Having read King for decades, and knowing the structure of the book coming in, I was simply disappointed. Not surprised, just disappointed. I'd agree that the first half was 2/5 but at least I cared about the characters at that point. Once things started moving to the other world it was just all downhill for me.

One of the better books I read last year. Once I stopped thinking about the reasons and responses for the submersibles failure (and later events) and stuck with the motivations and allegory I really got into the characters.