Stephen King's Under The Dome

So... this week I have been mainly reading Under The Dome by Stephen King. Full disclosure: I am an unreformed Stephen King fan. So take my review with a pinch of salt!

This book is no quick read. It's over 800 pages long. Now some reviewers have moaned about this as if length is an indication of quality. Well it's not. You can't moan about the length of a book unless it's bad. And this is certainly not a bad book.

I'm going to put Under The Dome up there with It and The Stand, as an example of Stephen King at is best. Now, although I think what I'm about to say might be sacrilegious, I believe this book is better paced than either of those two with much tighter, neater writing and a clearer story. I don't want to diminish the other two books, whose charms are obvious, but Under The Dome involves far less "Oh get to the point" and more "What the hell is coming next???"

The characters are Stephen King archetypes... strong women, trailer trash, truly evil bastards who don't even know they are evil, and the ever present strong but loving good guy. Again there has been some complaints about that from a few reviewers but I have to say I find it... cosy. As a seasoned Stephen King reader I feel like I'm settling in with welcoming relatives of well loved friends.

The story is compelling (putting me in mind a little of a post-September 11th The Tommyknockers) and keeps you  reading in order to see where it goes next. Even though that tends not to be a happy place, the book isn't totally grim with enough hope and humour to keep you going.

Pick it up, this is one of his classics.