The thing about chess is, all the action happens on the board. There’s nowhere to hide. No extra $100 bill of Monopoly money stashed under the table. Every piece is in plain sight, every move accounted for. You might not always understand the consequences in the moment—but the game is visible. Transparent. Brutal.
That same dynamic sits at the heart of Under the Dome. Then the dome falls, and the game begins.
In Chester’s Mill, the players are already in place. Big Jim Rennie—second selectman, used car salesman, and small-town power broker—is the self-appointed king. His son, Junior, is a walking time bomb, with a brain tumour twisting his thoughts into something dark and dangerous. Then there’s Dale “Barbie” Barbara, an ex-Army officer turned short-order cook who just wants a quiet life—until the dome slams down over the town and quiet becomes impossible.
Everyone else? Pawns, knights, bishops, rooks. Townspeople with routines, grudges, secrets. All going about their lives. And then, in an instant, they’re trapped. Cut off. The rules change. The oxygen thins.
What follows is not just survival—it’s strategy. People unravel, or they rise. Some cling to power. Others challenge it. And all the while, the board stays the same. The dome doesn’t move. The only thing that shifts is the people under it.
In Under the Dome, Stephen King asks: what do people do when they can’t run, can’t hide, and can’t pretend the consequences of their actions don’t matter? Like in chess, the truth is all there, laid out move by move. And it’s devastating.
I’d be remiss not to mention the true MVP of this novel. And no, it’s not the intrepid reporter. It’s not the handworking diner owner. It’s not even the overworked hospital staff fighting to save lives under impossible conditions.
No. The real hero of Under the Dome is Horace the Corgi.
Anyone who knows me—or knows the things I love—will now understand why this is a five-star review. Horace is the quiet champion of this story, and easily my favourite part. He doesn’t appear often, but when he does, his role is critical. I won’t say more—spoilers—but trust me: he earns his moment.
Stephen King, as always, plays the long game with foreshadowing, and this time it comes through eerie visions experienced mostly by children. Many of them come true. It’s a clever storytelling device that King uses to great effect, layering dread with prophecy in a way that builds tension and inevitability.
It’s also remarkable how compressed the novel’s timeline is. The events unfold over just a few days, yet it feels so much bigger—like we’ve witnessed years of corruption, conflict, and transformation. That’s the magic of Under the Dome: it’s a game of chess that never lets up.
I’ve been listening to it while training for a marathon—long, slow Sunday runs, just me and the road—and this book has been a steadfast companion. The marathon hasn’t arrived yet, but sadly, the book has ended. My only complaint? I wish it were longer.
Five heroic corgis out of five.