Guillermo del Toro and
Chuck Hogan share their enthusiasm for
Stephen King's thriller, Under the Dome. This pair of
reviewers knows a thing or two about the art of crafting a
great thriller. Del Toro is the Oscar-nominated director of
international blockbuster films, including
Pan's Labyrinth
and
Hellboy. Hogan is the author of several acclaimed novels,
including The
Standoff and
Prince of
Thieves, which won the International Association of Crime
Writer's Dashiell Hammett Award in 2005. The two recently
collaborated to write the bestselling horror novel,
The Strain,
the first of a proposed trilogy. Read their exclusive Amazon
guest review of Under the Dome:
The first thing readers might find scary about Stephen
King's Under The Dome is its length. The second is the
elaborate town map and list of characters at the front of the
book (including "Dogs of Note"), which sometimes portends, you
know, heavy lifting. Don't you believe it. Breathless pacing
and effortless characterization are the hallmarks of King's
best books, and here the writing is immersive, the suspense
unrelenting. The pages turn so fast that your hand--or
Kindle-clicking thumb--will barely be able to keep up. You Are
Here. Nobody yarns a “What if?” like Stephen King. Nobody. The
implausibility of a dome sealing off an entire city--a motif
seen before in pulp magazines and on comic book covers--is
given the most elaborate real-life alibi by crafting details,
observations, and insights that make us nod silently while we
read. Promotional materials reference
The Stand
in comparison, but we liken Under The Dome more to King's
excellent novella,
The Mist:
another locked-door situation on an epic scale, a
tour-de-force in which external stressors bake off the
civility of a small town full of dark secrets, exposing souls
both very good...and very, very bad. Yes, "The Monsters Are
Due on Maple Street," but there is so much more this time. The
expansion of King’s diorama does not simply take a one-street
fable and turn it into a town, but finds new life for old
archetypes, making them morally complex and attuned to our
world today. It makes them relevant and affecting once again.
And the beauty of it all is that the final lesson, the great
insight that is gained at the end of this draining journey, is
not a righteous 1950’s sermon but an incredibly moving and
simple truth. A nugget of wisdom you'll be using as soon as
you turn the last page. This Is Now. Along the way, you get
bravura writing, especially featuring the town kids, and a
delicious death aria involving one of the most nefarious
characters--who dies alone, but not really--as well as a few
laugh-out-loud moments, and a cameo (of sorts) by none other
than Jack Reacher. Indeed--whether during a much-needed
comfort break, or a therapeutic hand-flexing--you may find
yourself wondering, "Is this a horror novel? Or is it a
thriller?" The answer, of course, is: Yes, yes, yes. "...the
blood hits the wall like it always hits the wall." It seems
impossible that, as he enters his sixth decade of publishing,
the dean of dark fiction could add to his vast readership. But
that is precisely what will happen...when the Dome drops. Now
Go Read It. --Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
James Parker:
King has always produced at pulp speed. "Nov. 22, 2007 - March
14, 2009" proclaims the final page of Under the Dome: that's
1,100 pages in 480 days. We shouldn't be too squeamish about
the odd half-baked simile or lapse into B-movie dialogue, is
my point. Writing flat-out keeps him close to his story, close
to his source. It seems to magnetize his imagination: by the
final third of this novel King is effortlessly drawing in T.
S. Eliot and the Book of Revelation, the patient etherized
upon a table and the Star Wormwood.
Janet Maslin Under the
Dome gravely threatens Stephen
King's status as a mere
chart-busting pop cultural
phenomenon. It has the scope and
flavor of literary Americana,
even if Mr. King's particular
patch of American turf is
located smack in the middle of
the Twilight Zone. It dispenses
with his usual scatology and
trippy fantasy to deliver a
spectrum of credible people with
real family ties, health crises,
self-destructive habits and
political passions. Even its
broad caricatures prompt real
emotion, if only via the damage
they can inflict on others.
Though the book's broad
conspiratorial strokes become
farfetched, its ordinary souls
become ever more able to break
hearts. This book has the heft
of a brick…Hard as this thing is
to hoist, it's even harder to
put down.
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.
