Under the Dome

I came home last night expecting to find a package at my front door containing the new Stephen King book Under the Dome. Now I think I'm going to have to request Amazon not leave new King books outside as their heft could easily be used by a burglar to knock my door of its hinges; even after his alleged 'retirement', King is still pumping out thousand page books. I love him for it, but man, I had to start a second To Read pile on my desk out of fear the first one would topple over with the added girth of this new behemoth and kill a cat.

But with a new King book comes new King happenings and the author was recently on hand for an Under the Dome signing in MD, which resulted in three juicy nuggets of info winding up on Lilja's Library. First up, when asked if his new novel about a small town in Maine that finds itself trapped within its city limits by a forcefield would be made into a movie, King said no, but that HBO was planning on turning it into a miniseries. Unfortunately there are no details beyond that.

He did however mention that he will be writing a new Dark Tower novel that will follow a few of his series' supporting players somewhere between the events of books 5 and 6. King, however, won't even begin writing the new entry, titled The Wind Through the Key Hole, for another eight months, so if you haven't read The Dark Tower, you've still got time to catch up.

The third major bit of news concerns the Talisman. King confirmed that the recent film adaptation attempt has died, but that Peter Straub and he are definitely teaming up together for a third Talisman novel. Some minor news beyond that, such as where the TV adaptation of Cell stands, slipped out as well, so click on to watch the full Q&A session.

For years, I've been reading stories about Stephen King proclaiming that he's retiring. These are invariably followed by a story trumpeting his latest project. King, in his quasi-retirement state, writes more than most of us do as full time scribblers. Say what you will about the quality of his body of work (I still believe King's writing can be divided into two distinct eras--Early King, which comprises the books he wrote up to and including It--and Later King, which is everything after. Early King is the best by far...) but it's amazing that he's stayed as prolific as he has, particularly in the wake of his near fatal author-vs-vehicle encounter.

I don't know that the release of a new King novel is quite the event it used to be, but the horror community still takes note of it. To celebrate the arrival of his latest novel, Under the Dome (which hits shelves on November 10th and weighs in at a massive 1,088 pages), Entertainment Weekly has posted a video of the master himself reading an excerpt from his newest tale of terror. Dread Central shared it with the masses recently, but we've got you covered in case you missed it.

Dread Central has also alerted us (thanks to the folks at King super-site Lilja's Library) that the author's short story "Premium Harmony" can be read in its entirety online (and for free!) over at The New Yorker. That's a lot of King for one week, but I'm a firm believer that too much of a good thing is better than too little.

Click the handy "read more" button to jump to the video of King reading from Under the Dome.