I’m another who thought the book started out great, then lost focus, then had a really terrible ending. I’ll give the show a try, though, and hope they changed the ending.
Spoilers for UTD and other King works
[spoiler]Most of his novels have at least a bittersweet ending. Some even are on the happy side considering the carnage of the rest of the novel.
This one had nearly everyone die. Only a handful of people survived, right? A couple kids suffocated to death in such a casual way. Earlier, a child was crushed to death. Sure, some kids died in IT and The Dark Tower series, but the tone in this was just extra brutal and extra senseless. Needful Things had a dark sense of humor about it. UTD felt like two books in tone. The end just felt like “Ah fuck it. I don’t how to write myself out of this one. Maybe I’ll just kill 'em all.”
[/spoiler]
It’s 13 episodes? Doesn’t the book happen over the course of just 4 or 5 days? Then again, my chief gripe with the book was how quickly things fell apart and my usual gripe that this looks like another plot dug up from the 70s and dusted off.
That was one of my problems too – that the situation deteriorated so quickly.
A few Amazon reviewers say the book should be read as political satire. :dubious:
King fans can be quite defensive when he puts out something really crappy.
Dean Norris in Under The Dome.
Aaron Paul in The Dark Tower, hmmmmm?!
Ok, I suppose UTD was perhaps a bit darker than I remember, but like Tommyknockers or The Stand, all the townspeople outside the main cast of characters always felt dispensable, in some distantly morbid way—how some of the better King novels have that feeling of a pall cast over everyone, central to the plot or not. You go in knowing everyone is doomed; he’s not particularly known for happier endings. 
I just finished re-reading the book, and Stephen King says in an author’s note at the end that he did indeed start writing this story in 1976. 
Bumping in anticipation of the mini-series starting June 24th (tomorrow)! I’m really looking forward to it - I too think that Stephen King’s works are best done as a mini-series.
Or Shawshank Redemption, or Stand By Me. Even still that’s only three good ones against eleventy billion crappy ones.
Out of curiosity, is the dome a sphere?
Brian
Oh yeah, and The Green Mile. Still, that’s only FOUR against eleventy billion!
I will not have you besmirch the greatness that is Silver Bullet that way! Or King’s directorial debut, Maximum Overdrive!
But seriously, The Mist was legitimately good until the terrible ending.
I liked the book a lot and was looking forward to a 13-episode mini-series. However,
gives me great concern. I hope I learned my lesson from LOST and, before that, the X-Files. I do not like “making it up as you go” when you are ostensibly following source material. It’s not good thing.
“Well, we’ve pretty much run out of King’s novel, but the network wants 26 more episodes. What should we do?”
“Just introduce some new characters. Make sure there’s at least one hispanic, a spunky kid, and, oh, yeah, a gay guy. Check that, a lesbian. They’re in the news these days. Plus, that hits the guy 24-35 demographic.”
“The novel already had a lesbian.”
“Yeah, but that one was disgusting. We need a new sexyhot lesbian.”
“So how do we get them in the dome?”
“Maybe a tunnel or something. Or maybe there’s like some sci-fi reason that a hole opens in the top every new moon. That’s it–we’ll helicopter in the new cast.”
“That doesn’t really make a lot of sense.”
“Who cares? We need ratings! LOST didn’t make any sense and the dupes ate that shit up like gangbusters. They even made internet games out of it!”
“Ok, got it! New cast, new plot, make shit up, internet games. Solid Gold, baby!”
Yeah, not too excited.
Yeah, the obvious solution of tunneling out needs to be addressed at some point.
I think the book covered that, and it is a sphere.
If they try to stretch this out to years, it’ll be totally unbelievable. There’s no way you could build a self-sustaining economy in a small area like that with such a small number of people. They’d starve. The producers would have to figure out a way to somehow get occasional supplies to them.
There is one interesting way they could keep going…
Book spoilers ahead:
As I recall, the dome was the creation of some alien kids toying with the people. If so, how about having that dome vanish at some point, but have domes start randomly appearing around other towns, cities, military installations, whatever. Sometimes the domes stay so long that everyone in them dies of starvation. Sometimes the dome is gone in an hour. How would society change if you knew that any time you could be trapped in a dome? How would transportation change if invisible, impenetrable barriers appeared randomly on a regular basis? There might be some interesting story ideas in there.
In the book, the dome was not a sphere but cylindrical, and extended below the ground for quite some ways. (not really a major spoiler, since it’s covered very, very early on in the book).
King’s stuff - while I enjoy his books - rarely makes it to the screen in a satisfactory manner for me. Even ‘The Shining,’ both versions, fell very flat. Altho the second version DID get the hedge animals right…
That said, I shamefacedly confess I haven’t read him since ‘From a Buick 8’ which I LOVED, so it’s been a very long while. Hell - I’m so far behind on the Dresden Files and Repairman Jack, too, I may never get caught up!
Therefore, I’ll watch the mini-series without prejudice. But I reserve the right to bitch if it turns into another ‘Lost.’ 
I thought Dead Zone and Firestarter were also excellent. Christine also. (cue The Count laughter)
It’s a cylinder. It’s essentially…
a drinking glass placed over an ant hill
Doesn’t this question apply to pretty much EVERY King story? I’ll at least watch the first episode just because the setup and people’s reaction will be so interesting.
Add me to growing queue that is hoping for an “alternate” ending… it was just “meh” for me.
Wish it came on earlier than 10- That’s my bedtime.
That really would be interesting. Imagine how it would change your lives if you didn’t know from day to day if you were going to be able to go get groceries/go to work/go visit family/get gas/etc.