2009 Stephen King Novel Named One of His ‘Most Suspenseful' Took Him 3 Decades To Write
Stephen King has published over 60 novels since starting out in 1974. Since there are so many iconic stories to choose from, it's hard to pick which one to read next. Luckily, Collider recently ranked his "most suspenseful" books ever written.
Under the Dome, the 2009 science fiction novel, made the top ten list. The story is about a small town that is suddenly sealed off from the world by an invisible barrier. It is one of his longer novels, with approximately 1,074 pages.
King first had the idea for the book back in the '70s. According to The New York Times, "Mr. King started Under the Dome in 1972, when he was working as a high school English teacher in Hampden, Me. He wrote the first chapter about the woodchuck then shelved the idea for more than three decades until he finally felt confident he could tackle the logistics of an entire town trapped, as if in a snow globe. He wrote the original draft, more than 1,500 pages, in just 15 months, completing it in March 2009."
The book, which has over 300k reviews on Goodreads, has environmental themes. "I saw it as a chance to write about the serious ecological problems that we face in the world today," King said in an interview with Pop Eater. "I don't want to get real heavy about this ... but the fact is we all live under the dome. We have this little blue world we've all seen from outer space, and it appears that's all there is."
Related: 1979 Novel, Banned in Some Areas, Ranked the Most Disturbing Stephen King Book Ever Written
Like many of King's works, Under the Dome was adapted into a television series. It ran from 2013 until 2015 on CBS. Although King was attached as an executive producer and wrote an episode of the show, he was critical of the series overall.
In an interview with The Washington Post, he said, "The characters [on Mr. Mercedes] seem true to me. They seem like they're doing things I would do in those situations. … Under the Dome was one I felt like went entirely off the rails, because the people are doing things that don't seem realistic. One thing that killed me was you never hear the sound of a generator anywhere. The electric power is fine. Everything looks clean. Everything is great, except that they're cut off from the world. And that isn't what would happen … If you ask people to accept those ideas, there has to be a sense of realism that goes with it, that pulls you along."
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This story was originally published May 22, 2026 at 11:59 AM.