Under The Dome – Blue on Blue

I would like to start this post by saying that I read the Under The Dome book.  I have mentioned on this blog that the TV show has so things that are very different from the book.  Sometimes this can be a good thing like in The Walking Dead.  Right now it appears to be too early to say whether that is the case with Under The Dome.  I will say that if it had followed the book exactly I probably would have gotten bored already.

So back to Blue on Blue.  This episode starts out with Jim Reney finding the hostage in the fallout shelter.  Suprisingly he lets her go which is the exact opposite of what the Jim Reney from the book would have done.  Again different isn’t necessarily bad.

Barbie uses his military background to find out from a soldier on the other side of the dome that the military is going to shoot a MOAB at the dome and if it works it will kill everyone.

The town flees to underground to the same set piece from an earlier episode and pretty much waits to die.  Big surprise it doesn’t work, we are only on episode four.

While this is happening Junior Reney finds his hostage (I can’t remember her name but I believe she died pretty early in the book) at surprise her house.

Overall this episode was not as good as last weeks.

Under The Dome Pilot Thoughts (spoilers)

I don’t know where to start when it comes to the Under The Dome pilot episode. I guess if I could use one word to describe it I would say different. Most of the characters are nothing like they were in the book. For example Barbie was a short order cook that was walking out of town in the book.  In the TV show he looks like a hired hitman that was leaving town in a supped up dodge charger (can you say product placement).  Another example is Julia, the reporter. In the book she is an older, in her 40s single and independent journalist.  In the show she is in he late twenties and married.

Hopefully as the series progresses I’ll be able to get over these differences. If not then I hope the show finds an audience with those people who didn’t read the book.

Under The Dome Final Thoughts

Now that I have finished Under The Dome and had some time to think about it I thought I would write a short post talking about the audio book.

Under The Dome is about people and how something tragic can cause people to turn into figurative monsters. It’s also the story of how a leader can use fear to control people. Can you say post 9/11 politics?

At over 40 hours the audiobook is long. In fact it would take almost a month and a half of listening during my commute to and from work to get through the whole book. Thankfully I had a fourteen hour business related drive that let me get through a large chunk of the book.

Under The Dome is a great introduction to audiobooks because it begins with such a bang. Literally a plane crash. And the story is great! It is extremely entertaining and easy to listen to while operating a car.

I highly recommend the Under The Dome audiobook and can’t wait to watch the mini-series later this year.

Under The Dome Audiobook Update

So I’ve made it through a good chunck of Under The Dome and all I can say is it’s AWESOME!  I’ve only listened to one other audiobook, Halo Ghosts of Onyx.  It was alright.  I listened to it when doing the 12 hour drive to my home town to visit family.  I don’t know if it was because I was young and have almost no attention span or the fact it was not that good, but I would start daydreaming and would quickly get lost.  It was hard to focus on the story.  Under The Domeis exactly the opposite of that.  When a section would end I would immediately want to start the next.  It is like a show like Lost or Breaking Bad, where when one show ends you want to start the next.  Forget about the yard work and other responsibilities  Under The Dome is calling.  Until the shows I’ve mentioned, Under The Dome is an audio book so it’s somewhat possible to do other things while listening to it.

I have a little less than 14 hours left in the 40+ hour audio book and I’m anxious to see what happens to the town of Chester’s Mill.  Hopefully the ending is a little more friendly to Barbie than it was to David Drayton in the film version of The Mist.

Under The Dome Audio Book

With Stephen King’s Under the Dome coming to CBS this summer I decide to check it out. At over 1,500 pages reading it would take me a few months since I only average about 300 pages a month. But I do have a 25 min commute every morning and evening. So why not use that 50 mins that I usually use to listen to podcasts on Stitcher and instead get prepared for Under The Dome?

I originally didn’t plan on buying the audiobook but there was a free exarpt on the audible app and after listen to the first 20 mins I had to buy it. So far I’m about 1 1/2 hours in and it’s still pretty good. And at 34 hours it had better be!