Under the Dome
- 34 hrs 24 min
- A Stephen King epic
- Rated 4.4 ★ on Audible
Peter’s Verdict
A compelling, suspenseful story with excellent character development. Raul Esparza does a good job, and I highly recommend it, though be warned it does get vulgar and gruesome in places.
On a normal day in Chester’s Mill, Maine, the town is suddenly and inexplicably sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. No one knows what the barrier is, where it came from, or when, or if, it will go away.
The situation deteriorates rapidly because of the dome’s ecological effects and the machinations of Big Jim Rennie, an obscenely sanctimonious local politician and drug lord who likes the idea of an isolated populace to dominate. Opposing him are Iraq veteran Dale “Barbie” Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a group of teen skateboarders and others who want to solve the riddle of the dome.
Raul Esparza reads the transitory prose well. Some of his vocal characterizations are strange, particularly for several of the women and children, but despite that minor complaint I think he does a good job overall.
It ran for over 34 hours and I still didn’t want it to end.
Some listeners on Audible have complained about vulgar language, gruesome details and political sniping from the left-leaning King, so if you’re sensitive to those things you should give this one a miss. I have no such complaints.
Most listeners seem to have enjoyed it too, and it holds a strong rating on Audible.
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Listen if…
- You want a big, suspenseful Stephen King story to get lost in
- You like character-driven thrillers with a large cast
- You have a long drive or a lot of chores ahead: it runs over 34 hours
Skip it if…
- You’re sensitive to vulgar language, gruesome details or political asides
- You want a short listen: this is a very long audiobook
Where to listen to Under the Dome
Audible has the Raul Esparza recording.
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The voice acting on this recording is terrible. Most of the males sound like redneck caricatures or exaggerated Valley boys (something like “Snake” on “The Simpsons”), and the “female” voices are extremely campy. They only sound like actual Mainers about 1% of the time, probably by accident.
I felt the same way as you did, but only until I got about 20 minutes in and the more he read, the more we realized how great he really was. The voices were memorable…I could hear one speak and know right away which character it was. They all had their own personality and it was very well done.