The main thing readers might find frightful about Stephen King's Under The Dome is its length. The second is the detailed map of the town and list of characters at the front of the book (including "Dogs of Note"), which sometimes foreshadows, you know, heavy lifting. Do not believe it. Breathless pacing and passive characterization are the symbols of writer's best books, and here the writing is immersive, the suspense unrelenting. You will turn page after page so fast, that your hand will hardly be able to keep up.
When the little town of Chester's Mill, Maine, is surrounded by an unknown force field that no one is able to see, the people inside must struggle for their lives. The situation worsens quickly due to the ecological effects of the dome and the machinations of Big Jim Rennie, who is an indecently hypocritical local politician and drug lord who likes the idea of having an isolated people to dominate and manipulate. Rennie also wants to keep hidden his lucrative sideline in the manufacture of crystal meth. Citizens start to panic, because the government's efforts to puncture the dome are useless. But there are few people trying to oppose him. They are footloose Iraq veteran Dale Barbie Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a gaggle of teen skateboarders and others who want to solve the mistery of the dome. King fills the book with lots of characters masterfully but mercilessly, forcing them to live (or not) with the consequences of fast taken decisions. The list of characters looks like this:
Dale Barbara
Barbie, a drifter, ex-army, lives with a huge feeling of guilt from the time he was in Iraq. He works as a short-order cook at Sweetbriar Rose, and that is the closest thing he's ever had to a family life. When his old commander, Colonel Cox, calls from outside, Barbie's burden becomes the town itself.

Julia Shumway
Very pretty editor and publisher of the local town newspaper, The Chester's Mill Democrat, Julia is self-assured and Republican to the core, but she is drawn to Barbie and discovers, when it matters most, that her most vulnerable moment might be her most liberating.

Jim Rennie, Sr.
"Big Jim", who is a car dealer with a fierce smile and no kindness, he'd given his heart to Jesus at the age of sixteen and had little left for his customers, his neighbors, or his dying wife and deteriorating son. The town's Second Selectman, he's used to having things his way.
Joseph McClatchey
Scarecrow Joe, a 13-year-old also known as "King of the Geeks" and "Skeletor", a bona fide brain whose backpack bears the legend "fight the powers that be." He is cleverer than anyone, and proves it in a crisis.
Stephen King succeeded to fascinate readers with his new book. Although, there is only one supernatural thing the Dome itself, and everything else is pretty ordinary. But that doesn't make the novel boring or usual. Read the book, and you will definitely enjoy it.