Under the Dome question

I did find the end somewhat anti-climatic, and that it would have better worked in a shorter piece of fiction.

However, was it worth the 1000+ pages?
Well, it wasn't the type of ending that has you close the book and think that you just wasted time of your life on it, for most I enjoyed the journey, so that makes it worthwhile to me.

I mean, I'm not in the habit of saying the end is better worth reading thousand pages, because no end has that strength if you don't enjoy what you read to get there.

OCLS wrote: "What did you think of the ending to Under the Dome? Was it believable? Was it a satisfying explanation?"

I was so disappointed in Stephen for Under the Dome. I began reading with so much enthusiasm as the narrative took me back to the glorious days of The Stand. It was like a knock out punch to find out that aliens were to blame...what a let down. I found the ending, i.e. the resolution to the Dome, basically us poor humans begging for our pitiful lives, a complete cop out.

Someone else commented that they couldn't think of another way for the story to end. Neither can I, but this is exactly why we depend on Stephen King to supply a satisfactory ending to an otherwise gripping drama.

I found the book to be very similar to M. Night Shyamalan's work... draws you in, and holds you through 90% of the story, then craps out at the end.

The ending was kind of out of nowhere, but in my opinion the ending wasn't the point of the book. This is one of my favourite King books, I loved it. So yes, it's worth every page.

It was a long read (I listened to it while at work where I can really throw myself into a long book), but I think the purpose was to examine the actions taken by people in abnormal situations. It was much like Lord of the Flies with more awareness of individual motivations and character content. If you think about it, the Omnipotent point of view and the sudden and mysterious nature of the Dome itself revealed how cruel and capricious the person or persons behind the Dome were going to be. In The Lord of the Flies, just when the reader is asking how these kids could revert to such a savage and disgusting state, it is revealed that their own world is not all that different. The same bullies on the island and in the Dome are there causing pain and suffering for the same childish reasons as the bullies on the outside. It didn't matter who or what that person/thing was but making it a child who acted like any child with an ant farm does seal the allegory much better than if it were just another mad scientist because it puts the magnifying glass into your own hands and says, "you've done this. You've caused pain for no reason. Now that you know, you must make a conscious decision to continue to cause pain or to stop and and live a life more aware of how your actions have an effect on others."

I enjoyed it. It took me about 5 months to actually get through it though. The ending was typical King. Unanswered questions put out there for the reader to wonder about. A story that ends for the characters in his books but not his readers and I think he did a fine job.

1,000 pages was a bit much, and the story would have tighter and scarier in 600 pages or less.

Utterly disappointing. And put me off Mr King (especially after Cell)for a long time.

OCLS wrote: "What did you think of the ending to Under the Dome? Was it believable? Was it a satisfying explanation?"

The whole book was fantastically assembled with story arcs intertwined and very close attention to detail. The book focused on what happened when a town is cut off from the outside world. Resources are lost, people go crazy, etc. The problem was that Stephen King wrote himself into a corner and needed to figure out how to get himself out so he just plunked in an alien and called it a day. It might've worked if there were other signs of aliens throughout the book, but nothing led to that until the end. It was all sort of random and didn't seem to fit. Hopefully the TV show will fix that.

I am a huge King fan, and I was so stoked to a read a new epic tome by him ( dreams of The Stand floating in my head). Sorry, but frankly this book sucked. There I have said it after having read it 2 years ago. I am so sorry SK but Under the Dome sucked.

I hated the ending of this book, however I did like the book very much. It is the first Stephen King book that I have enjoyed for a long time. I often feel that his endings are disappointing. I am not so upset by the alien scenario. It just could have been done so much better.

I LOVED it! I was totally hooked, although at the end I would have liked to see Barbra and that trucker guy meet up again..Those 2 were my faves! I read this book twice!

I enjoyed this Stephen King book. It was worth the long read. I enjoyed the characters, the setting, and even the out of the blue ending. The characters, as usual with King, made the read worth the time.

i enjoyed every single word that i read on the journey of under the dome. ending not so much but it does leave some room for one's imagination and that was good enough for me

When I finished this book I felt like the main story had been amazing. However I thought the ending was weak and may have been added on to meet a dead line or just because SK did not know how to end it. The reveal was rushed compared to the rest of the story in my opinion and left me feeling very dissatisfied.

I choose to forget the bad ending and insert my own ending courtesy of my imagination.

As for political views I find that SK is balanced. He has a wide and varied selection of characters in his books. Good, evil, right, left, crazy, sane and mostly miserable. Just like real life.

