Cell, Stephen King
485 Rating(s)
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Cell

Author: Stephen King

Narrator: Campbell Scott

Unabridged: 12 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/24/2006


Synopsis

There's a reason cell rhymes with hell. 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 one hundred and ninety-three 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.

Author Bio

Stephen Edwin King was born in 1947 in the city of Portland, Maine. He attended the University of Maine, where he received a B.A. degree in English in 1970. He married his present wife, Tabitha, in 1971, and they have three children. King is an American author of contemporary horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. His novels have sold more than 350 million copies. Many have been made into films, television movies, and comics. He has published 54 novels using a pen name (Richard Bachman) for a few of them. Many of his stories take place in his home state of Maine.

He has won about every possible literary award beginning with his 1980 novella, The Way Station. His most notable literary award was in 2007 for the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America.King has had the common human weaknesses including alcoholism and drug addiction. His health during that period was so bad that he barely remembered writing the novel, Cujo. The first novel written after he quit all dependent drugs and alcohol was Needful Things.Stephen King's wife, Tabitha, has published nine of her own novels along with both sons being published writers. His daughter is a Unitarian Universalism Church minister with her same sex partner.

A life altering happening beset King in June of 1999. King was walking on the shoulder of Route 5, in Lovell, Maine, when a driver, who was distracted by an unrestrained dog, struck him from behind. His severe injuries kept him in the hospital until July 9. His lawyer purchased the van that hit him to prevent it from being sold on eBay. It was crushed at a junkyard. King thought that he would not write again, but did resume writing with this caveat, "I'm writing, but I'm writing at a slower pace".

His most notable novels are: Carrie, The Shining, The Stand, Misery, It, The Dark Tower, Under the Dome, and The Shawshank Redemption.

Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Rosemary on 2007-11-11 14:37:04

Cell phones cause people to go...rabid is too light for what happens. Interesting and one of his best of his recent releases. If you like this, search out Blood Crazy by Simon Clark. It'll satisfy you after reading this one.

AudiobooksNow review by Cyndie Browning on 2008-01-08 14:24:39

I've been a fan of Stephen King's books since I read The Shining in the late 70's but I stopped reading them after Misery. It seemed to me as if King had begun believing his own press, and his stories seemed to lose the old edge of his masterpieces like The Shining and The Stand. I started listening to Cell with the same fascination I used to feel with his older books until, near the end, when the story no longer seemed even remotely plausible, I realized that Cell was just another shaggy dog story. If you like episodic tales that don't really go anywhere, Cell may be to your liking. And it did cause me to think about just how pervasive this new cell phone technology has become. But in the end, it was just another long drawn-out story and it'll probably be a long while before I feel drawn to read another of his books.

AudiobooksNow review by Alexander on 2008-09-18 17:45:03

This is one of my favority Kind novels. I couldn't stop listening to this one, made me late for work alot.