"Under the Dome" の Synopsis

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StephenKing.com に今年11月10日発売予定の長編 "Under the Dome" の摘要が公開されています。

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester’s Mills, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener’s hand is severed as “the dome” comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing—even murder—to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn’t just short. It’s running out.

" Under the Dome " の冒頭部分をスティーヴン･キングが朗読している様子は Discussion on Writing with Stephen King の46分09秒ごろから観られます。（08年4月4日のイベント "Three Kings" のビデオ、ページ右の F をクリックで再生されます。）

"Under the Dome" の主人公がイラク退役軍人というのが面白い。というのは、キングはこの "Three Kings" で

読めないと将来は軍に入ってイラクに行くことになったり、まあなんだかそんなことになるぞ/"The fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that,"

と話して一部から批判を受けていたからです。"Three Kings" 当時はまだ執筆中だったはずなので、元からこの設定だったのか、それともイベント後に変えたのかどうか気になります。

過去記事;
Discussion on Writing with Stephen King その2

左から米 Scribner 社版ハードカバー、英 Hodder & Stoughton 社のハードカバーとペーパーバック。