I thought the ending was completely out of the blue and I didn't like how it didn't really fit in with the rest of the book. The ending wasn't worth it, but the journey was and all that happened in between.

I was pulled into the story and then became bored. So many of the characters behaved like idiots. I would hope that if we were placed in that type of situation we would have the sense to react in a more intelligent manner. A lot of death and destruction without a strong ending and resolution.

was the ending worth it? No. The journey? nope - not for me.

I have to agree with Melissa to an extent.
I feel that King's one weakness can be his endings. Whether it's 'It' or this one, there's often a sense that there is a slight lack of planning in advance.
However, I'd like to give two reasons perhaps for that and for why it doesn't bother me all that much.
1. I often feel that the endings are a little lackluster because of the quality of the writing. I am entirely sucked in when I read his books and would generally be happy to just go on reading. I don't yearn for an ending because I'm so engaged with the characters. To me, this makes creating a truly satisfying ending a tough call.
2. This is a tad cheesy, but I don't read books for the ending, but rather the process of going on whatever journey the author has created. If that journey is satisfying, the end becomes irrelevant because the characters continue to live after you put the book down. I'm still wondering whether the news paper lady and Barbie got it together full-time once the Dome came down!

I had trouble with the book for several reasons. I felt the sexual attack that takes place could have been cut short or not so graphic. Also the end was just so obvious that it almost ruined the book for me. I know I'm not interested in the up-coming mini-series.

Enjoyed the ending. I don't know how else it could have ended

The ending worked for me, but it could do without the aliens. The human characters were enough to scare the shit out of me. It´s like he forcefully had to give his readers something supernatural to tie all loose ends together.

I agree that it was typical king, he seems to leave more questions out there to make the reader think, i do think it dragged a little in the middle, and did find myself having to push myself to keep reading to get the the end, I am glad I did though, because over all it was a good book, from one, if not the best writer in this genre

Totally! Back to classic Stephen King! I'm getting annoyed with some of his later stuff. Why is he always repeating stuff he's told us before? Assumes I'm an idiot who can't remember the finer points he's already made? Back to riveting story-telling, so says I!

OCLS wrote: "What did you think of the ending to Under the Dome? Was it believable? Was it a satisfying explanation?"

I didn't really like the ending, but the questions of whether it was believable is a bit absurd. You could really feel him working the last quarter of the book to make the ending make sense, however, once I realized that there was this sort of supernatural involved, I felt a bit sad.

I wish this would have been one of the Bachman books and we would have discovered that something with the crazy new antennae and the meth had caused the creation of the dome (force field) and that the explosion would have brought down the tower and freed the town.

I also wish that something better would have happened to Big Jim in the end.

I did not find the ending satisfying at all. The entire time I was reading I couldn't help but wonder if it was something else (the thought kept popping into my head, but then I dismissed it because that would just be too simple). However, it was still a good book. Not sure if I will be tuning in to the mini series though.

can someone please tell me in short how to book ends? how exacly did aliens put the dome??
Thanks!

I liked the book generally and actually thought it could have been longer - I was really enjoying the slowly building conflict between the main characters/factions and wished it could have been drawn out even more. I'm glad there's the TV series now so I can watch that can develop a bit more.

As far as the ending, yes, the explanation sucked, and I wish he hadn't even bothered. Everything doesn't always have to have an explanation. Do I know what the apocalyptic event was in The Road? No, and I don't care; it didn't really matter to the story.

Even more than the explanation, I was bothered by the reactions of several characters at the end of the book. Not sure how to hide spoilers so I won't talk about it in further detail, but there was some really odd behavior at the end I felt. Still, the ending didn't ruin the book for me completely; I felt it was worth the read, even at that length.

All I remember is the cop with the brain tumor. Or rather, what stood out the most.

I loved the book, and when a colleague told me it was really good, I was thrilled to see how long it was. I have an unusual problem: many years ago, I took a speed-reading course to help me get through the endless readings piled on college students. I read more quickly than I'd prefer now, since books cost a lot of money.

That said, I finished Under the Dome in less than a week anyway (and I was still working then!). I just could not put it down. I found the ending immensely satisfying.

One thing every King reader has to realize: first, his voice does show his beliefs, maybe more so than many writers, and because he no longer has to write to sustain himself, he isn't going to care if you feel he leans too far leftward. If his politics disturb you, there are plenty of other horror writers out there. I generally love his work and his perspective, so I keep going back for more.

I will admit I am afraid to go near the 11.22.63 title because I am afraid it will wreathe Kennedy in glory that I don't think he earned. But that's my choice; he writes what he likes, and I choose what to read and what not to read.

