. I looked up a synopsis to see if I would miss anything grand, and saw the disappointing reasoning behind the Dome and, even by King's standards, lazy ending. I decided not to waste the next 18 hours of my life on that payoff.

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