



Cell
A Novel
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3.7 • 43 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From international bestseller Stephen King, a high-concept, ingenious and terrifying story about the mayhem unleashed when a pulse from a mysterious source transforms all cell phone users into homicidal maniacs.
There’s a reason cell rhymes with hell.
On October 1, God is in His heaven, the stock market stands at 10,140, most of the planes are on time, and Clayton Riddell, an artist from Maine, is almost bouncing up Boylston Street in Boston. He’s just landed a comic book deal that might finally enable him to support his family by making art instead of teaching it. He’s already picked up a small (but expensive!) gift for his long-suffering wife, and he knows just what he’ll get for his boy Johnny. Why not a little treat for himself? Clay’s feeling good about the future.
That changes in a hurry. The cause of the devastation is a phenomenon that will come to be known as The Pulse, and the delivery method is a cell phone. Everyone’s cell phone. Clay and the few desperate survivors who join him suddenly find themselves in the pitch-black night of civilization’s darkest age, surrounded by chaos, carnage, and a human horde that has been reduced to its basest nature...and then begins to evolve.
There’s really no escaping this nightmare. But for Clay, an arrow points home to Maine, and as he and his fellow refugees make their harrowing journey north they begin to see crude signs confirming their direction. A promise, perhaps. Or a threat...
There are 193 million cell phones in the United States alone. Who doesn’t have one? Stephen King’s utterly gripping, gory, and fascinating novel doesn’t just ask the question “Can you hear me now?” It answers it with a vengeance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What if a pulse sent out through cell phones turned every person using one of them into a zombie-like killing machine? That's what happens on page six of King's latest, a glib, technophobic but compelling look at the end of civilization or at what may turn into a new, extreme, telepathically enforced fascism. Those who are not on a call at the time of the pulse (and who don't reach for their phones to find out what is going on) remain "normies." One such is Clayton Riddell, an illustrator from Kent Pond, Maine, who has just sold some work in Boston when the pulse hits. Clay's single-minded attempt to get back to Maine, where his estranged wife, Sharon, and young son, Johnny-Gee, may or may not have been turned into "phoners" (as those who have had their brains wiped by the pulse come to be called) comprises the rest of the plot. King's imagining of what is more or less post-Armageddon Boston is rich, and the sociological asides made by his characters along the way Clay travels at first with two other refugees are jaunty and witty. The novel's three long set pieces are all pretty gory, but not gratuitously so, and the book holds together in signature King style. Fans will be satisfied and will look forward to the next King release, Lisey's Story, slated for October.
Customer Reviews
Great book
I loved this book the characters were amazing and the whole idea was just so cool! The only reason I'm not giving this book a 5 is because of the cliffhanger ending it made me think for weeks afterward and it was just so annoying I really want to know what happens I wonder if he will write a sequel? Anyway I would recommend this book to all of my friends and I would have to say this is one of Stephan kings best books its definitely worth the money!
Cell
Well, I guess shame on me for expecting something very much different from Mr. Kings myriad of other literary works. He goes on and on and on with something so implausible and far-fetched that it is maddening that he did not condense it by about one half. At over 600 pages, this book, (with its subject matter that parallels Cormac McCarthys "The Road" in many ways), is much too long, drawn out and has nothing of substance to awaken the readers senses too much. To me, I would say that Mr. King has gone to the well a few too many times with offerings such as "the Cell."
Awesome
One of my all time favourite books (and i have read A LOT of books) Definitely worth the cash.