I felt ripped off by In the Tall Grass because I paid full jacket price for it on my nook, and then it turned out to be just a short story and a teaser for another novel. THAT bothers me. Extra length, when used for such an epic tale as Under the Dome, makes the purchase a bargain!

This is one of those books where the ending didn't really matter all that much to me. SPOILER: The major point of the book is not the "purpose" of the Dome, but the way in which the society under the Dome reacts. It is a commentary on our society. The Dome serves merely as the impetus.

I was in a similar boat when I finished reading this. I get it--it's a supernatural event, so why not a supernatural conclusion? It did feel a bit convenient, though, but like someone said earlier, I don't know that I could have come up with anything better. Personally, I like tying the supernatural to the natural enough that it's believable. The 'reaching out there with the mind' thing was anti-climatic, but then sometimes solutions to major problems are...don't know. I guess I'm torn. Still, I loved the journey getting there, and would buy the book again in a heartbeat.

The ending was ridiculous. But the rest of the book was wonderful.

I think it could have been done in oh, 300 pages or so...500 at most.

I like the ending a great deal. I finished it a while back and sat on it. The thing is, we could be a zoo given the right circumstances. King gave us powerful aliens who's children toyed with us horribly. As king notes we as humans devastate the lower order of our food chain at rather an early age. How advanced is a magnifying glass to an ant?

You must've missed the part where he was reinstated and promoted.

Like everyone in this comment section, I felt the end was anticlimactic. It was kind of an "easy" end.
Starting the book with the dome's apparition and ending it with its disappearance is logical, as continuing the story in the aftermath of the dome would probably have been a mistake. However, it is possible to stop the story at the disappearance of the dome while explaining how it appeared/disappeared.
That's what they did in the TV show (there's maybe 2/3 minutes of the aftermath but that's it). In my opinion, the 2nd and 3rd seasons of the show were bad (if not terrible) and didn't do justice to the book, however, they had the right idea by explaining the dome in more depth.
I still think the books were dope though. The dome is a great idea to isolate the town and show how totalitarianism and propaganda work.

Stephen King has always been long-winded & goes off on tangents in his books. I love his plots, but he needs to focus less on describing the falling leaves reflecting a rainbow of colors floating atop the pond, etc. The TV series is drawn out too long too.

Hated the ending, there was too much filler and inbetween blah blah and I kept enduring in the hope of an incredible 'knock your socks off' ending, and what I got was a short and tragically empty ending that left me feeling let down and almost ripped off. All those hours of reading for THAT? I don't know if I could read another of his books, and I can't for the life of me work out what made him a best selling author if all his books are like this one?

I'm so glad that I wasn't alone in enjoying this novel yet feeling disappointed at the lack of a climactic or philosophical ending.

Ok how about the tv show?

The book itself was okay or even good at parts, but the ending felt anticlimactic to me. After almost 1100 pages, most of the ways it could have ended would have been unsatisfying though. However, I was mostly relieved/proud that I managed to read the whole thing by the time it finished.

I thought the most interesting character was definitely the Chef and I was hoping he was the reason behind the dome. Sadly he had nothing to do with it and I find that we didn’t get enough of him. I think King could have had a great ending with the Chef being behind the dome as a Meth-Crazy-Jesus-Freak who was punishing the city for being faithless.

I enjoyed the journey, but the reason for the dome pretty lame. Reminds me of the Dark Tower series, 7 books following the journey to the Dark Tower,finally arrives, finally gonna see how the Tower will make everything right as we led to think through out the 7 books. Disappointing ending. I will still read Stephen King though,

I liked the ending personally. I think it is a really thinker. It should make the reader think about what humans do to other species and that just maybe humans aren't (what!) as superior as most tend to believe.

I liked the ending because though it was depressing, it made sense in the world (under the dome) King created. The TV show is just being dragged out...and out...and more out because it is a TV show, I guess and needs to go on and on and on ...

I told my husband, who hadn't read the book, how the book ended and he was like oh, wow, hope that's not how the TV series ends!

It was the journey that mattered. He made me read it all the way, despite being such a long way. And I thought it was a good ending as well. I was amazed by it.

I have been extremely dismayed on the quality of acting done in the movie rendition. I probably would have liked the movie better if I had not read the novel. Darn!!

I would flip the question. Was the thousand pages worth the ending? I was disappointed with the ending, but found the rest of it quite enjoyable. Enjoyable enough that not even the ending could spoil it for me.

I parts of the ending, I liked the disaster part (you know...the fire) but I disliked that he brought aliens to the tabel. It just felt....wrong to me