Under the Dome

[thistlechaser]

I generally like Stephen King books. No, they're not the best books ever written, but they're usually good stories and entertaining.

Under the Dome... I have no idea how to describe it. The characters were godawful. Cardboard cutouts. Black and white. Every single bad guy was nothing but BAD BAD BAD, no good at all. Every single good guy was 100% perfect, never did a single thing wrong in their entire life. None of the characters were realistic at all.

The story itself was SO heavy-handed. I'm no fan of organized religion, but his "religion = BAD" message was too much for even me.

I had serious issues with the plot itself, too.



Aliens. Child-aliens. Ant farms. Seriously? Really? And just asking to be let go worked? Why didn't they ask to begin with then? (Edit: I totally forgot about the dog hearing and obeying dead people. In a totally not-supernatural book. We're supposed to accept that all dogs can hear dead people all the time, as frequently as they can smell things humans can't.)



Arg. What makes this book hard to describe is that, even with all those major, major issues, I couldn't stop reading it. 1,100 pages and I got done in four days (with working full time job and most of my free time going to WoW -- luckily two of those days were weekend days). I can't explain it. There was so much bad about it, but the story kept pulling me along. Even with as over-the-top as the bad guys were, I always wanted to see what happened next.

Comments

[gmth.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. I have the audiobook but haven't started listening to it yet. Now I'm not sure I'll bother.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'm so torn if I can recommend it or not. If I couldn't put it down, doesn't that count as good? I mean heck, I wanted to read at stoplights and such!

But characters are so important to the story...

Does that mean the story was so good it was enough to overcome the poor characterization? Maybe that's the answer?

Maybe you'd like it even more, if your expectations are now lowered...

[gmth.livejournal.com]

Maybe you'd like it even more, if your expectations are now lowered...

Well, there is that. I don't know, though. I have pretty high expectations of every SK book just because it's SK, if that makes sense. I will probably still give it a try, though.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know what you mean. I read almost everything he writes (I missed the last book, but other than that I've read all except a couple of the really early ones).

If you do end up listening to it, let me know what you think! Maybe my review is totally off-base. :)

[namerankserial.livejournal.com]

This makes me sad, I was thinking of reading it. :(

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Eek, don't let me stop you! I could be wrong, or we could have different tastes. :)

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Hey, this comment won't be completely off-topic from the post! ^_~ I just finished a book that I think you might like. Havemercy, by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett. Giant mechanical dragons and well-written action sequences, but also lots of very good character development, a really sweet romantic relationship between two guys, and, uh, loads of slash potential. ;p The next one comes out in paperback at the end of the month. I'll probably get it and let you know what I think of it, if you're interested.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oooh, that looks interesting! *hits Amazon, orders* Thanks for the rec!

[quistie.livejournal.com]

I haven't read anything by King in some time, but my impression of him is that he's always been a fantastic storyteller saddled with rather ordinary imaginative powers. Is that the case here? Boring characters and plot issues, yet you can't put it down because King is just so very good at the one thing he does so well.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I think that sums it up pretty well. The story kept me hooked, but the rest... This morning I checked wiki and it said he based the two bad guys on Bush/Cheney. Once I read that, everything clicked. No imagination, just characterture. That also explained the heavy handedness of the anti-religion part.