Did Stephen King Really Write Under the Dome Himself...? *Spoilers*

[POTUS]

I finished Under the Dome and gave myself a few days to really let the novel sink in before posting this.

Basically, I'm grateful for new King material, and enjoyed reading Under the Dome. I'M MAKING IT CLEAR: I LIKED AND ENJOYED THIS NOVEL. But I must admit that I am having doubts about whether or not Stephen King actually wrote this book.

It was truly the most frustrating experience I've ever had reading a book. And no, I'm not bashing the writer or even offering constructive criticism-- I just want to voice my opinion on a few things that made me raise an eyebrow at the plot.

The majority of my frustration is directed towards the characters-- they were unrealistic and irrational (which people can be, granted, but some parts were just too over-the-top and completely unbelievable). It takes you out of the story when you have to pause and think "there's no way in hell what this character just said/did/thought was plausible".

Here are a few examples:

1) Brenda Perkins deciding to confront Big Jim without securing the evidence. I hate when the dumb coed does something like that in a horror film, and I hate seeing it in a book even more... Big Jim deciding to break her neck out in the open neighborhood street was also a little too much.

2) ALL of the older teenagers/young adults (18-25) were rapists, druggies or murderers. ALL OF THEM.

3) Any time someone turned off the news/tv. Specifically, I believe Julia, on the day the Dome comes down, doesn't even bother to stay up and watch the Presidential address to the nation. The address that concerns her life-threatening situation, which all the world is going to see. She'd rather just catch a few zzzz's. Completely unrealistic. Every person in that town would be glued to the television, probably throughout the whole ordeal.

4) The dialogue of the teenagers (Joe, Benny, Norrie). Kids don't talk like that. They were throwing out phrases from the hippie days, using words that are NOT "cool"... I half expected them to start making up words like "dudical" and "radlicious" in between their many high-fives, which I havent seen teens do since the Saved by the Bell days (and even then it was lame). I understand that Mr. King is getting up in his years, but this was out-of-touch on an unprecedented level.

5) Big Jim muses that he might come out of the Dome incident looking like a national hero ala Mayor Rudy Guliani post 9/11. Yet he then promptly decides to blow any chance of heroism/recognition/fame by telling the President and Federal government to go to hell? He's power hungry and politically savvy but doesn't realize he is signing his own resignation papers?

6) The kids (Joe, Benny, etc) find the alien box, the THING CAUSING THE DOME AND THREATENING ALL LIFE IN THE TOWN... and instead of RUNNING to find Barbie/Rusty and telling them-- they go home and decide to call it a night. It can wait till morning.

7) The women of the town endlessly screaming and crying at any small event. Someone throws a rock, time to start screaming... the starts look pink, time to wail and cry for no reason... I think there was even a point where someone notices a bird flying or grass becoming dull and breaks down in tears. Too many incidents to name. In fact, all of the women in the book were absolute irrational idiots.

I could go on, and probably will post more once I'm done with my second read-through of the book. I'd like to see if anyone can justify or address some of my issues, though.

[Moderator]

I'm not going to address your points one by one but the answer to your question is that, yes, Stephen wrote this book all by himself.

[SmushingGnomes]

I didn't have an issue with how people acted in the book. Also, I don't see how your issues with the book translates to how King wasn't the author of the book.

[wally wonder]

someone else will do this better than me, potus, but here's my take on you points. (and thank you for this refreshing post--you put a lot of thought into i think
1. while we're privy to what has been happening, i don't recall that brenda has that same omniscient frame-of-mind. i think i had a like-thought--oh no, don't open the door--but only because i knew what rennie was like. he was, after all, involved in town politics long enough to begin by earning the villagers' trust--he then moved away from that point and not everyone in town wanted to recognize what he was about--most drug dealers don't advertise.
2. seems too generalized to be persuasive. although we're made aware of the age of many of the characters, seems like there's guys (and a gal or two) called in later to "police" the town and i don't recall that lot participating in the rape.
3. people turning the channel on the prez is nothing new. yeah, you got a point w/the significance of the event, but do you believe in ghosts? when the towers came down, i heard about it on the radio. i thought i had caught the tailend of some kind of war-of-the-worlds broadcast. was on my way to fish rice lake. when i got there, a crew was pulling their pontoon boat out and i asked them about it--this was late morning, prolly an hour or two after the initial strike...and though they said they heard something happened, it was only after a day of fishing when i got home that i realized something big took place. one reason bipartisan campaign finance reform was able to take place is because folk were more concerned about a 30-second political ad interrupting their prime time show--our congress blew the tower of freedom of speech out of the water and nobody blinked.
4. there was a point where the trio of kids heard an adult say something and i like how sk described their intent to use that phrase soon as possible. thought joe was believable, did they smoke a cigarette? i dunno, for the most, they seemed like kids
5. you got to remember, big jim was concerned about the meth lab. shoot man, spend some time on political sights. people are telling the gubbment to g-t-h all the time
6. yeah, okay, that point seems like a legitimate complaint. i don't recall the chronology exactly, but i thought barbie was in jail and rusty had his hands full at the hospital--didn't rusty pass them on his way to some task--i know he left the hospital and they either tried to flag him down and he sped past. i think the kids had already reached the conclusion that whatever intelligence had started the while thing, it was going to take some doing to resolve the situation.
7. this one seems like the one about the teenagers all being rapists. you can't think of any example where this isn't so?

