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The Cell – A Book Review

Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by Brad in Books and Authors | Twitter: @bradhart |

‘The Cell’ was written by Stephen King and published in January 2006.

A basic summary of the book is as follows: On October 1, an ordinary day by any standards, a young aspiring graphic novel artist (he does not own a cell phone, imagine that) is witness to the first signs of madness. A signal called ‘The Pulse’ is sent to all cell phones, resulting in random and brutal acts of savage murders and destruction. Those unfortunate enough to be using the device at the time become known as the ‘phone-crazies’ and with the number of people who use cell phones in the country/around the world, one can imagine that at least 70% of the population fits this category. Those without cell phones, who survived ‘The Pulse’ are called the ‘Normies’. This book chronicles their desperate attempts to stay alive in this new world, where every turn can lead them to danger.

This book is good for Stephen King fans that need a quick fix, or for new readers of his stories who want to get a general feel of what Stephen King is all about. I especially liked the sudden thrust into the world of chaos. The no holds barred, in your face brutality and horror that Stephen King is known for. I did not like the rather rushed feel of this story. There were several places where I felt it could be more developed or detailed. The last section of the book also left me baffled. It’s something I’ll have to read again to completely understand.

When I finished the book, I wanted to throw away my cell phone! Actually, it did make me think about the possibility of such a terror attack ever taking place. In a technologically advanced world, such a thing is NOT impossible.

As always, King takes us for a wild ride, hardly wasting time in thrusting the reader into the chaos that ensues. I’ve always loved his ability to paint a scene in such brutal reality – a scene that’s seemingly impossible (say a woman suddenly attacking another by chewing her ear off) makes perfect sense. The scenes are fast paced, action-packed and draw the reader into the lives of these ‘Normies’. Each character has a personality that we can identify with, and King manages to incorporate all the changes of modern society within the novel. We have the single gay man stereotype, the teenage girl who is quite mature for her age, an ailing professor of a prestigious university, and a young boy who is a computer whiz kid in his own right. The eternal fight for good vs. evil prevails here, and at the end of the day, despite all the problems caused by cell phones, it turns out that only one remaining device, can be the key to salvation after all. Hmm, kind of contradicts itself there, doesn’t it? However, I felt this was too short and held tones of some other works of his, namely ‘The Stand’ and ‘The Dark Tower’ series. If I were going to be a harsh critic, I would consider ‘Cell’ a watered down version of ‘The Stand’.

KiyaSama is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers.

Author: Kiya Sama
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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