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 Cell:
Is Your Number Up?, By Stephen King (HODDER & STOUGHTON,
RS. 668)
I love Stephen King. I love the fact that he writes
beautifully and can make you believe absolutely anything.
Well, for the most part…
Clayton Riddell is a struggling artist in a very good
mood because he's struck a fabulous contract with his
cartoon creation. He stops to treat himself, and stands
in line to buy an ice-cream. Suddenly, everyone who
is on their phone goes crazy. A signal called 'The Pulse'
has been transmitted via the phone network. These affected
people start killing themselves and one another. Clayton
meets more non-crazy people. It dawns on him that his
son Johnny also carries a cellphone. It is usually dead,
but what if it isn't? He now takes off for home in an
attempt to get to his son before his son gets to his
cellphone.
On foot, these Ninjas plough through a mad city at war,
full of raving lunatics. The crazy people then evolve,
and develop special abilities. Clayton and other non-crazy
people are forced to head towards Kashwakamak, where
the book ends.
Okay, admittedly King makes it way more interesting
that this synopsis. But, in the ultimate analysis, this
is nothing more than a zombie story that King modernizes.
He does it as well as only he can, carrying this done-to-death
story as far as it can go. But from a fabulous, frantic
start, Cell loses steam about a hundred pages in.
Cell takes a lead from King's earlier epic, The Stand,
but ends up fairly differently. The major issues are
the irritatingly unresolved ending, the unnecessary
killing of a main character and the repetitive prose.
It's barely dark or scary, and seems contrived.
Has The King of Horror forgotten his roots? - TARA
KAUSHAL
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