by Matt Bird

Created on: June 10, 2009

Modern Stephen King books seem to follow a similar pattern. They consistently offer interesting story lines, good characters and plenty of tight, concise writing; however they always seem to crumble a bit by the end.

Cell, sadly, is no exception.

The book starts with such promise. For seemingly no reason at all on a perfectly ordinary day, virtually every person across the globe simultaneously turns homicidal. They turn on one another and the streets turn into a horrid bloodbath. Soon enough, the survivors - of whom artist Clayton Riddell, the book's protagonist, is a part - learn that it has something to do with cell phones, hence the title. Someone or something has set off what's known as a Pulse that has driven every cell phone user mad.

The events of the inital day are great. It's like a sudden, inexplicable zombie outbreak, except these zombies kill not only everyone in their way but each other as well. The first few chapters are a gruesome fight or flight fest that's everything you'd expect of a Stephen King novel. The revelation that these people are being controlled by some invisible cell phone-transmitted signal is especially neat, though I'll admit I may find that to be so since I hate cell phones. (I KNEW they were evil.)

Once Clayton comes across a little band of survivors in a school, however, the story slowly begins to slide downward. The school's lone surviving teacher reveals that the affected humans, now known as 'phone crazies', all flock into the school's football field every night and 'switch off', listening to strange, hypnotic music over pilfered radios. This is strange enough to be intriguing; unfortunately I wasn't a huge fan of the ultimate revelation, which sounds too science fiction for my tastes. I won't reveal what it is, of course, but it has to do with bad dreams and collective intelligences.

I think the problem is the distance the story travels from the original premise. It spins out of control a bit into territory that's a bit too weird rather than adhering to a neat concept. It doesn't help, either, that Cell lacks the heart that other Stephen King books have: there's no heavy emotional bond between the characters, and the only real draw is between Clayton and his long-distant son who he spends the book trying to track down. There's little optimism in the book, just a heavy-handed dislike of technology and the consequences of phones gone wrong.

I still recommend reading Cell, mind you. The story is well assembled, the prose is as clean as ever and the characters are what you'd expect of King. It just can't stack up against his other books, especially not his older classics like The Stand and It.

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