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Stephen King: Cell

H

henrietta

New Member
Excuse me if I'm posting in the wrong place (seems right, horror, but I've noticed that popular authors sometimes have their own area) but anyone read Cell yet?

Visually, it's much thinner than most King books. Likeable, interesting, intermittently gory. But somehow - disappointing. Maybe I'm just used to King novels plodding inch by inch through every step of every journey; I was very startled at how quickly the action and the scenes progressed after a more typical extended opening scene. I loved the essential idea - cell phones turn deadly! - but I think he skimped on the plot in favor of his main character's personal life. It's something I've thought for a while about his books - the earlier work was more distant; very gutsy and immediate, but still able to rear back and look at the situation at a remove. In the last ten years, he's gotten very into one person, one voice, one POV. In this book, for instance, the world shrinks very rapidly and while I understand that's part of the plot - without communications, who knows what's going on outside their own immediate world - the characters rarely even wonder whether their nightmare is being replicated around the world or if it's just them. I liked his characters, and their fates were mildly surprising - and the horror aspect was strong enough to enter my dreams after I read it - and the book was gripping enough to keep me reading for 3 straight hours - but it wasn't complete.
 
I find the streamlined, one-person POV he uses in this book quite refreshing. His earlier works--while I enjoyed them--were meandering and used POV's and plotlines which ultimately did not move the story along. I like the fact that the action moves swiftly.

I think it's fine that the characters don't worry about the world as a whole. I think they have their hands full in the book and that it's all they can do to worry about themselves. My opinion is that the larger concern of the what's happening in the world will happen after the end of the book, when the initial action settles down.

I know this limited viewpoint is a source of contention among King fans, a lot of reviews I read wanted more information. But I liked the fact that we don't know more than the characters. Again, a change in modus operandi for King. I think it's a clever device that King uses to try to put us, as readers, on the same level as the characters. I did find the novel gripping, and really would like to know what happened to the characters after the book ends. But I don't think we're meant to know. I would be surprised if he ever wrote a sequel.
 
I just started reading this, and am only 50something pages in.. So far I'm like whoa.. so much is going on.. I'm sure it'll get better though. Don't tell me what happens ;)!
 
Okay I just finished Cell, and it was good. I found it to be more of a Page-Turner King rather than some of the Art he's created in other books. It really wasnt that scary either.. I mean, there were lots of zombies, but there weren't any scenes that stand out like there are in many of his novels.

Overall: Worth reading, but definately not King at the top of his game.
 
I finished the book yesterday. While it was better than The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and Dreamcatcher (my least favorite King books), Cell wasn't up to par with his earlier horror novels. I liked the characters, liked the ideas, but something was missing from this one. I'd probably re-read it just to see what I missed, because some elements of the plot confused me.

The ending, though, was great.
I think that things did not work out well for Clay and his son. A happy ending would be nice but it would also be inconsistent with the tone of the novel
.
 
You know, I think one of the problems with this book for King fans is, conversely, how fast-paced it is. We all griped about how he rambled, went off of tangents into characters that ultimately led nowhere, then when he gives us a tight, action-packed thriller, we perversely wish it was like his old books! I know King read all of the Harry Potter books, and one of his criticisms to Rowling was to tighten up her books. I wonder if he decided to apply this criticism to his own books.
 
I didn't care much for it, and I've been a King fan for over 15 years. I thought it was a half-arsed attempt that relied way too much on plot lines lifted from "I Am Legend", "Dawn Of The Dead" and bits and pieces of "The Stand" and "The Tommyknockers". King's strength used to be creating characters you care about, but somehow he fails to bring these to life. And the whole techno-thriller part of it was, frankly, laughable.

I liked some of the little touches, though. The basic idea of it is good, and the first few chapters before everything just becomes talking and walking are vintage King. And of course, the bit about how even zombies can't stand Michael Bolton... :D

I hope "Lisey's Story" is better than this.
 
Hmmmph. I just finished it, and I was very disappointed. I really enjoy Stephen King (fave author), but I just found it really weak. :( It was unoriginal - if you've ever seen a zombie flick, that's basically what the book was. I agree with one of the other posters who said it lifted parts from other movies (Dawn of the Dead) and The Stand. To me, it was just focussed too narrowly, with one character's (or group of characters) POV. I miss books like The Stand, where the story had so much scope, and had so many different things happening in it. Cell was just too simple for me. What a bummer. :(
 
Hm. I see some of your points, and totally respect your opinion, but I think Cell is awesome. I'm towards the end of it now and I love it. He got right to the action (with about 20 people dying in the first 15 pages) and I found it to be extremely enjoyable.
Although this isn't really relevant, it made me laugh when I flipped to the "about the author" flap and it said "Stephen King lives in Maine with his wife, the novelist Tabitha King. He does not own a cell phone."
 
I guess I am in the minority here. I really enjoyed the book. It started out in that fast paced style that King does so well, but then came the trademark lull afterwards, where nothing much happens for a while, but this lull wasn't as bad as some. I do think the characters, which is usually SK's strongest point, were a little weak here. What I really liked about the story though was the way the main character's imperatives changed. I was left later in the story wondering how we got to where we were and I always like that. I liked the ending, the very end and the climax end. Nothing particularly special about either, but they fit and were well written.

Cell wouldn't make my top ten favorite Stephen King books, but I did like it just the same.
 
I enjoyed this book for what it was...an entertaining story that gave me a few days sojourn from reality. Not his best and not his worst, but good enough to entertain my feeble mind.
 
I just finished it today and I liked it. I too thought it was gripping. I also thought it was super creepy when
the phone-crazies were actually emitting the music faintly from their open mouths when they were in "reboot" mode. That freaked me out a bit.
I can't help being unsatisfied by an ending like that, though. I think it fit well in a technical sense but emotionally I would have liked to know what happened immediately afterward.
 
I read about half way through this novel and had a nightmare about being ambushed by phone-crazies while searching for normal children....

Anyway it did feel too much like a cliched zombie movie, but with the lovely twist of cellphone apocalyptica. (I knew those things were bad news!) As for liking it, I'm kind of stuck in the middle on that point. Entertaining, but not his best work (although better than Hearts In Atlantis). I did like the cliff-hanger ending.

ValkyrieRaven88, I found that little comment about King not owning a cell phone to be funny too.
 
I guess I'm with most people here. Events just went by too quickly. I didn't get a chance to really like the characters or feel sad when something would happen to them. Usually I feel some sort of attachment to King's characters in his other works.
Like with Alice, when she died... I thought, "isn't this the part where I get teary eyed?" But I didn't because I didn't feel attached to anyone.
I read it quickly & I stayed interested because I just wanted to know how it would end.

It felt like King was going somewhere, but changed his mind in the end. It felt like it could've been a bigger story. Everything just happened so fast.

Well, I hope the Eli Roth film will be bad ass. On Stern he said that the best way to go with King books is to just adapt it rather than try to make it exactly like the novel. (Or something like that.. that's what Lenny Nero told me) :p
 
Indeed.

He has lost his touch, for whatever reason.

He needs to retire to allow burgeoning writers, who just as well have the gift for writing horrific settings and unstoppable storylines.
 
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