- Paperback: 512 pages
- Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks; New Ed edition (25 Jan 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0340921536
- ISBN-13: 978-0340921531
- Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 11.2 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (211 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 82,963 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Cell
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Review
'Very clever and brilliantly written . . . you won't use your mobile for days.' (Guardian )
'The true narrative artist is a rare creature. Storytelling - the ability to make the listener or the reader need to know, demand to know, what happens next - is a gift. I don't think it can be taught . . . Stephen King, like Charles Dickens before him, has this gift in spades.' (The Times )
'What makes this one of his most poignant books is not the gore or the sinister threats . . . It is a father's helpless dread of what he has not been able to prevent.' (Time Out )
'Fans will rejoice that King has gone back to his horror-novel roots' (Daily Mail )
'The true narrative artist is a rare creature. Storytelling - the ability to make the listener or the reader need to know, demand to know, what happens next - is a gift. I don't think it can be taught . . . Stephen King, like Charles Dickens before him, has this gift in spades.' (The Times )
'What makes this one of his most poignant books is not the gore or the sinister threats . . . It is a father's helpless dread of what he has not been able to prevent.' (Time Out )
'Fans will rejoice that King has gone back to his horror-novel roots' (Daily Mail )
'King's genius for storytelling ensures there is plenty still to chew on. is King just scaring us into binning our mobiles? For now, I'm sticking to the landline.'
(Daily Mirror )Mark Billingham, Daily Mail
'Fans will rejoice that King has gone back to his horror-novel roots'
--This text refers to the
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not at his best, but he's still on form...,
By
This review is from: Cell (Paperback)
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!
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Stand Lite,
By
This review is from: Cell (Paperback)
I bought Cell simply because it was written by Stephen King and without prior knowledge of the jist of the plot. The description and reviews on the back don't give very much away. The first half of the book is classic zombie-apocalyptica, and this came as a very welcome surprise. A pulse which is sent via every mobile/cell phone in the world scrambles the phones' owners' brains and reduces them to psychotic killers.
Of course, simply re-treading the walking dead path wouldn't do. The phone plot-device grants scope to take the zombie theme in a new direction. It's only a few days after the pulse that the phone zombies begin to develop a hive mind and other, more fantastic capabilities. Things begin to unravel around halfway point. I've heard from quite a few of Stephen King's readers that any of his books that you care to mention "start out great but get a bit silly towards the end," and I tend to agree. There are shades of his less credible evil-circus metaphysics as the phoners continue to develop. However, the book's ending tied things up quite nicely for me, whilst leaving us on an interesting cliffhanger involving Cell's leading protagonist and his son. I've been a fan of Stephen King's books since my early teens. Having recently been sorely disappointed by the over-written self-indulgence of the Dark Tower series, I was hoping for a return to a more focused, effective form of writing for Cell. By and large, I think I got it. Although some of the characters' one-liners are a little too glib and wordy given the scenario, the dialogue and narrative is much tighter and restrained. However, this isn't King's best book; if you want his finest post-apoc work, then look no further than The Stand. In many ways, Cell smacked of The Stand Lite. If it's zombies you want, then I can also recommend Max Brooks' recent World War Z. Cell is a perfectly okay addition to Stephen King's repertoire, but I am deliberately damning it with faint praise.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Good Yarn but nothing special,
By
This review is from: Cell (Paperback)
I am a big Stephen King fine and having read positive vibes about this book - King fans would find him back to his best said a few people - I was excited to get my hands on a copy of this book. The fact that many shops are selling this at half price at the moment did slightly put me off - if it was worth reading surely people would pay full price?
The book is typical King. There are a group of normal people struggling against an evil of some kind. This time around it's a dead phone virus sweeping through the World that turns people into zombie-esque creatures. Our heroes find themselves struggling to escape the virus and the book follows them as they travel across country. The book is good for a quick read, but is nothing special. All of the characters seemed a bit flat and I didn't find I could really connected with them in any way. The story itself had kept me reading, wanting to know what happened - but like so many similar books it tailed off at the end for want of an ending that truly fitted the story. All in all, it is a good read and many people will enjoy it. However, if you expect a bit more from your books then it probably isn't for you. King fans will appreciate the book, but it does not hit the highs of some of his other works.
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