Stephen King - Cell

[Neil]

I've finally finished it...

Generally a good read, which some great ideas in the 1/2 to 2/3rds... A couple of bits got a bit too superatural'esque for me, and the ending was a bit of a let down as well given you'd spent nearly 400 pages with the lead character...

[Arcades057]

That book was great but...


At the end of the book I was like "Where in the hell is the ending?!"

[Exatreides]

I ask myself that every time I read a steven king book arc.

[Tricky]

Im about two thirds of the way through it & im enjoying it!would like to see the raggedy man make up on the big screen!i was a bit gutted with the alice thing :(

[AssassinFromHell]

I enjoyed the entire book very much, infact so much I read it all in one day. I was, however, bored with much of the Gaitten Academy chapter. I ended up skipping twenty or so pages out of the boredom. But other than that, I liked the book. The ending...my god, did it **** me off.

The movies gonna be horrible. Eli Roth? Ouch...

[Tullaryx]

I don't know about horrible. The book seems to be one of those novels that may actually translate better to the screen. Every set-piece sequence in the novel almost seem to be a written storyboard sequence and the only thing missing are the visuals. As for the ending
King's already pointed out that he left it up in the air for people to make their own mind as to how the final scene turned out. He himself have mentioned that it's not as much a downer as people might think it is.
Oh, I'm actually confident that Roth would do a good job with the film adaptation since he won't be the one writing the screenplay. I'll be the first to say that Roth is a hack, but he's a hack who truly cares about the genre he's decided to be in, unlike someone named Boll.

[LoSTBoY]

I finished it last night, I was going to make it last for a month or so but I finished the last half in 2 nights.

The ending was pretty annoying, but not as annoying as the end of The Dark Tower series. :mad:

It isn't like King to kill off a lead character :rolleyes:, I would have prefered Jordan to clock it.

[Geophyrd]

and knowing Stephen King, Roland will show up with Eddie to save the day. Sigh. Everything seems to wind up with the Dark Tower.

By the way, the question about 'where in hell is my ending' is the same one i ask every night before bed.

[DjfunkmasterG]

I think it is a great book, but I am afraid they will f*ck up the the movie version because Eli" Cabin Fever" Roth is directin and I have a huge feeling he is going to mess it up. So if he does helm the film I will refuse to see it.

Let Frank Darabont make the movie. Darabont has done 2 King books into movies and was spot on in both.

[2Tall2Slow2]

I've finally finished it...

Generally a good read, which some great ideas in the 1/2 to 2/3rds... A couple of bits got a bit too superatural'esque for me, and the ending was a bit of a let down as well given you'd spent nearly 400 pages with the lead character...

I just finished reading it recently. It was a little difficult to start (action from the get go, but too much going on to make a lot of sense), but picked up, and was a good read. Im with you on the ending, though.

[DL_Snell]

I’ve only read the first chapter of Cell, but . . . when I attended Mr. King’s Portland Arts and Lectures appearance, he mentioned the book. He said he got the idea when he saw a woman in a power suit get on her cell phone; this was in New York. He wondered what would happen if the lady got some kind of message that made her psychotic. I guess he found out: that woman actually finds her way into the book, except, if I’m not mistaken, the city is Boston, not New York--he said he didn’t want to piss off any New Yorkers by having his characters get off the train in a place where the train normally doesn’t stop; as anyone whose read the Dark Tower series knows, King is notorious for goofs in his research.

King also explained the genesis of his newest book, Lisey’s Story. I guess he got the idea when he returned home after a near-fatal bout of pneumonia: his wife had cleaned out his office because she was going to refurnish it, so the rug was rolled up to one side, and all of his stuff was boxed up in the corner; King realized that this is what his office will look like when he dies.

[Danny]

I finished it last night, I was going to make it last for a month or so but I finished the last half in 2 nights.

The ending was pretty annoying, but not as annoying as the end of The Dark Tower series. :mad:

It isn't like King to kill off a lead character :rolleyes:, I would have prefered Jordan to clock it.


c'mon i just finished the dark tower seires on monday and it wasnt that bad an ending, i liked how roland had a chance to avoid all the bloodshed this time round, would you have preffered him to find gan in the room at the top?

"you surprise me again maclain, --er i mean, deschain".:lol:

as for cell, aside from the fact i got my copy off ebay and it stunk of cigars, it was a cracking read, loved how he didnt drag out the death of one of the female characters that was sad, but the raggedy man was a cool bad guy, but no matter what some king fans might say i dont think it was randal falgg....again.

though i only started reading king books over the last 3 months, ive gotten through the green mile, the dark tower series, cell and i just started the stand yesterday, hes a pretty damn good authour i think and i enjoyed the novels ive read so far, he kinda writes like a depressed hippy version of terry pratchet.:lol:

[LoSTBoY]

c'mon i just finished the dark tower seires on monday and it wasnt that bad an ending, i liked how roland had a chance to avoid all the bloodshed this time round, would you have preffered him to find gan in the room at the top?

"you surprise me again maclain, --er i mean, deschain".:lol:

You know what would have been better than the Dark tower ending?

ANYTHING!! :skull:

[axlish]

Oh my GOD! It has been three effing years! I got this when it came out because King was coming to lecture here in town. I got him to sign it, read two chapters, and sat it down for THREE YEARS! I banged out the last 300 pages or so over the last couple of weeks and I really enjoyed this one. To me, the ending was at Kashwak. The last bit was just a mindfuck add-on, that worked. Also, Roth is off of the project, which is nice. It'd be a bit of a retread after Dawn 04, but I'd love to see Zack Snyder take a crack at it.

