An Open Letter to Stephen King

RE: Under the Dome

Dear Mr. King

Courtesy Google Images

I just finished reading Under the Dome and all I can say is, ‘WOW!’ You weren’t kidding when you wrote in the author’s note that you “… tried to write a book that would keep the pedal consistently to the metal.” This book has a lot of pages, but the chapters are short and captivating. Once I began reading, it was hard to put down.

I became interested in the novel after watching the 2013 thirteen-episode summer miniseries of the same name on CBS. I wondered how the show tracked against the novel.

I almost didn’t watch the show because I figured it was going to be a grittier version of Gilligan’s Island under glass. Also, I pondered which came first, Fox’ 2007 The Simpsons Movie in which the fictional town of Springfield is domed in by the U.S. government or your book.

Simpsons Courtesy Google Images

It is … the movie. However, as you explain on STEPHENKING.COM, the genesis of Under the Dome came circa 1978. You said you were thinking about dome and isolation long before the Simpsons were conceived.

Dome, isolation, carnage, destruction, and death are more like it. The only similarity between the two concepts is a dome of some sort encasing a fictional town.

Chester's Mill Courtesy Google Images

In your book, I lost count of how many denizens of Chester’s Mill, Maine met their demise (people and animals) in the first fifty pages or so. Holy half-a-cow! I learned to avoid character attachments because chances were they wouldn’t be around for a prolonged period of time.

One of the main characters is second selectman Big Jim Rennie (portrayed by Dean Norris in the CBS series). What a prick! The book does a terrific job of detailing how a power-crazed douchebag can take a town’s complete isolation and use it to create a world in which he is king and emperor. His character reminded me of Napoleon, the pig from George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Both characters eventually reveal themselves to be self-indulgent, maniacal control-freaks.

The TV miniseries, which will continue in the summer of 2014 (and I read on TV. com that you’ll be writing the first episode) is quite different then the book. The CBS show seems to be loosely based on the novel. The series has Chester’s Mill and Big Jim is still a prick, but the timeline of events has been altered slightly. It’s definitely less graphic, and characters and events that are not in the novel have been introduced.

I suppose this is to make it more TV-friendly? In any event, I like the show even though it doesn’t follow the book exactly. I am curious to see if the producers of the CBS show resolve the crisis in a manner similar to your book.

Mr. King, Under the Dome is the first novel of yours that I have read. In 1979, when I left MassMutual to join the military, my co-workers gave me a copy of The Stand. Unfortunately, somewhere between Springfield, Massachusetts and Parris Island, South Carolina I lost the book and never acquired another copy.

If the rest of your material is as engaging as Under the Dome, I’ve certainly been missing out. In any event, I’ve determined I’m going to acquire a Stephen King book or two to find out.