Publisher: Berkley Books
Copyright: 1987
ISBN: 0425095606
Dome is an extremely well written, and well plotted out novel. That tells the tale of a massive, mostly completed, mobile underwater city and it's inhabitants. Now while this might not seem too exciting, things do become very interesting early on in the book when a nuclear detonation/test is conducted in Asia that triggers a number of volcanic events throughout the world.
These "natural"" disasters trigger a number of political events that lead to a limited nuclear war between Vietnam and Laos, and when one shot misses its intended target and ends up in Cambodia they retaliate with banned bacteriological weapons, that have mutated and these spread to devastate the surface of the earth.
The characters in this novel are quite memorable, and you really get a feeling that they could be actual people, which at least in my books, is an excellent way of doing characterization.
The action is fast-paced, and the writing style very concise. The story is told from multiple perspectives at one time and this leads the reader to be even more involved in the actual story. Even though it was written 34 years ago the technology is not dated, and the science itself is sound. I was some somewhat sceptical with regard to the genetics / biological part of the science, but it sounded good, and this is not something I have studied my so it may very well be perfectly legitimate but I don't know.
Well worth the read, highly recommended.