[Srbo]

[B]
1) Brenda Perkins deciding to confront Big Jim without securing the evidence. I hate when the dumb coed does something like that in a horror film, and I hate seeing it in a book even more... Big Jim deciding to break her neck out in the open neighborhood street was also a little too much.

2) ALL of the older teenagers/young adults (18-25) were rapists, druggies or murderers. ALL OF THEM.

3) Any time someone turned off the news/tv. Specifically, I believe Julia, on the day the Dome comes down, doesn't even bother to stay up and watch the Presidential address to the nation. The address that concerns her life-threatening situation, which all the world is going to see. She'd rather just catch a few zzzz's. Completely unrealistic. Every person in that town would be glued to the television, probably throughout the whole ordeal.

4) The dialogue of the teenagers (Joe, Benny, Norrie). Kids don't talk like that. They were throwing out phrases from the hippie days, using words that are NOT "cool"... I half expected them to start making up words like "dudical" and "radlicious" in between their many high-fives, which I havent seen teens do since the Saved by the Bell days (and even then it was lame). I understand that Mr. King is getting up in his years, but this was out-of-touch on an unprecedented level.

5) Big Jim muses that he might come out of the Dome incident looking like a national hero ala Mayor Rudy Guliani post 9/11. Yet he then promptly decides to blow any chance of heroism/recognition/fame by telling the President and Federal government to go to hell? He's power hungry and politically savvy but doesn't realize he is signing his own resignation papers?

6) The kids (Joe, Benny, etc) find the alien box, the THING CAUSING THE DOME AND THREATENING ALL LIFE IN THE TOWN... and instead of RUNNING to find Barbie/Rusty and telling them-- they go home and decide to call it a night. It can wait till morning.

7) The women of the town endlessly screaming and crying at any small event. Someone throws a rock, time to start screaming... the starts look pink, time to wail and cry for no reason... I think there was even a point where someone notices a bird flying or grass becoming dull and breaks down in tears. Too many incidents to name. In fact, all of the women in the book were absolute irrational idiots.
.

Hi

1. Brenda did secure the evidence. She gave it to the town`s third selectmen/women, in this case. Rennie broke her neck in the basement, not in the open street.

2. They weren`t. They BECAME like that after some brainwashing done by Rennie, when they got to understand that they basically could do whatever they want and have orders to do so. And were chosen by Rennie, he knew which ones are easy to manipulate.

3. It`s a proven fact that some people go to sleep under big stress. Kind of an escape.
A few days ago, and this is not fiction, this is a true story - the drawing for the football/soccer Worldchampionship this year in Africa was going on ( so, they were deciding which team is going to play against which other teams in the preliminarys, the most crucial part of the championship.)
Wayne Roonie, arguable Englands best soccer player missed the event - he went to sleep.

4. How DO kids talk ? They talk any dang way they want to, maybe these three just had their own buddy-talk going on.

5.Yes, he would be a hero to the people of Chester`s Mill once he shows them that Barbie is responsible for everything and that he saved the town singlehandedly without any of the help from " the thug in the White House " like he likes to call the prez.

6.Can`t quite remember that part exactly, but if my memory serves me right, Barbie was in jail and Rusty couldn`t be found...and also, didn`t they pass out and experience some kind of shock when they found the box ?
They got confused and scared...and went to the security of their homes. Like any kid would do.
Heck, like many adults would do.

7. Yeah, people are under enourmous stress...everything makes them cringe and cry.
Believe me, I`ve seen it and experienced it firsthand, you don`t get used to it, you are scared NON STOP.


That`s just my two cents though.
It`s fiction, it`s not exactly a science book, you can interpert it any which way your imagination runs.

PS:
I co - wrote the book.

[12bar]

Did you really write this post?

[Flayer]

1. Well, I'm afraid people do make stupid mistakes in real life. Have you never made one?

2. No they weren't. Anson, for example. There were plenty of normal teenagers. The thing was, the bad ones were the ones who got focus in the story because they actually did things relevant to the plot.

3. Can you speak for everyone in a situation like that? Every different personality? Speak for yourself. The people outside the dome were powerless to do anything to help those inside, and their news really wasn't worth listening to most of the time. On the other hand, the people in the town are on maximum stress and have barely gotten chances to sleep. Of course some won't care about the news. Why don't you wait till you've survived your own disaster to comment on what's realistic behavior?

