Stephen King’s Cell
By stephanie - Monday, May 29th, 2006
I’m rediscovering Stephen King lately and how much fun he can be. At least, you gotta love him for being so prolific.
His latest horror novel is Cell, which is surely King’s literary revenge against annoying cellphone users.
In the book, a strange pulse is sent to cellphones, and anyone using a cellphone at the time of the “pulse” is turned into a jabbering, slobbering, violent zombie. The book takes us through your typical ragtag group of survivors, racing to find a safe haven from the zombies.
As horror books go, this isn’t one of King’s best, but it’s still a page-turner. I imagine that, written in under the name of an unknown author, Cell would still be a bestseller, since it’s as good as any standard thriller out there. It’s just lacking in the epic scope of many of King’s better works, or the sheer terror value of some of his earlier horror novels.
The science fiction element in Cell is a bit weak as well – what is the pulse, who sent it, and how could it affect people the way that it did? These questions are never answered – probably because the entire idea is really ludicrous when you think about it. Would there be any technology that could send an audio signal that would turn people into raving groupthink zombies? Hmmmm…most likely…no.
Yet, I had fun with this novel and ate it up like candy. It was still fun. Enjoy it, and forgive its minor shortcomings.