Post by Joe Snack Road on Feb 9, 2006 16:28:10 GMT -5
Book Review: "Cell," Stephen King
The latest book from the retired (ha-ha, funny Steve) writer, and the story is simple enough, if reeking of themes seen in other (better) books: The idea of the Technological Boogeyman and his Pandora's Box of Wackiness. In "The Stand" it was a super virus, in "Cell" it's wackiness with cell phones.
The novel starts in a regular happy-go-lucky day, people wandering about downtown Boston when a number of people answer their cell phones - or make phone calls - or generally try to do anything regarding a cell phone. The people who use the cell phones are turned into violent zombies, who lurch and drag and slobber and scream craziness, much like the zombies in Mr. Romero's movies... and the idea is people who haven't used their cell phones grab theirs to call and check on their loved ones or report the craziness to the local authorities and BLAMMO, more zombies.
The
n character is a recently divorced father, an artist who's recently become a graphic novel author - Clay Riddell is the traditional Stephen King protagonist, but in lieu of the usual development we get from Mr. King, we get a single-minded schlub who can't really do anything on his own. He has to see if his son and ex-wife are okay - he goes on throughout the entire story worrying about his son and ex, NATURALLY! Yes! This is a point we get, and instead of giving us something to show that he's worried, we get treated to the sledgehammer of character development, and are told this repeatedly, over and over again. Not just from Clay, but from everybody sane he encounters...
These other characters are delivered well, although, the sense of foreboding seems to fall by the wayside quickly enough as they become clinically detached from their own situations - "OMFUX~! ZOMBIES!!!" falls way to "Oh, admire how they seem to be developing the intelligence to rationally interact with each other in ways that don't involve using their teeth to tear out each other's throats." - The Stephen King "Everyman" protagonist becomes a doctor, watching with a fascination as they travel to find Clay's family, studying the "migratory habits" of the zombie hordes...
It's the side characters that seem to have the best development though - where Clay is a schlub who wants to find his family (laughably, he reminds me of Silent Hill 1's Harry: "Have you seen my daughter?"), the other characters seem more REAL.
There's Tom, the kind of guy who listens to NPR, watches PBS, and apparantly he's gay, but I don't remember this ever being introduced in the novel except for a joke from Clay in the latter half of the book. Clay unites with Tom early, and they soon meet up with Alice...
Alice is a teenage girl, who's refused a cell phone by her parents, although they each have one - her mother in fact, is one of the many who turn into flesh-hungry zombies, while she's riding in a cab with her daughter. Her mother kills the cab driver, and they wreck, and when she turns on her daughter, Alice escapes (after attacking her mother) and is immediately chased by a zombie, when she hides in an alleyway - out of sight out of mind for zombies, yessir, Steve King sticking with the zombie lore that's been laid by Mr. Romero.
Alice is THE best character in the story - she's the one who's going through the most, and Mr. King takes the time to show the mental duress the girl's under, how her actions become much less "teenage" and more like she's being stressed to the point of breaking.
Tom, Alice and Clay go north because well, Clay thinks they should.
They're alright until they reach a college, where they find a lone professor (The Head, he's called) and his lone pupil, and just as it always goes, intellect seduces people into doing what they want - in this case, torching a shitload of zombies as they crash out for the night.
But, the zombies have developed this collective hive-mind, and this pisses off their unofficial leader, and...
You know what? I just read that last sentence, and realized how fucking ridiculous this story's premise is. Stephen King sticks to the basic tenets of zombie-ology, even adapting the latter era films of George Romero to use here - zombies developing intellect, speech, ability to retain knowledge from their "prior lives" and even references the mall in "Dawn of the Dead" and how it was representative of consumerism and how it turns right-thinking people into zombies of a different sort, the kind that spendspendspend instead of devourriptear flesh. Then two characters laugh it off. Haha, fuck you King.
I mentioned the best character in the story, well, this is the biggest sticking point in the world to me - it upsets me, it angers me, and frankly, it feels like he's all of a sudden gone to the Squaresoft school of writing Final Fantasy: Kill the character that people can connect with.
Tom and Clay never seem to get to the point where they CONNECT with the reader, or maybe I have problems connecting to people who turn into hyper-clinical disconnected observers - maybe this is how some people react to "Life Altering Stress" but in this case, I don't want a crapton of characters acting this way, I want REALISTIC reactions, and Alice with her periods of flipping out and whatnot is the only character who comes closest to it - she is relatable, because other people have got NOTHING other than "Oh gee, look at that" while Alice is actually affected by this.
And then Alice gets killed. Fuck you King, stop hanging around those Squaresoft shitbags.
In Closing
- It's not a BAD Stephen King novel. Unless you're a die-hard Stephen King fan, I can not justify buying it in hardcover. I am a HUGE Stephen King fan, and I feel ripped off - and I blame the greatest movie of all time, "The Shawshank Redemption" for it. (He wrote that, you know.)
The success King garnered for "Shawshank" is deserved, but it seems to have skewed his purposes in telling a story - instead of getting more stories like "It" or "The Shining" or "Misery" we get more stories like "Hearts in Atlantis" and whatnot. Another review for this booked called it "A really good short story stretched out to novel length" and... I disagree with that. It's a good story (with a somewhat weak premise) but it's just not up to par with his other works, and doesn't even belong on the same sort of high regard given his masterpieces "The Stand" or "Needful Things".
