![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
*brainmelt*
Today was supposed to be my return to Being Useful And Doing Stuff, but instead I spent most of it reading Stephen King's "Under the Dome".
Nonspoilery: I loved it! The book is practically a trilogy all by itself, and there are few things I love better than being able to really immerse myself in a fictional world with characters I enjoy. It's not perfect (what is?) but it was hours and hours of solid entertainment.
This book (like most of King's) is really best read if you don't know where it's going, so you'd probably not want to click the cut if you haven't read it. But I do recommend the book -- the characters are great, and it's marvelously tense and suspenseful.
Considering the high body count (I figured a lot of people would die -- this is King, after all -- but I had no idea he'd wipe out 99% of the town's population) I'm nothing short of astonished that all my favorites made it. I figured Barbie was a goner from about the middle of the book (and after making love with Julia, according to the standard rules-of-suspense-narrative, he may as well have painted a target on his back), and that we'd lose at least one of the Everetts. But no, they LIIIIIIIVED! Actually, I think I'm still riding a high from that, because there are few things I like better than being absolutely convinced that characters are going to die, and reading along going "don't kill them, don't kill them" under my breath, and then having them make it out alive. Okay, yes, there were a few moments of "don't kill ... oh Stephen King, you bastard!" but overall, not nearly as many as you'd expect -- and the important ones all made it out alive. (Though I'm still slightly in shock over the deaths of several thousand townspeople. That's pretty brutal.)
But, oh, the characters. I love unlikely heroes being brave and self-sacrificing; Julia was especially awesome in that area, because her character archetype could so easily have been flat and stereotyped (middle-aged Republican spinster living alone with dog) and instead she was smart and resourceful and courageous and wonderful -- as well as 1/2 of the book's main romance, which is nice to see with a woman in her 40s. I love characters being clever and thinking their way out of problems; Barbie (and the others) managing to stonewall Rennie and keep Barbie from being tortured during his days in prison really hit that particular narrative kink of mine (smart, competent characters makes![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
friendshipper very happy), as well as all of their planning and the suicidal-but-resourceful solution to the oxygen problem when Barbie and Julia made the final dash for the shield generator. Barbie and Rusty and Julia and Linda (and Jackie, and Rose, etc.) all made me so happy with their basic goodness -- that probably sounds silly, but with so many people around who were short-sighted and selfish, it really made them stand out as fundamentally brave and decent people. They were just likable, and I liked them and wanted them to win (and survive).
And honestly, I loved the book for portraying the majority of the townspeople as being short-sighted and stupid just as people are in a crisis -- from the kid accidentally shooting himself in the head, to the rioters ... in a way, this book is like the more realistic flip-side of 1632, where instead of a town full of level-headed folks who calmly and rationally self-organize, you've got a town full of methheads and teenagers and housewives and retirees ... people who are scared and confused, panic at the drop of a hat, and bend whichever way the wind blows.
Which makes it all the more awesome when some of them (like Barbie and Rusty, Julia and Linda, Jackie and Joe and Norrie) stepped up to be brave and self-sacrificing.
(I did kinda wonder how it was going to work out in the end since the whole town thought Barbie was a murderer, but, uh, I guess killing off the whole town does take care of that little problem.)
I'm not blind to the book's flaws, and it certainly had them, but right now I'm still riding high on a cheerful wave of "They LIVED!"
Nonspoilery: I loved it! The book is practically a trilogy all by itself, and there are few things I love better than being able to really immerse myself in a fictional world with characters I enjoy. It's not perfect (what is?) but it was hours and hours of solid entertainment.
This book (like most of King's) is really best read if you don't know where it's going, so you'd probably not want to click the cut if you haven't read it. But I do recommend the book -- the characters are great, and it's marvelously tense and suspenseful.
Considering the high body count (I figured a lot of people would die -- this is King, after all -- but I had no idea he'd wipe out 99% of the town's population) I'm nothing short of astonished that all my favorites made it. I figured Barbie was a goner from about the middle of the book (and after making love with Julia, according to the standard rules-of-suspense-narrative, he may as well have painted a target on his back), and that we'd lose at least one of the Everetts. But no, they LIIIIIIIVED! Actually, I think I'm still riding a high from that, because there are few things I like better than being absolutely convinced that characters are going to die, and reading along going "don't kill them, don't kill them" under my breath, and then having them make it out alive. Okay, yes, there were a few moments of "don't kill ... oh Stephen King, you bastard!" but overall, not nearly as many as you'd expect -- and the important ones all made it out alive. (Though I'm still slightly in shock over the deaths of several thousand townspeople. That's pretty brutal.)
But, oh, the characters. I love unlikely heroes being brave and self-sacrificing; Julia was especially awesome in that area, because her character archetype could so easily have been flat and stereotyped (middle-aged Republican spinster living alone with dog) and instead she was smart and resourceful and courageous and wonderful -- as well as 1/2 of the book's main romance, which is nice to see with a woman in her 40s. I love characters being clever and thinking their way out of problems; Barbie (and the others) managing to stonewall Rennie and keep Barbie from being tortured during his days in prison really hit that particular narrative kink of mine (smart, competent characters makes
friendshipper very happy), as well as all of their planning and the suicidal-but-resourceful solution to the oxygen problem when Barbie and Julia made the final dash for the shield generator. Barbie and Rusty and Julia and Linda (and Jackie, and Rose, etc.) all made me so happy with their basic goodness -- that probably sounds silly, but with so many people around who were short-sighted and selfish, it really made them stand out as fundamentally brave and decent people. They were just likable, and I liked them and wanted them to win (and survive).And honestly, I loved the book for portraying the majority of the townspeople as being short-sighted and stupid just as people are in a crisis -- from the kid accidentally shooting himself in the head, to the rioters ... in a way, this book is like the more realistic flip-side of 1632, where instead of a town full of level-headed folks who calmly and rationally self-organize, you've got a town full of methheads and teenagers and housewives and retirees ... people who are scared and confused, panic at the drop of a hat, and bend whichever way the wind blows.
Which makes it all the more awesome when some of them (like Barbie and Rusty, Julia and Linda, Jackie and Joe and Norrie) stepped up to be brave and self-sacrificing.
(I did kinda wonder how it was going to work out in the end since the whole town thought Barbie was a murderer, but, uh, I guess killing off the whole town does take care of that little problem.)
I'm not blind to the book's flaws, and it certainly had them, but right now I'm still riding high on a cheerful wave of "They LIVED!"