4. I agree, the dialogue got annoying between them a lot of times. Stephen King is pretty out of touch with how teenagers talk, but that's to be expected. And come on, kids still do high fives.

5. Yeah, Big Jim screwed himself over. But at this point, the government already knew his whole history of drugs and embezzlement and they were going to arrest him as soon as the Dome came down anyway.

6. I don't remember what exactly went on there, but that does look like a pretty big flaw.

7. "All of the women were absolute irrational idots." Really? You honestly think that? Julia? Brenda Perkins? Andrea Grinnell Jackie Wettington? Rose? Carolyn? They all have flawed decisions or mistakes yeah, but that's realistic. There were a lot of very strong and smart decisions that showed through. Jackie Wettington saving Barbie's life? Andrea Grinnell going though hell to fight off her addiction so she can stand up to Rennie? Carolyn taking in the abandoned kids? And what about the women crying all the time? Women cry in real life. I'd say they cry more often than men simply because of gender roles. Everyone cries at some point or another in the story, male or female (with a couple exceptions - Big Jim and Junior?) and that's realistic.

[marv4213]

I disagree. How would anyone know how someone might act in a situation like that? I think his characterizations are better than most, if not all, contemporary artist today. Never took me out of the story one time. Just one example. Why wouldn't someone try to catch some sleep when the president comes on? The people of Chester's Mill have already come to the realization, at least many of them, that it is not going to work and just more lip-service. Why not rest up to deal with the real terror. A town falling apart rapidly turning into a dictatorship run by misguided and evil men. I know I would rather rest up for that then staying up and listening to someone talk about how they are going to fix a problem that I know can't be fixed from the outside.

[teejay17]

I finished Under the Dome and gave myself a few days to really let the novel sink in before posting this.

Basically, I'm grateful for new King material, and enjoyed reading Under the Dome. I'M MAKING IT CLEAR: I LIKED AND ENJOYED THIS NOVEL. But I must admit that I am having doubts about whether or not Stephen King actually wrote this book.

It was truly the most frustrating experience I've ever had reading a book. And no, I'm not bashing the writer or even offering constructive criticism-- I just want to voice my opinion on a few things that made me raise an eyebrow at the plot.

The majority of my frustration is directed towards the characters-- they were unrealistic and irrational (which people can be, granted, but some parts were just too over-the-top and completely unbelievable). It takes you out of the story when you have to pause and think "there's no way in hell what this character just said/did/thought was plausible".

Here are a few examples:

1) Brenda Perkins deciding to confront Big Jim without securing the evidence. I hate when the dumb coed does something like that in a horror film, and I hate seeing it in a book even more... Big Jim deciding to break her neck out in the open neighborhood street was also a little too much.

2) ALL of the older teenagers/young adults (18-25) were rapists, druggies or murderers. ALL OF THEM.

3) Any time someone turned off the news/tv. Specifically, I believe Julia, on the day the Dome comes down, doesn't even bother to stay up and watch the Presidential address to the nation. The address that concerns her life-threatening situation, which all the world is going to see. She'd rather just catch a few zzzz's. Completely unrealistic. Every person in that town would be glued to the television, probably throughout the whole ordeal.

4) The dialogue of the teenagers (Joe, Benny, Norrie). Kids don't talk like that. They were throwing out phrases from the hippie days, using words that are NOT "cool"... I half expected them to start making up words like "dudical" and "radlicious" in between their many high-fives, which I havent seen teens do since the Saved by the Bell days (and even then it was lame). I understand that Mr. King is getting up in his years, but this was out-of-touch on an unprecedented level.

5) Big Jim muses that he might come out of the Dome incident looking like a national hero ala Mayor Rudy Guliani post 9/11. Yet he then promptly decides to blow any chance of heroism/recognition/fame by telling the President and Federal government to go to hell? He's power hungry and politically savvy but doesn't realize he is signing his own resignation papers?

6) The kids (Joe, Benny, etc) find the alien box, the THING CAUSING THE DOME AND THREATENING ALL LIFE IN THE TOWN... and instead of RUNNING to find Barbie/Rusty and telling them-- they go home and decide to call it a night. It can wait till morning.

7) The women of the town endlessly screaming and crying at any small event. Someone throws a rock, time to start screaming... the starts look pink, time to wail and cry for no reason... I think there was even a point where someone notices a bird flying or grass becoming dull and breaks down in tears. Too many incidents to name. In fact, all of the women in the book were absolute irrational idiots.

I could go on, and probably will post more once I'm done with my second read-through of the book. I'd like to see if anyone can justify or address some of my issues, though.

Interesting take on Under the Dome. I'm just wondering about your questioning on the authorship question and how it could be anyone but King?

[Charms7]

Are you really the President of the United States?