Stephen King’s Under the Dome November 10th

Stephen King’s next novel, Under the Dome is slated for a November 10th 2009 release. Sales copy from Simon & Schuster is circulating the web, and available on stephenking.com:

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mills, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

In part of a self-interview on his site published September 4th, 2008, King also described Under the Dome in-progress:

SK: Under the Dome. I first tried to write it when I was twenty-five or so, but the concept was just too big, and I put it aside.

Steve: That’s long, too, isn’t it?

SK: Oh God. [Laughs] It’s twice the length of Duma Key. Over 1500 pages in manuscript. The first draft weighs 19 pounds. I have nightmares of the study burning down with the hard copy and the thumb-drive both inside.

Sounds like the King is preparing to serve us another epic work in the same vein as The Stand, which he admits was his Lord of the Rings. Perhaps this time he’s giving us his take on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. I, for one, have been waiting a long time for something like this from Mr. King. The Stand remains my favorite King novel, and I look forward to another of King’s in-depth semi-political examinations of our society, especially now in our economic crisis with major change in the winds.

Tags: Book Previews, Stephen King