Review of Cell by Stephen King
A brief review of "Cell" by Stephen King
Stephen King's novel "Cell" brings us back to the good old days of gore and horror in King's frighteningly twisted mind. A brief review of Stephen King's novel "Cell".
Stephen King's novel Cell brings us back to the good old days of gore and horror in King's frighteningly twisted mind. This is the first book King has written in ages that was perfectly creepy from the first chapter.
The characters in this novel are almost secondary to the overwhelming paranoia about technology that you start to feel. The main characters are stereotypes for just this reason I think. You know enough about them as "husband", "father", "daughter/teenager", etc. to become marginally engaged in what happens to them, but they continually take a backseat to the technology itself.
Perhaps the creepiest aspect of King's novel is the plausability of The Pulse, and the ability to envision the regression of society to animalistic tendencies in reaction to it. I had no trouble at all believing that people could indeed be caused to revert to the animal within, wreaking mayhem, death and destruction on society and each other.
We all have a little bit of the luddite inside of us, and Stephen King has become the master at tapping into that fear of technology and using it to scare us into reading until the last page. In the past he's used cars, monorails and other technological advancements to represent technology and the fear of it as a whole. In this book it just happens that the cell phone is his tool of choice.
The cell phone is an apt tool to pick, in my opinion. People already disregard societal norms when they are on them - eschewing privacy and consideration to blab the most intimate details of their lives in the most inappropriate places at the loudest volume available. If a cell phone user is already willing to ignore civilized behavior without the influence of The Pulse, it is absolutely believable to think mankind would throw civilization to the wind after it.
With plenty of gore and violence on every page, right fron the beginning, plus a liberal sprinkling of creepiness and dash of ludditude, King has written his best horror novel in years. I highly recommend it to the long time King fan.
Tags: stephen king cell
