Cell [Hardcover]

After the conclusion to the Dark Tower series, Stephen King said he might think about retiring. He lasted all of about eighteen months before The Colorado Kid appeared, swiftly followed by Cell. And thank God he couldn't keep away.

Cell starts fast and then keeps coming, twisting from bizarre to even more bizarre and finally bordering on the ridiculous at its climax. As with all of King's work, it's beautifully crafted, with believable characters (even the cameos are sculpted in great detail), good locations and a thumping plotline that holds your attention.

Cell has a lot of the qualities that made King's earlier work stand out; unpredictability, suspense and graphic violence all combine with the human elements and the interactions between the characters to create something which is simply a pleasure to read.

The premise (cell phone pulse drives all cell phone users into murderous frenzy - only old people, young children and the technically inept survive - cue struggle for survival a la 28 Days Later) seems a bit silly at first, but it's executed so well that by the time you're 20 pages in, you don't care.

If you're new to King, this would be a pretty good place to start, as it has a trademark blend of tongue in cheek humour and horror, but without stretching to thousands of pages like some of the earlier epics (though if you like this, It, The Shining and, in particular, The Stand are all must-reads).

A stand out point in this book is that King seems to have found a way to get around his notable difficulty in reaching an ending. The technique employed will either leave you desperate for more (as it did me) or perhaps feeling a little cheated. I liked it, others clearly haven't. Why don't you read the book and decide for yourselves?

Hat's off, Mr King, you've done it again. Hopefully, the recently released Lisey's Story offers yet more of the same!

An event, the Pulse, hits the world and throws it into mayhem. Everyone using a mobile phone at the time (or afterwards) is affected and the majority of those attack each other and the normal people left behind. The streets aren't a safe place to wander and locking yourself up in a secure house might be the one thing that keeps you alive, at least in the beginning.

We pick up the story of Cell just before the Pulse with Clay, your average guy who has just hit lucky with his comic book art work. As he wanders through the streets he lets his mind wander until the cell's start ringing and people start going crazy. Horrified at what is going on he deals remarkably well with the situation and manages to help where he can. As things get worse he hopes that his son, left with his mother back home, is okay - after all, he does have his own little cell phone. With his mind set on this, Clay does the only thing a parent would do in this situation and make his way all that distance back to him, regardless of what he might find.

I quite enjoyed Cell with it's first few chapters of zombie like action and horror before it changes to a more science fiction based plot point that hovers just beneath the surface. The story takes us on a journey through the city before heading to the highways and roads strewn with abandoned cars and the 'normies' left over walking along them - King does a rather good job at presenting a realistic situation here.

The story is split into sections, each reading similar to a short story but using the previous information as it's basis. It was nice to read like this as it broke the book up into more managable sections. Although the story is told through Clay's eyes you can still see the bigger picture of the events going on, perhaps not quite as much as I would have liked though. The story is mostly told outside of the large towns and cities and the feeling of living in constant fear doesn't come across as well as it should in places.

The first section when the Pulse hits is misleading to an extent. I expected an apocalyptic zombie-like story where the main characters were doing their best to outrun and hide from the hoards of 'phoners' after them. What I got was a story that starts off rough and refines itself with the revelations that come throughout the book. You may ask why I'm not being more specific - well, I just don't want to give the story away. If I went into Cell knowing what to expect it would have taken half the fun out of it and I doubt I would have enjoyed it anywhere near as much as I did.

Stephen King has written a decent little story here, and although not to everyone's taste, it is enjoyable. I didn't expect too much from it and felt satisfied when it was over. It's not going to be up there with my best reads, but I don't feel like I wasted my time in reading it. If it's on your shelf and you've nothing better to read, then pick it up, but if you've something better sitting there...

This book is pretty good. It's King's take on Zombies, and is almost a homage to all the great zombie movies of the past; in fact, the book is dedicated (should that be deadicated?), to George Romero - the Zombie master.

From memory, this is the first time that King has had written a Zombie novel - and of course, there's always a twist, an original way of looking at a well-worn subject.

King's Zombies are not actually dead; they have received some weird signal via cell phone, and it wipes their whole mental programming, driving them violently insane, but that violent insanity only lasts a short time; soon the phone-zombies - or phoners, as King calls them - are beginning some strange master-plan for the non-infected.

The story unfolds like most King novels - a natural, un-plotted evolution that makes time fly when you read. It's good to know that when you read a King novel, it's not just you that has no idea where the story's going - it's the author as well. You can never see the joins in a King novel - they don't exist.

It's true, the ending does seem to come upon the reader quite suddenly, but being one of King's Constant Readers, I know that's how it was always meant to be, and that the man had no real choice. I would have liked to know what the Phone-Zombies had planned, but it doesn't really matter, Cell is a good read.

Hang on, is that my mobile ringing.....?