Under the Dome (2009) is not Stephen King's best novel; indeed, it is distinctly ramshackle. Although it brings to something of a climax King's dealings with small-town USA, it sets out far too large a cast of characters, and eventually we lose effective sight of most of them, and the writing is occasionally rushed and clunky; however, it does in its closing pages provide a significant view of pity.

The plot, fantastical as it is, is easily told. An invisible but unbreakable dome descends one day over a small town in Maine; in doing so, it cuts various people and animals in half, but the principal effect is to provide an almost literal ‘hot-house’ within which existing rivalries and secrets move towards increasingly violent fruition. Although in some respect this is a typical small town, in others it is not: not many small towns in Maine, one may justly suspect, have a senior town official who is the kingpin in an international trade in hard drugs.

The nature and function of the dome are gradually revealed; it has been placed by a group of alien children who are using it in much the same way – in a metaphor which is stretched to its limit – as human children might torment and torture insects and small animals, regarding them – as the alien children regard us – as insensate and therefore unable to experience anxiety or pain.