Recent Reviews
Book Review: CELL
By Dave Dreher
Mar 10, 2006, 07:58

KING IS BACK!!

I have been a Stephen King for the better part of my life.  Recently his work has, in my opinion, been a bit weak.  I LOVED The Stand, Salem’s Lot, The Shining, all the classics but his recent stuff, from about Misery on has just not rung quite true to me.  Books like Gerald’s Game although well written just lacked something that those earlier works had.  The slump that I have imagined continued with his most recent releases but that has all come to an end. 

This weekend I picked up his latest novel, CELL.

This book kicks MAJOR ASS.  It is go for your throat, no holds barred horror and it is so great to read the master back at the top of his game that I almost can’t contain my enthusiasm. 

The action in Cell takes about a page and a half to kick in and it does not stop for349 pages.  The premise for the story is simple enough.  On a beautiful fall day the end of the world comes.  Not as a plague or nuclear war, but with the ring of a phone.  For no apparent reason a “pulse” is sent through the cell phone network and anyone using their phone when it happens go instantly insane and become ultra violent.  Thing is it don’t end there, if at any time after the “pulse” you attempt to use a cell phone you still become infected.  Does it affect other things like regular phones or radios?  These are the questions that our main characters wrestle with and it is a beautiful thing to behold. 

King does what he does best and in my opinion my have not done this well since The Stand, he creates characters that we love, that we relate to and then he puts them through hell and we feel every horror with them, every pain, every scream every joy.  We are right there with them.  It is great to read SK again.  King dedicates this novel to Richard Matheson and George Romero and it fits perfectly.  As with a lot of Kings work this book has a very cinematic feel to it and it will not surprise me one bit to hear that someone has picked this up to start filming soon. 

We follow a small group of survivors as they struggle through the new nightmare landscape.  The “phoners” as they become known are aggressive and violent.  Although not technically dead they are zombie like and seem to take great joy in ripping the throats out of the “normies”.  As the survivors begin to rally and join forces the evil at work takes hold of their minds and begins to herd them all to a central show down very much as King did with The Stand.  Actually a lot of parallels can be drawn between The Stand and Cell the largest one being that they are both excellent novels.

This past weekend at the Fango Weekend of Horrors the word came down via George Romero that a film version of CELL is already in the works and since then it has been confirmed.  Also confirmed is the fact that new fan fave director Eli Roth will be taking the reins of the project.

If done correctly, this material in the hands of Eli Roth could be a beautiful thing. 

While we wait for that though RUN and I do mean RUN to you nearest bookseller and grab yourself of copy of CELL.  Read a master at the top of his game.