The beginning is officially over. The whole town knows the basics of the situation: there's a huge forcefield around the town. The initial chaos has finlly settled down but some interesting things are starting to take place. Of course, the law and social order of the town will change now that they're cut off and that's already starting to happen. There are clear underlying ulterior motives in the people who are bringing themselves in to ultimate power and I foresee a division. Also, characteristic of King, there are some religious zealots in the town that will surely shape up to have interesting roles.
It is still unclear whether there are supernatural happenings going on here. There are some hints of such, but it could just be a coincidence/insanity of certain characters. People have therories of what the dome is so far, but I'd guess the real cause wouldn't be given (even if just a little bit) this early on.
Upon starting this book, I was wondering how King would do with the vast amount of characters he has. As he introduces more and more, I still find some of them hard to keep up with (especially with the nicknames), but a vast majority are surprisingly memorable. King seems to have found a balance between backstory and moving along what's in the present. I was initially worried that a lot of the book would delve too much into each character's past and not enough of the present and while there are still times when I'm rushing through a character's memories to get back to the story at hand, King supplies enough to make these characters feel real without hurting the overall flow.
Another thing I notice about Kin and his progression from his initial novels like Carrie and Salem's Lot to Under the Dome is the use of vocabulary. Two summers ago, while in Ecuador, I read a lot of books and kept a pen to underline the words I didn't know. When reading an early King novel, I could expect almost an unknown word per page. Now, I hardly have any problems with any of the vocabulary. I've noticed this difference widely in his earlier versus later books. I have no preference either way and the writing is definitely not 'simple,' just an observation I made.
Some of the use of technology seems forced/out of place. Maybe its because a lot of the books I read I'm not used to seeing mention of main gadgets that have evolved over the past ten years, but at times it feels like King wrote the first draft without them and then when he went back through he just plopped them in. Either that or it feels satiric. Which is fine, but it would seem that in any time period you write a book in, there would have been something new (the television, the microwave, cell phones, the Internet) and I don't remember these 'new' things standing out so much in old books. Maybe it's that now-a-days the popular things have more of a name brand than before. Instead of 'smart phone' it's iPhone or instead of mp3 player it's iPod. And then there are the well known internet names like Facebook, Twitter, and Google. When I see these mentioned in books, it feels like a certain statement is being made.
Well, those are my thoughts so far. It really is a great read. I had to stop myself from reading last time instead of wondering when the next chapter would end so I could finally go and do something else. I just wish it didn't have to end.
That being said, it would be col if King did a web-series that he wrote on everyday/weekly that went on indefinitely. Kind of like a tv show....
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