Cell

A Novel

By: Stephen King

Narrated by: Campbell Scott

Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

On October 1st, 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 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 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.

©2006 Stephen King (P)2006 Simon & Schuster

Critic reviews

"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...are jaunty and witty." (Publishers Weekly)

fantastic

loved the performance and of, the story was amazing as usual. Stephen king is a never miss

good but

didn't really understand the ending can someone explain it to me cause I do not understand

Cell (again)

This is my third trip thru the audio book version of Cell, and i thoroughly enjoyed it. I had to listen to it yet again to let go of the enevitable ( mental) comparisons to "the Stand" because this is its' own story, and it stands (no pun intend) in its own merits. Its killer, man. I lost sleep listening to it (again) just like the first time. And like i will again in a couple of months.

good book, bad narrator

The story is good, and I think King still has it. However, the narrator is terrible. I mean, really, really terrible. I tried starting this over four times before just picking up the book and reading it... because I drifted off so many times listening!

I am a King fan, but I just can't recommend this audio book because of the monotone narration. Some narrators have a knack - you know, you literally forget that only one person is reading... unfortunately that wasn't the case here.

As for the story, I thought it was very good. Yes, it resembles other King stories, but hey, King likes the 'strangers get together and fight evil' theme.

Read the book, skip the audio on this one.

Cell is less than I expected

I love Stephen Kings work. I have read everything he has done, and this falls a little short. I was a great story with a week ending. It was in more of the style of his earlier works, like Pet Sematary and The Stand.
The biggest problem was that it built up to the climax, and then just ended with no payoff. I don't want to say that he was Phoning it in, because that be a really bad pun.

Welcome Back

I had given up on Stephen King. The Green Mile was the last good story he had written in ten years (IMHO). This story reminds me of "old King". The characters were believable and I could really feel for them. The story moved along at a good clip. Boston area residents will enjoy the pains King takes to pay attention to detail about our communities.

The narration was very good but weird editing bytes were jarring. I wish the editors could make that smoother.

the story was read out too much of a fast pace

also the person who read the story didn't exactly accentuate the characters as much as other other readers have done

Good writing

I am not a big fan of Stephen King's genre but I am on a post-apocolypse kick and this fit the bill. I enjoyed the story and liked the characters though it got a little weird (but then it is Stephen King!). Stephen King is a master at his craft and I enjoyed the writing and the narration.

Cell

The book is all right just took a while for to pick up speed but it was good

Spine Chilling

I received an Entertainment Weekly magazine which had an excerpt of King's latest book. And from those few pages I knew I had to download it from Audible. This book will forever make me wonder with apprehension about the technological wonder which is the cell phone. I don't go anywhere without mine and could not even imagine having to deal with the horror that these characters encountered. I could feel the tension in my chest as I listened. I had to pause the reading just to catch my breath. Stephen King has done it again!