I just finished reading Cell by Stephen King. It was an okay novel, but certainly nowhere near King’s best. Basically, it’s a shorter version of The Stand set in modern day, only instead of a virus killing off everyone it’s a terrorist act using a cellular “pulse” to reprogram the minds of cell users.
As I said, the book is okay. Indeed, I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had not just re-read Bag of Bones (which is, in my opinion, the best literary work King has ever done).
I think one of the biggest problems with the book layout is the fact that for a King book, it’s very short. King’s at his best when he develops his characters, and this does take some amount of verbage (the way King writes). Cell felt like King was attempting to do a Dan Brown-esque rapid, short chapter feel (although Dan Brown is such a horrible writer that King’s attempt still puts Brown to shame, despite not being up to King’s normal standards). As a result, the novel felt very disjointed in places. Something would happen, you’d get to a chapter break, and then it picks up again several minutes (or in cases, hours) later. The only problem is that skipping the time required King to do a brief explanation of what happened in that time frame at the beginning of the next chapter segment.
In short, he fell into the classic trap of “telling” instead of “showing” the story; something one wouldn’t expect of King.
The over-all story concept was good, although not as compelling as it could have been. The story really wasn’t “scary” in the classic King sense–indeed, parts of it were fairly predictable. Sooooo….
Overall, I have to give it a B. If you’re a King-phile, then you’ll want to read it. If you’re introducing yourself to King, stick with Bag of Bones. And if you absolutely have to read one of his apocalyptical end-of-the-world stories, The Stand is better. In essense, while this novel is better than most stuff being published, it’s one of King’s worst.
Not as bad as It…but in the same cellar.
