Under the Dome
Published: 10, November 2009
Author: Stephen King
Genre: Action, American, Classic, Contemporary, Drama, Fiction, Horror, Literature, Science Fiction, Suspense, Thriller
Check out the review of this book here:
Summary
On October 21, 2017, at 11:45 a.m., the little Maine village of Chester's Mill is abruptly and gruesomely cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible, semi-permeable barrier of unknown origin.
The barrier's instant emergence causes a number of injuries and fatalities and also keeps former Army Captain Dale "Barbie" Barbara, who is attempting to escape Chester's Mill due to a local disagreement, inside the town.
When Police Chief Howard "Duke" Perkins goes too near to The Dome, his pacemaker explodes, killing him instantaneously.
This effectively eliminates the final substantial challenge to James "Big Jim" Rennie, a used car dealer and the town's Second Selectman.
Big Jim wields considerable authority in Chester's Mill and seizes the chance to utilize the barrier as part of a power play to grasp control of the town.
Big Jim chooses one of his buddies, the inept Peter Randolph, as the new head of police. He also begins filling the ranks of the Chester's Mill Police Department with suspects, including his son, Junior Rennie, and his associates.
Junior suffers from frequent migraines caused by an as-yet-undiscovered brain tumor, which has also begun to affect his mental state; unbeknownst to Big Jim, Junior was in the process of beating and strangling a girl (Angie McCain) to death when the barrier appeared, and by the time Big Jim places him on the police force, Junior has killed another girl (Dodee Sanders).
Col. James O. Cox (who is stationed outside The Dome) telephones Julia Shumway, the editor of the local newspaper, and asks her to deliver a message to Barbie to contact him.
Cox then requests that Barbie act as the government's agent in bringing down The Dome, as it has become known.
Cox assigns him the duty of identifying The Dome's power source, which is thought to be someplace in town, drawing parallels to Barbie's Army specialty in locating enemy weapons plants.
Cox may also predict the political repercussions of such a circumstance in a small community.
Barbie is restored in the United States military and brevetted to the rank of Colonel as a result of a Presidential order.
Barbie is also given a decree that gives him jurisdiction over the township. However, given the nature of small-town politics, this move is not well accepted by Big Jim and his gang of rogue police officers.
Around this time, Duke's widow, Brenda Perkins, uncovers a file on her husband's computer that details Big Jim's money-laundering methods.
As Big Jim insinuates and orchestrates disquiet and dread among the townsfolk in order to consolidate his authority, Barbie, Julia, and a few other townspeople try to keep things from spinning out of hand.
Barbie is framed and jailed for four murders after crossing Big Jim's path multiple times. He is suspected of murdering Reverend Lester Coggins, who laundered money for Big Jim's large-scale methamphetamine organization, as well as Duke's wife Brenda Perkins, Angie and Dodee.
While Barbie is in jail, other inhabitants use a Geiger counter to locate the source of The Dome to an abandoned farm; the gadget they uncover in the center of the property's orchard is strongly suggested to be alien in origin.
Big Jim's limitations get more stringent, and the police force becomes more brutal, energizing the town and finally causing several locals to break Barbie out of jail, murdering Junior seconds before he can murder Barbie.
The disorganized opposition retreats to the abandoned farm, where many individuals touch the weird object and see visions.
They not only conclude that the device was installed by extraterrestrial "leatherheads" (so named because of their appearance), However, they are primarily teenagers who have built up The Dome as a form of entertainment, a kind of ant farm intended to catch sentient individuals and allow their captors to observe everything that occurs to them.
On an organized "Visitors Day," when people outside The Dome can meet with people inside, Big Jim sends Randolph and a detachment of police to retake control of his former methamphetamine operation from Phil "Chef" Bushey, who is preventing Big Jim from covering up the operation and hoarding the over 400 tanks of propane stored there (Chef wants it all, explaining, "I need it to cook").
Big Jim underestimates Chef's aptitude for self-defense and meth-induced paranoia; he and the now-ostracized head selectman Andy Sanders (whom Chef has introduced to meth usage) defend themselves and the meth lab with assault guns.
Many people are murdered in the subsequent shootout, and Chef, who is fatally wounded, detonates a plastic explosive device he has planted in the meth lab.
The resulting explosion, when mixed with the propane and meth-making ingredients, creates a poisonous firestorm large enough to incinerate the majority of the town.
On national broadcast, nearly a thousand of the town's population are promptly burnt, leaving just over 300 people alive, who progressively die off as the poisonous air hampers their breathing.
The twenty-seven refugees in the abandoned farm, an orphaned farm child hiding in a potato cellar, and Big Jim and his informal aide-de-camp, Carter Thibodeau, in the town's fallout shelter, are among the survivors.
Big Jim and Thibodeau eventually turn on each other due to the limited oxygen supply (and Big Jim's fear that Thibodeau will testify against him if they survive); Big Jim stabs and disembowels Thibodeau, only to die several hours later when hallucinations of the dead drive him outside into the toxic environment.
Despite the Army's efforts to push clean air through The Dome's walls, the survivors in the barn begin to slowly asphyxiate.
Barbie and Julia approach the control gadget, pleading with their kidnappers to let them free.
Julia contacts a solitary female leatherhead who is no longer accompanied by her pals and thus is not subject to peer pressure.
Julia persuades the leatherhead to take pity on them by continuously expressing that they are actual sentient creatures with real "small lives," and by sharing a traumatic childhood event with the teenage extraterrestrial.
The Dome slowly rises and then vanishes, enabling the toxic air to evaporate and eventually liberating what is left of Chester's Mill.
Useful Search Related Words & Keywords
Big Jim, Character Development, Chester Mill, Human Nature, Jim Rennie, King At His Best, Lord Of The Flies, Many Characters, Mike Vogel, Much Better, Natalie Martinez, Page Turner, Rachelle Lefevre, Small Town
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