19. Under the Dome

19. Under the Dome by Stephen King  (6/26/2011 - ???)

I started this book after finishing the Green Mile, and my hopes were very high.  For roughly the first 100 pages (out of more than 1,000), my hopes were proven successful: King's description of the early events of the book is amazing.  Essentially, this is what happens: a force field drops in exact conformation to the town lines of a small community in Maine, and I do meant in EXACT conformation -- one example King uses to illustrate this point is a woman who, while inadvertently reaching across the town line to pull a weed in her garden, loses half of her arm to the outside of the force field and consequently bleeds to death.  (King may not be as amazing at crafting a plot as he used to be, but he can certainly still craft quality and creative gore when he wants to!)

That being said, I was unimpressed with this book. The first few pages are fine, like I said above, but the plot quickly descends into snotty people squabbling, murderers getting appointed as stand-in police officers (aha! the irony! King seems to be saying, except instead of saying it he's slapping me in the face with it -- no thanks!), and some small-town big shot trying to run the hero out of town so he can play puppeteer. One review I read on Amazon compared it to a comic book-style villainy/plot and I could not agree more; there just seems to be no density to the characters once the set-up of the book is completed.

Normally I love Stephen King -- I have a Dark Tower tattoo! -- but I don't yet know if I'll be finishing this book. My money is on "no."