Under the Dome – Stephen King

The town of Chester’s Mill, ME is changed forever on October 21st, when an invisible force field materializes to quarantine it from the rest of humanity. Not truly a dome as the title suggests, the mysterious barrier is more like a capsule that fits exactly over the town’s borders.

The “dome” is 47,000 feet high, and extends far below the town as well. Pollutants begin to gather on the barrier, eventually giving it the look of a dirty windshield as the story progresses. Near its base, the “dome” emits a low level electronic frequency that gives anyone with a pacemaker a nasty surprise when it explodes in their chest. The barrier is as strong as it is thorough, it can withstand aircraft and cars collisions; rifle shots and cruise missiles tipped with bunker buster warheads are equally ineffective.

The military forms a perimeter around Chester Mills, and further cuts off the town from the rest of the world by shutting down Internet access and leaving the trapped town to fend for themselves. In accordance with whatever literary laws there are regarding towns mysteriously isolated, characters representing both the good and evil sides of the spectrum emerge. Evil is aptly represented by Big Jim Rennie, who owns the local used car dealership along with heading the town council. Rennie’s the proverbial big fish in a small pond; despite his claim he was born again in his teens, he’s more apt to steal a baby’s candy than kiss the baby. When the dome appears, Big Jim becomes more concerned with solidifying his power base than the welfare of his town. He’s also more than a bit concerned about the council’s dirty secret coming to light — that they’ve been using town materials to run a meth lab in order to give Chester Mills an economic boost. The dead corpses stashed in his pantry, courtesy of his psychotic and migraine prone son as well as himself, are starting to pose a problem as well.