Under the Dome (novel)

Did You Know?

• Author Dan Simmons, to whom Stephen King sent the manuscript as a gift, called the novel "huge, generous, sprawling, infinitely energetic".
• The television adaptation premiered on June 24, 2013, and broke the record as the most-watched summer drama premiere on any network since 1992, with over 13 million views for the pilot.

Plot summary

The novel covers eight days, from October 21 to October 28. At 11:44 a.m. on October 21, the small Maine town of Chester's Mill is abruptly separated from the outside world by an invisible, semipermeable, dome-shaped barrier of unknown origin. The barrier causes injuries and fatalities and traps former Army Captain Dale "Barbie" Barbara, who was trying to leave due to a local dispute. Police chief Howard "Duke" Perkins is killed instantly when his pacemaker explodes near the dome.

Second selectman James "Big Jim" Rennie uses the opportunity to take over the town, appointing his crony Peter Randolph as police chief and expanding the force with questionable candidates, including his son Junior Rennie. Junior, suffering from an undiscovered brain tumor, had already killed a girl, Angie McCain, and later kills another, Dodee Sanders. Outside the dome, Colonel James O. Cox contacts Julia Shumway to relay a message to Barbie, asking him to act as the government's agent to find the dome's power source.

Barbie is reinstated in the military and promoted to colonel, but this is not well received by Big Jim's faction. Brenda Perkins discovers a file on her husband's computer listing Big Jim's criminal schemes.

Writing

In January 2008, Stephen King said he would "be killing a lot of trees" with his next novel. The first draft was completed in late August 2008, with the manuscript weighing 19 pounds. King stated the novel is twice as long as his most recent, Duma Key, at over 1,500 pages in manuscript, and deals with some of the same issues as The Stand but in a more allegorical way. He described it as "very, very long" and noted he had tried the project twice before when younger but it was too big for him.

King read from the first draft at "The Three Kings" reading event on April 4, 2008, at the Library of Congress, broadcast by C-SPAN on May 4, 2008. Under the Dome is a partial rewrite of a novel King attempted first in 1972 under the same title and again in 1982 as The Cannibals. He stated these were two different attempts to use the same idea about how people behave when cut off from society, and that The Cannibals was a kind of social comedy while the new novel is played dead straight.

Only the first chapter from the original material is included. According to Stephen J. Spignesi's 1998 book, The Cannibals was an unpublished 450-page handwritten novel written in 1982 while King was filming Creepshow.

Release

Before the novel came out, readers got a taste of it in two places: the paperback edition of Just After Sunset, released on September 29, 2009, included an excerpt, and a 4,000-word sample appeared in the November 6, 2009 issue of Entertainment Weekly. Early cover art shown to online retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble simply said "cover to be unveiled." In late August 2009, it was announced the real cover would be revealed on October 5, with partial reveals on September 21, 25, and 28.

The final design, a mix of illustration, photos, and 3D renderings, was a shift from King's earlier illustrated covers. Two versions were released: one with white lettering and another with dark gray lettering. On December 16, 2009, King signed books at the Magic Lantern movie theater in Bridgton, Maine, the real town that inspired Chester's Mill. He appeared on TV to discuss the similarities, noting he lived 18 miles away for nearly five years and used the local police station, lake, and geography.

Bridgton also appears in his 1980 story The Mist. On release day, King promoted the book in New York City at TheTimesCenter. In mid-October, the novel became a deeply discounted preorder at Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Target, sparking a price war. The usual $25 hardcover dropped to $9, then Wal-Mart cut it to $8.98 with free shipping, while Target set it at $8.99.

Viral marketing sites were created for locations like Big Jim Rennie's Used Cars and the Sweet Briar Rose Diner, and an alternate reality game launched from the blog of the character Scarecrow Joe.