If you like Stephen King (just like, not love), then wait for paperback, or check it from a library.
The latest book from the retired (ha-ha, funny Steve) writer, and the story is simple enough, if reeking of themes seen in other (better) books: The idea of the Technological Boogeyman and his Pandora's Box of Wackiness. In "The Stand" it was a super virus, in "Cell" it's wackiness with cell phones.
The novel starts in a regular happy-go-lucky day, people wandering about downtown Boston when a number of people answer their cell phones - or make phone calls - or generally try to do anything regarding a cell phone. The people who use the cell phones are turned into violent zombies, who lurch and drag and slobber and scream craziness, much like the zombies in Mr. Romero's movies... and the idea is people who haven't used their cell phones grab theirs to call and check on their loved ones or report the craziness to the local authorities and BLAMMO, more zombies.
The
n character is a recently divorced father, an artist who's recently become a graphic novel author - Clay Riddell is the traditional Stephen King protagonist, but in lieu of the usual development we get from Mr. King, we get a single-minded schlub who can't really do anything on his own. He has to see if his son and ex-wife are okay - he goes on throughout the entire story worrying about his son and ex, NATURALLY! Yes! This is a point we get, and instead of giving us something to show that he's worried, we get treated to the sledgehammer of character development, and are told this repeatedly, over and over again. Not just from Clay, but from everybody sane he encounters...These other characters are delivered well, although, the sense of foreboding seems to fall by the wayside quickly enough as they become clinically detached from their own situations - "OMFUX~! ZOMBIES!!!" falls way to "Oh, admire how they seem to be developing the intelligence to rationally interact with each other in ways that don't involve using their teeth to tear out each other's throats." - The Stephen King "Everyman" protagonist becomes a doctor, watching with a fascination as they travel to find Clay's family, studying the "migratory habits" of the zombie hordes...
It's the side characters that seem to have the best development though - where Clay is a schlub who wants to find his family (laughably, he reminds me of Silent Hill 1's Harry: "Have you seen my daughter?"), the other characters seem more REAL.
There's Tom, the kind of guy who listens to NPR, watches PBS, and apparantly he's gay, but I don't remember this ever being introduced in the novel except for a joke from Clay in the latter half of the book. Clay unites with Tom early, and they soon meet up with Alice...
Alice is a teenage girl, who's refused a cell phone by her parents, although they each have one - her mother in fact, is one of the many who turn into flesh-hungry zombies, while she's riding in a cab with her daughter. Her mother kills the cab driver, and they wreck, and when she turns on her daughter, Alice escapes (after attacking her mother) and is immediately chased by a zombie, when she hides in an alleyway - out of sight out of mind for zombies, yessir, Steve King sticking with the zombie lore that's been laid by Mr. Romero.
Alice is THE best character in the story - she's the one who's going through the most, and Mr. King takes the time to show the mental duress the girl's under, how her actions become much less "teenage" and more like she's being stressed to the point of breaking.
Tom, Alice and Clay go north because well, Clay thinks they should.
They're alright until they reach a college, where they find a lone professor (The Head, he's called) and his lone pupil, and just as it always goes, intellect seduces people into doing what they want - in this case, torching a shitload of zombies as they crash out for the night.
But, the zombies have developed this collective hive-mind, and this pisses off their unofficial leader, and...
You know what? I just read that last sentence, and realized how fucking ridiculous this story's premise is. Stephen King sticks to the basic tenets of zombie-ology, even adapting the latter era films of George Romero to use here - zombies developing intellect, speech, ability to retain knowledge from their "prior lives" and even references the mall in "Dawn of the Dead" and how it was representative of consumerism and how it turns right-thinking people into zombies of a different sort, the kind that spendspendspend instead of devourriptear flesh. Then two characters laugh it off. Haha, fuck you King.
I mentioned the best character in the story, well, this is the biggest sticking point in the world to me - it upsets me, it angers me, and frankly, it feels like he's all of a sudden gone to the Squaresoft school of writing Final Fantasy: Kill the character that people can connect with.
Tom and Clay never seem to get to the point where they CONNECT with the reader, or maybe I have problems connecting to people who turn into hyper-clinical disconnected observers - maybe this is how some people react to "Life Altering Stress" but in this case, I don't want a crapton of characters acting this way, I want REALISTIC reactions, and Alice with her periods of flipping out and whatnot is the only character who comes closest to it - she is relatable, because other people have got NOTHING other than "Oh gee, look at that" while Alice is actually affected by this.
And then Alice gets killed. Fuck you King, stop hanging around those Squaresoft shitbags.
In Closing
- It's not a BAD Stephen King novel. Unless you're a die-hard Stephen King fan, I can not justify buying it in hardcover. I am a HUGE Stephen King fan, and I feel ripped off - and I blame the greatest movie of all time, "The Shawshank Redemption" for it. (He wrote that, you know.)
The success King garnered for "Shawshank" is deserved, but it seems to have skewed his purposes in telling a story - instead of getting more stories like "It" or "The Shining" or "Misery" we get more stories like "Hearts in Atlantis" and whatnot. Another review for this booked called it "A really good short story stretched out to novel length" and... I disagree with that. It's a good story (with a somewhat weak premise) but it's just not up to par with his other works, and doesn't even belong on the same sort of high regard given his masterpieces "The Stand" or "Needful Things".
If you like Stephen King (just like, not love), then wait for paperback, or check it from a library.
