The jury’s out on whether this is going to be really good or just really… Stephen Kingish. I mean, if anyone can pull off an epic 1000+ word novel about a town being trapped under a dome it’s him. What worries me is the 
Stand comparison. Do we really need another lengthy battle between good and evil/random weirdness in which (spoiler alert!) good wins? And the leader of the good team is a well-meaning middle-aged guy who is totally not Stephen King because sometimes he doesn’t wear glasses?
I actually really liked the Stand, I remember going to school the day after I finished it continually thinking I was in the middle of an apocalyptic viral war and flinching every time someone coughed. As somewhat predictable as his main characters often are, I always remember an interesting female character I can identify with (remember when Dayna throws herself out the window to keep Flagg from reading her mind? OMG!)
But King can also take us different places- he’s at his best when he lets his creative plots loose and writes a world somewhere beyond the black and white of good guys vs bad guys. Really, as long as there’s some kind of supernatural vortex or rips in the fabric of time I’m good.
