Under the Dome

A Novel

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Raul Esparza

Length: 34 hrs and 24 mins

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

Under the dome/ Twilite Zone/ Days of your life.

I listened to it for many weeks off and on and it been several weeks since I finished listening to it. I felt like some of the characters were right out of Kings novel "Needful things", How could you not discribe evil people doing bad things in a similar way. Its as if two episodes of the Twilight Zone were combined with a soap about a sick town. I love reading Kings stories, he's my favorite author, but this is not one of his best even thou its well worth the read. I've become spoiled.

A breath of fresh air!!

Thank you Stephen for staying the course on this one. I always look forward to your author's note, it connects the story all that much more. The second selectmen was the most hated antagonist I've endured in all your books. Probably because he's leading our country at this very moment. Great job, and a great listen. I was 13 or somewhere there abouts when I read my first Stephen King book, Pet Sematary. I've been an avid reader ever since and I just turned 50. I've most enjoyed this book, and I think any avid reader will.

Loved it!

Great narration, story and characters. Hard to stop listening to in many places of the book. Another great work of imagination.

Excellent till the end

Excellent till the end. (I hate all of King's endings).

Classic King!

This is classic Stephen King. He takes a nightmare that seems so far-fetched and makes you think "OMG! What if this really happened?!" The characters are well developed so you care about them and what happens to them. I found myself staying up into the wee hours so I could find out what happened next. After my first listen, I decided to listen a couple of more times and haven't gotten tired of it yet.

Raul Esparza does a fantastic job. He's so easy to listen to- he tells the story with feeling and becomes each character, he doesn't just read it to you. I love that he gave Jim Rennie a southern accent because no other accent could have captured Rennie's essence and unique nature better.

I've been a King fan since 7th grade (I'm approaching middle-age)and have read just about every novel and short story published. Under the Dome is one of my favorites.

Not Kings best

King spent too much time with superfulous information on characters that were just arbitrarily killed off. There were big buildups to dicovery or confrontation that never came through. I would not recommend this book.

Awesome

The best narration I have had so for with a Stephen King book except for Surviver Type

King at his best, awesome layers of detail

Many people will have trouble with the sheer size of this undertaking. King himself struggled with it for years. Think of it as a series of three books for the price of one and you won’t be disappointed. Great character development and a strong plot line leads to an entertaining 30 plus hours.

Great story poor writing

I've picked this book up and put it down a dozen times over the past few years before finally deciding to listen to it.

The story is riveting until the end (which is very anticlimactic). Where the book fails is in the details; not that they're inaccurate, but more so that placing them in the story felt forced and unnatural, as if the author had the information and felt a great need to educate.

great...til the end

great novel, I couldn't stop listening. The character development was terrific.
BUT, the narrator did terrible accents. Big Jim sounded like a theatrical gay from Alabama. Remy sounded like a Jamaican.
The cause of the dome didn't fit with the rest of the story. I felt like the story kind of fell off the cliff at the end.