Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- “Under the Dome,” Stephen King’s vast new novel, chronicles the events after small-town Chester’s Mill, Maine, becomes trapped beneath a giant, impassable force field.

The creators of “The Simpsons Movie” used a similar set- up to comic and dramatic effect. In this lifeless novel, however, King sees only an orgy of tedious mayhem.

“If the equivalent of an invisible stone wall suddenly goes up around an entire town, there is bound to be trouble,” he writes. Shootings, amputations, beatings and incinerations abound, not to mention people getting smashed against the dome like bugs on a windshield.

It may be that King, after writing dozens of novels and some of the most frightening short stories since Edgar Allan Poe, has lost the ability to outdo himself and will now settle for out-grossing himself.

Too bad. In “The Shining,” he explored the damage isolation can impose on a troubled mind and the toll it can take on a family. In “The Stand,” he showed how personal strengths impel some people toward good and frailties push others toward evil. Those works resonate, they frighten, because their action arises from recognizable sources -- addiction, bereavement, guilt.

Everyone Is Stupid

In Chester’s Mill, on the other hand, the good people are simply good, the bad simply bad, and everyone is kind of stupid. The town psycho is left alone with a stockpile of explosives, the newspaper editor refuses to post crucial stories on the Web, and it’s days before anyone begins searching for the source of the force field, an idea that occurs to only a few of the town’s 2,000 residents.

As is often the case, the bad guy is the most interesting character (see also “Paradise Lost,” “Batman”). Big Jim Rennie runs the town’s car dealership and the local government. He is a consumer of epic proportions. Food, fuel and people all vanish into the gaping maw of his avarice. Even his image of heaven -- for Big Jim is a pious man -- consists of a roast beef banquet with Christ.

Arrayed against Rennie and his henchmen -- thuggish teenagers and sniveling politicos -- are Dale “Barbie” Barbara and Rusty Everett. Barbie is an Iraq war veteran turned drifter who harbors the shame of having once done nothing while evil triumphed. All he wants to do is leave. Everett, a physician’s assistant, wants to make the town safe for his family.

Wooden Heroes

Beyond that, the two men are indistinguishable wooden heroes. Everett may have the edge on medical knowledge while Barbie has the combat skills, but you have to wonder whether King created two of them simply so he could double the action.

The tale sags under pointless asides (“It was bizarre”) and King’s wearying habit of showing us action and then having characters describe what we just read.

“Like most politicians, he believes in not just gilding the lily but spray-painting it,” King says of Rennie at one point, but those words could easily describe the author himself.

Readers for whom King’s Grand Guignol shtick is still appealing may welcome this latest addition to his oeuvre. Just as familiar to longtime fans will be King’s tic of using pop culture as a prop, if not a crutch. He endlessly repeats a lyric from James McMurtry’s “Talkin’ at the Texaco” to remind readers of his theme (“It’s a small town, son, and we all support the team”). For good measure he throws in some T.S. Eliot, along with Warren Zevon and a coffee jingle.

“It seemed to her that writing novels was pretty risky,” one character reflects. “What if you spent all that time, wrote a thousand pager, and it sucked?”

Now we know.

“Under the Dome” is published by Scribner (1,074 pages, $35). To buy this book in North America, click here.

(Andrew Dunn is an editor for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Dunn in New York at adunn8@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 7, 2009 00:01 EST