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Well, I finished Cell this morning while sitting in the airport waiting to board a plane to Fort Worth. The good news: the first third of the book is spectacularly good. King delivers the premise with an uncharacteristic ferocity, centering on a comic artist visiting Boston on business as the event happens and all hell breaks loose. The book rushes by at a breakneck speed as the city of Boston is literally destroyed overnight, with the survivors streaming away from the city and starting a long walk to the north.
And that's when it all falls apart.
For some reason, and as near as I can tell, King got bored with the zombies fairly quickly. Round about page 150 he drifted into a rehash of The Stand, complete with the Raggedy Man standing in for Randall Flagg. People having dreams about the future. People undertaking a long journey on foot leading to a place that they know will be the final showdown. The last two thirds of the book, I just felt like I had read it all before (and in much better form). And that really sucks, because I wanted to love this book. For 150 pages I really did. And then I didn't.
As for the ending, what can I say? Brian Keene did it better in The Rising. What Keene did at the end of that book took giant brass balls. What King did at the end of his book was ripped from the same page, but so soft-pedaled as to be insulting.
So yeah, not so happy with the book. I dug The Colorado Kid ten times more at a third the price.
And that's when it all falls apart.
For some reason, and as near as I can tell, King got bored with the zombies fairly quickly. Round about page 150 he drifted into a rehash of The Stand, complete with the Raggedy Man standing in for Randall Flagg. People having dreams about the future. People undertaking a long journey on foot leading to a place that they know will be the final showdown. The last two thirds of the book, I just felt like I had read it all before (and in much better form). And that really sucks, because I wanted to love this book. For 150 pages I really did. And then I didn't.
As for the ending, what can I say? Brian Keene did it better in The Rising. What Keene did at the end of that book took giant brass balls. What King did at the end of his book was ripped from the same page, but so soft-pedaled as to be insulting.
So yeah, not so happy with the book. I dug The Colorado Kid ten times more at a third the price.