Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Hard Cell, 24 Feb 2007
From Dawn of the Dead through Day Of The Triffids to 28 Days later, the scenario where someone wakes up, the streets are empty of pedestrians and everyone else has turned into a lunatic or worse is now very, very well-done. King has already visited this subject once before himself, in "The Stand", but apparently the idea of reworking it yet again must have seemed like a good one at the time.
So we have the idea of a high pitched pulse going off, and the following day someone wakes up to discover that anyone who has listened to their mobile phone since (which of course is the majority of any western city's population)has turned into a flesh eating zombie. The story is of a small group of survivors heading north amidst the chaos to reach the safety of somewhere with zero or limited mobile/cell phone service. Bet they all wished they were on Orange now, eh ;-)
King writes this time without rambling sideways and backwards which he often was wont to do. However despite that habit sometimes being in need of a good edit, it was often also the basis of character development in his novels. A childhood theme or fear would often be brought up to be re-encountered over and over again, complexities of memory and emotion and even dark humour going through key characters' heads as they were plunged into a stressful encounter or situation.
Cell is strangely lacking in this familiar technique. Whilst this may have cut down on excess waffle, it also took away the potential depth from the story's characters. The references to "Baby Elephant Walk" brought back a little glimmer of the Old King, but not much.
Still, Cell is an enjoyable enough read, if one which at the beginning suggests the potential of complexity or a twist in the tale, but ends up as a straight down-the-line adventure story. Maybe I'm being over-critical because it's written by someone who's work I'm very familiar with. Had this been penned by an unknown new writer I might have given it 4 stars and said "pleasantly surprised". But this is Stephen King, and I don't want to be pleasantly surprised; I want to be blown away.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Thrilling end-of-the-world saga of the phone hordes versus the last few normies!?!, 6 Jun 2006
Ever since George A. Romero set the world alight with `Night of the Living Dead' in 1968, screen writers and novel writers alike, have tried to match the originality and brilliance of that story. Some have come close, but no-one has ever matched it. (Even George A. Romero has tried and despite some excellent attempts, he has failed.) The Cell is Stephen King's attempt and again it fails to hit the mark.
It's a brilliant premise - something as ubiquitous as a cell phone, being used by an unknown enemy, to turn the population into frenzied, inane, killers. Think about it - everyone has a cell phone, from your eleven year old cousin to your eighty year old grandmother - they are everywhere! So, if they were ever were to turn against us, we would be in trouble!
Unfortunately, the brilliance ends with the initial premise and does not radiate throughout the book. King's ideas are original; all the usual zombie clichés are missing, there are no gung-ho ex marines ready to kill anything that moves and in King's book when you die, you die, you are not resurrected as a flesh eating, groaning, monster. Even though this is true, I kinda miss these old unoriginal cliché's!
'The Cell', unfortunately, never seems to warm up, firstly, it jumps straight into it. The first zombie appears on the fourth page, giving the reader no time to get to know the characters. (Surely, we have to learn a bit about the characters in order to decide if we want them to get killed in grotesquely horrible ways, or we want them to survive to the end?) But Clayton is the only character we are introduced to before the book launches into the action and we only get to know him in the books dangerous and stressful situation. (I realise that books these days have to capture the reader from the first page, but King, is such a popular writer that surely he can afford to spend a few pages letting us get to know his characters.)
King does have interesting ideas, the zombies or the `phone hordes' are all guided by some higher intelligence and communicate telepathically or through dreams, they are not the brainless, flesh-eating zombies we have come to expect from this genre, but like the premise, he never seems to capitalise on these good ideas. The book is definitely worth a read, if you are a massive King fan you will probably love it and any book that contains the line "Homeland Security's been cancelled due to a lack of sanity" has got to be worth consideration. However, this reader prefers, some of Stephen King's other work, like Shawshank or the Shining, both of these are as near perfection as a novel can be!!!
I have no doubt Stephen King will return to form and impress us all again! After all, he is the brain behind such classics as Carrie and The Stand. So I am disappointed for the moment, but I am eagerly awaiting his next book, hoping it will match the novels previously mentioned.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Whatever happened to the King of horror?, 8 April 2006
Stephen King used to make my flesh creep, set my teeth on edge. The likes of 'Carrie', 'It', 'Salem's Lot' et al were utter masterpieces in my opinion. So, what on earth is this contrived, regurgitated nonsense that has been done time and time again? It seems as though he, at times, is trying to recreate 'The Stand.' This is a zombierama that sinks my boat. Luckily I was given a copy of this book so didn't have to fork out my hard earned cash. Don't bother with this stick with his earlier stuff- when he had credibility.
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