[sandrock74]

I read it a few months ago, and I liked the beginning. I was highly unimpressed with the rest of it. The people weren't zombies either, like advertised, so I felt burned on that account, which soured my feelings on this from the get go.

[SRP76]

I agee with the original, 3-year-old post. It was awesome to a point. That point is where the "zombies" start using telepathy and telekinesis. All downhill from there.

[krakenslayer]

I see why you found the telekinesis thing a bit weird, but it didn't bother me much as they weren't truly "zombies" - they were a whole new kind of monster with their own rules.

I liked it all except the ending. I though the virus/worm thing was not thought out properly, possibly resulting from bad research and/or King's misunderstanding of the concept.

I also thought some scenes were a bit sloppily written - for example, in the descriptions of the opening chaos King uses the phrase "At exactly the same moment..." several times in the space of ten pages.

As a whole, I liked it though.

[Tricky]

I agee with the original, 3-year-old post. It was awesome to a point. That point is where the "zombies" start using telepathy and telekinesis. All downhill from there.

I kind of accepted the telepathy thing, it was when they actually started flying towards the end that it kinda spoiled it for me,my minds eye couldnt create a believable enough image of it so I just thought "meh"

[Danny]

I agee with the original, 3-year-old post. It was awesome to a point. That point is where the "zombies" start using telepathy and telekinesis. All downhill from there.

see, i think many people have been...for lack of a better term, indoctrinated by the romero films to reject anything that differs from his blueprint instantly. Ive seen people who are romero fans love a particular story, like autumn, but when they add something a little non romero they turn venomous at the very idea.
Its not romero, its stephen king, these are his "zombies" not romeros.

neither is a voodoo controlled fuege stated person. what makes them not a zombie?

Its up to the artist to tell there story how they like it, because it differs from the norm doesnt make it shit, but the quoted post above, begs another question posing: We're fine with zombies being caused by a disease or radiation, but telepathy or something even slightly more paranormal is instantly rejected makes me think - zombies started as horror flick monsters, but are they now veering more into creatures of science fiction?

[SRP76]

It's got nothing to do with "differing from the norm". I'ts got to do with the "monsters" being from a human base. As such, they don't need to have a bunch of wacky superpowers.

The basic premise of "humans with their minds erased" is simple, and it works just fine for me. Throwing in all the added gimmicks just wipes out that entire premise. If you're going to do that, why even start with humans? Just introduce some race of superbeings pouring in through an interdimensional portal, or something.

[MoonSylver]

I have not read Cell, but my thoughts echo SRP76's above. For me, one of the reasons that the zombie really works as a monster is that it doesn't SEEM all that far fetched (even though in reality it probably is...). It doesn't SEEM all that implausible that SOMETHING could make a dead body get back up & start walking around. It's not doing anything it didn't do before. It doesn't require that much suspension of disbelief. The more "out of the norm" powers you start giving them, you start stretching that suspension of disbelief further & further & it becomes harder to maintain.

For me, that's why even the Runner stretches things about as far as I can go. A Shambler somehow seems logical. Rational. It seems like what you would EXPECT a reanimated dead body to act like. When I see them run...eh...somehow it just doesn't fit my worldview of how a reanimated dead body SHOULD act, if that makes any sense. So add on MORE special abilities? Seems like it would be even harder to believe.

Just mai .02

[axlish]

I got a great mental image of the conveyor belt phone crazies, about six inches off the ground, all facing forward. What a bizarre fucking image. I figured they were traveling roughly the same speed as the bus.

The Raggedy Man certainly has potential to have a great cinematic presence. I imagined his voice was similar to the end boss in Matrix 3 (not Smith, the machine thing). The point of all that levatation stuff was evolution. Who knows where it would have gone, not much further I suspect, but it could continue to get much wilder. That is the best part about the book, you don't get to find out what was the master plan of the flock, who set off the pulse, anything really, yet it is still great in its vagueness. I actually loved the ending.

[MikePizzoff]

I read soft-back version the week it came out and liked it so much that I recently picked up the hardcover edition. I'm currently reading it for my third time.

[krakenslayer]

It's got nothing to do with "differing from the norm". I'ts got to do with the "monsters" being from a human base. As such, they don't need to have a bunch of wacky superpowers.

The basic premise of "humans with their minds erased" is simple, and it works just fine for me. Throwing in all the added gimmicks just wipes out that entire premise. If you're going to do that, why even start with humans? Just introduce some race of superbeings pouring in through an interdimensional portal, or something.

Yeah, I know where you're coming from. However, I guess it just depends on how you feel about King and the fictional universe (multiverse?) in which his stories are set. It's an established feature of the Kingverse that humans have vistigial psychic and telekinetic abilities that in the vast majority of the population are dormant, but occasionally, in certain individuals, under certain circumstances, can rise to the fore (e.g. Carrie, Firestarter, the kid in The Shining, the guy in The Dead Zone, etc.). So the idea that, in these "wiped" humans, these powers are no longer suppressed, does not really seem so out of place within that context. I can see how, if someone's not reading it with that in mind, it would seem pretty jarring, though.

[kortick]

It was a let down.

great start and interesting ideas but
in the end it seemed like he lost interest
in the ending.

really that is the problem with most of his
books, the endings are just not as good as
you hope they would be.

[Bone Daddy]

It started off strong and visceral, but meandered and lost steam as the novel progressed. Interesting premise throughout, I admit.

[Neil]

It started off strong and visceral, but meandered and lost steam as the novel progressed. Interesting premise throughout, I admit.

And had your typical King, 'oh shit! now what can I do for an ending' ending...