I can’t believe I’m about to write the following sentence. Stephen King’s latest doorstop of a novel, Under The Dome, is ponderous, predictable and, worst of all, boring. And this is coming from one of the biggest Stephen King fans on the planet. Heck. I even read From a Buick 8 and liked it, [...]]]> by Richard

I can’t believe I’m about to write the following sentence. Stephen King’s latest doorstop of a novel, Under The Dome, is ponderous, predictable and, worst of all, boring. And this is coming from one of the biggest Stephen King fans on the planet. Heck. I even read From a Buick 8 and liked it, but this latest forest killer is just plain awful.

Not only was this bad, but I think it’s broken me of my automatic purchasing of Stephen King novels. I had no idea what Under The Dome was about. I just ordered it because I love his novels. When it arrived, I discovered its length and the fact that this was a book he’d tried to write many years before and I began to get a bad feeling about it.

Turns out, my bad feeling was fully justified. Let’s start with the most noticeable thing; it’s length. This puppy could have been put to bed at a third of the length if it weren’t for the fact that Stephen King loves his characters. He stuffs the book full of them and lets us know the backstory of almost every single one of them. And, not only that, he also documents just about every second of every day that the New England town of Chester’s Mill spends trapped under an unexplainable (to them, but not – unfortunately – to us), invisible and impenetrable dome.

Each of the approximately one thousand, nine hundred and fifty three characters gets some quality speaking time and, each time one of them opens his or her mouth, they get to spout some by-now clichéd Stephen King dialogue. Words are changed around and then repeated again and again as if this were a new technique. Some event happens once and then it’s thereafter referred to as “the famous” fill in the blank. Basically it’s Stephen King at his he-really-needs-an-assertive-editor worst.

Once the characters find they are trapped inside the Dome, we’re allowed a look around at the skeletons in the closet, particularly the closet of the local bigwig Big Jim Rennie. It’s Rennie who, when the Dome comes down, begins to take draconian measures to grab power. It’s also revealed that Rennie, along with other town leaders, have been running the country’s largest meth lab near the local radio station. At the time of the book, the only person out there with the highly flammable meth chemicals and enough propane to fuel a battleship, is a religiously crazy meth smoker. What happens next isn’t really a surprise if you think for more than two seconds.

Finally, we find out who or what dropped the Dome on Chester’s Mill. Once I found out, though, I began to beg for mercy. Surely it couldn’t be what I thought it was. It was. It was hoary and dusty when Star Trek used it way back in the 1960s. This trope hasn’t improved with age.

No, I think Under The Dome has definitely given me something to think about. Mainly, why did I buy this thing without checking it out first.

I’m giving this book one (1) dude out of five, if only because I got a little exercise lugging the thing around for a week; a week I’ll never get back. Don’t waste your time or money on this book. Seriously, life is too short.

You can find this review, along with thousands of other, on a great book site, Novelspot. It’s a fantastic site, full of book lovers sharing that love with anyone who’ll listen. You can find all books reviewed here at Novelspot as well.

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It’s not every day that a dude gets to learn just exactly where he fits in with his family and, in my case, with his wife. Well, not every day unless you live with a harpy, a shrew, a domineering angry joy-breaker. Not that I would know anything about that, of course. Still, I [...]]]> by Richard

It’s not every day that a dude gets to learn just exactly where he fits in with his family and, in my case, with his wife. Well, not every day unless you live with a harpy, a shrew, a domineering angry joy-breaker. Not that I would know anything about that, of course. Still, I did learn a little valuable something from my wife, known to me as She Who Must Be Obeyed (Or Else).

My little lesson in marital place putting happened in the kitchen where, it seems, so many of my lessons are learned. (Don’t fry chicken in the nude; bacon makes everything better; hairs catch fire very easily and smell bad when they crisp; never use dish soap when you run out of dishwasher soap actually made for the dishwasher. You know, the usual.)

It was an odd moment. Both I and my wife, known to me as She Who Asks What Is This Kitchen Place Of Which You Speak, were both in the kitchen together while I was preparing dinner. I was digging through the pantry searching desperately for that can of Who Hash* I needed to finish making dinner, while she was taking a leisurely stroll from the dining room, through the kitchen and into the living room.

She asked me if it was possible that I could change my dinner plans at the last minute and make a different kind of salad. Something with actual greens instead of the word jumble I’d planned. (Get it? Word salad? Sigh. No one appreciates a good medical joke.) I, oddly enough, sighed and replied like Droopy Dog that, yeah, I guess I could.

To which she responded (and I quote this accurately and without changing a thing): “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” She paused for a second and then continued. “You just have to do what I want you to do.”

I laughed. “Ha, ha, ha, ha. You’re quite the funnymaker.”

She stopped her perambulation, turned and stared at me. “I was being completely serious.”

Then she walked off. Whistling.

Sure, I crouched there in the pantry for (slightly less than) and hour, shivering and feeling oh, so very cold. But I wasn’t ground down. No way. I shall have my revenge.** Oh, yes. I will have my revenge.

*actual ingredients may be exaggerated for comedic effect.

**or possibly not.

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When dads sit down around the campfire after a long day of herding little dudes and cleaning up after them, there’s a cautionary tale that gets told to the shivers of the listeners. It goes something like this.

There was a family with three little dudes and or dudettes. It doesn’t matter. The family was [...]]]> by Richard

When dads sit down around the campfire after a long day of herding little dudes and cleaning up after them, there’s a cautionary tale that gets told to the shivers of the listeners. It goes something like this.

There was a family with three little dudes and or dudettes. It doesn’t matter. The family was planning a vacation to somewhere warm, sandy and delightful. As they were doing the final pack up, they heard the news. At the resort, a bird who’s species is on the verge of extinction had flown into the engine of a fully loaded jet as it was coming in for a landing. The jet went down in a ball of flame, killing all on board as well as wiping out the resort and causing a fire that devastated the tiny island.

“Oh, how horrible,” said the mom.

“That’s just terrible,” said the dad as he began to unpack their suitcases.

The middle little dude looked on, aghast. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Wait,” he said. “Why are you unpacking? That doesn’t affect me, does it? Well, find something else.”

And the group around the campfire shivers, knowing the little dude just didn’t get it. All he worried about was whether or not he was going to get something. The dads hoped they were raising their little dudes to be better than that. They picked up their plates of beans and started a fart contest. Whatddya want? They’re dudes.

The problem is that little dude’s reaction wasn’t all that unusual. There’s little dudes all over the world that only care about something if it affects them, or how they want to do stuff. I may, just may, know this from personal experience. Maybe.

I’m not sure why this happens. I’m not sure how a little dude becomes so focused on himself that he sees the entire world through the lens of how it will affect him. I think, though, there are some ways to work with the non-functional-brained little dudes.

One way is the bait and switch. Offer the little dude something he or she really wants, or says he or she does, and then make it contingent on doing something nice for someone more than once. Or tell them they can’t have it. And then give it to them only after they’ve made an unprompted gesture of niceness toward another member of the family.

I think we need to make sure kids like these widen their perspective more than a little bit. Let themselves see the outside world has more to offer and needs more from the people living in it than what happens to them.

*not the band, although they’re awesome.

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