Cell: A Novel

by Stephen King

Overview

Civilization doesn't end with a bang or a whimper. It ends with a call on your cell phone.

What happens on the afternoon of October 1 came to be known as the Pulse, a signal sent though every operating cell phone that turns its user into something...well, something less than human. Savage, murderous, unthinking-and on a wanton rampage. Terrorist act? Cyber prank gone haywire? It really doesn't matter, not to the people who avoided the technological attack. What matters to them is surviving the aftermath. Before long a band of them-"normies" is how they think of themselves-have gathered on the grounds of Gaiten Academy, where the headmaster and one remaining student have something awesome and terrifying to show them on the school's moonlit soccer field. Clearly there can be no escape. The only option is to take them on.

CELL is classic Stephen King, a story of gory horror and white-knuckling suspense that makes the unimaginable entirely plausible and totally fascinating.

Join the Stephen King VIP Club at www.celllthebook.com.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501122248
Publisher:	Pocket Books
Publication date:	06/21/2016
Edition description:	Media Tie-In
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	381,008
Product dimensions:	4.10(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Hometown:

Bangor, Maine

Date of Birth:

September 21, 1947

Place of Birth:

Portland, Maine

Education:

B.S., University of Maine at Orono, 1970

Website:

http://www.stephenking.com

Read an Excerpt

Cell
The event that came to be known as The Pulse began at 3:03 p.m., eastern standard time, on the afternoon of October 1. The term was a misnomer, of course, but within ten hours of the event, most of the scientists capable of pointing this out were either dead or insane. The name hardly mattered, in any case. What mattered was the effect.

At three o’clock on that day, a young man of no particular importance to history came walking—almost bouncing—east along Boylston Street in Boston. His name was Clayton Riddell. There was an expression of undoubted contentment on his face to go along with the spring in his step. From his left hand there swung the handles of an artist’s portfolio, the kind that closes and latches to make a traveling case. Twined around the fingers of his right hand was the drawstring of a brown plastic shopping bag with the words small treasures printed on it for anyone who cared to read them.

Inside the bag, swinging back and forth, was a small round object. A present, you might have guessed, and you would have been right. You might further have guessed that this Clayton Riddell was a young man seeking to commemorate some small (or perhaps even not so small) victory with a small treasure, and you would have been right again. The item inside the bag was a rather expensive glass paperweight with a gray haze of dandelion fluff caught in its center. He had bought it on his walk back from the Copley Square Hotel to the much humbler Atlantic Avenue Inn where he was staying, frightened by the ninety-dollar pricetag on the paperweight’s base, somehow even more frightened by the realization that he could now afford such a thing.

Handing his credit card over to the clerk had taken almost physical courage. He doubted if he could have done it if the paperweight had been for himself; he would have muttered something about having changed his mind and scuttled out of the shop. But it was for Sharon. Sharon liked such things, and she still liked him—I’m pulling for you, baby, she’d said the day before he left for Boston. Considering the shit they’d put each other through over the last year, that had touched him. Now he wanted to touch her, if that was still possible. The paperweight was a small thing (a small treasure), but he was sure she’d love that delicate gray haze deep down in the middle of the glass, like a pocket fog.

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
The cell phone users in Stephen King's tale of horror are plagued by problems much bigger than poor reception, costly roaming charges, or dropped calls: Some unspeakably malevolent force has turned them into raging, bloodthirsty zombies!

It's a sunny afternoon in Boston, and as far as Clayton Riddell is concerned, life couldn't be any better. The Maine-based artist has just inked a lucrative contract for his first graphic novel. But in an instant, his life -- and human civilization -- is turned upside down by an event known as the Pulse, a brain-zapping burst of energy that turns the millions of people with cell phones pressed against the sides of their heads into mindless killing machines. Those lucky enough not to be using a cell phone at the time are spared from the gruesome transformation but must somehow survive the nightmarish aftereffects: cars crashing, planes falling from the sky, hungry gangs of zombies, etc.

It's fitting that King dedicates Cell to Richard Matheson (author of 1954's mutant masterwork I Am Legend) and George Romero (director of the 1968 cult classic Night of the Living Dead) -- two pioneering giants in the "zombie" genre. This post-apocalyptic exploration of the dark side of humanity ("we came to rule the earth because we have always been the craziest, most murderous [expletive]s in the jungle") is chock-full of King's refreshingly sardonic commentary and wit. His newest, a cautionary tale of sorts, brings disturbing new meaning to the popular catchphrase "Can you hear me now?" Paul Goat Allen

bn.com

When the book's overview begins to emerge, though, it justifies the dawdling. The zombies evolve in interesting ways. Midway through the book, Mr. King takes the story to a private school that has become a post-Pulse campground and reveals the telepathic patterns that have begun to shape collective behavior. It is the author's little joke that these messages are delivered via the worst easy-listening songs he can name, to the point where Lawrence Welk and "You Light Up My Life" become part of the apocalypse.
— The New York Times

Janet Maslin

Cell is hard to put down once you've picked it up. There is no shortage of harrowing scenes…and ascends to the level of horror more than once, but it never reaches true terror, let alone the heights achieved by King's best work. While it is a solid, entertaining read, I'm afraid we will need to wait a bit longer for that Great American Zombie Novel.
—The Washington Post

George R. R. Martin

As you may recall from Aristotle's discussion of the form in the Poetics, an effective zombie apocalypse story should satisfy two conditions. First, it should fulfill an audience's desire to see aberrant acts of violence triggered by civilization's collapse, and in this respect Cell does not disappoint: there's still no other writer who takes as much delight as King does in rendering the sight of a soccer field's worth of zombies being charbroiled out of existence, or a poodle getting run over by a car…Second, a good zombie tale should offer some fresh insights about basic human nature, if only to pass the time between episodes of cannibalism, and it's in this capacity that Cell turns out to be a bit brain-dead.
—The New York Times Book Review

Dave Itzkoff

It's probably a good idea not to use your cell phone while you listen to Scott's beautifully understated reading of terrormeister King's latest take on technology run amok: you might just toss it down the nearest storm drain. The excellent film actor (who catches the power of his late father George C. Scott's voice but smooths off the rough edges) adds an important element-quiet believability-to King's bloody, occasionally over-the-top story of a short but lethal electronic signal that seriously damages everyone in the world using a cell phone at that moment. The Pulse, as it comes to be known, turns idle chatterers into weirdly rewired killing machines. Scott makes the lead character-a comic book artist from Maine (where else?) named Clayton Riddell, who is in Boston with his phone off and in his pocket-a touching and surprisingly tough survivor, much like the nonpods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He also resists the temptation to make the "phoners" (those affected by the Pulse) sound unusually strange or dangerous-until their real motives become obvious. Simultaneous release with the Scribner hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 2). (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

King (The Colorado Kid) has an ax to grind and he employs the tools of his trade to accomplish the task. Clayton Riddell is in Boston to meet with publishers in hopes of selling his graphic novel series. Portfolio in hand, success within reach, Clay stops to watch the people flocking around a Mister Softee truck. Within moments the world is changed as a mysterious signal reaches cell phone users, turning them into zombies. Clay, who is cell-less (like King himself), soon teams up with others who have eluded the evil transmission. They embark on a quest to save themselves from the violence and destruction wrought by the changed beings who once owned cell phones. Using the familiar streets of Boston and introducing Riddell minutes before the catastrophe occurs circumvents the need for the strong setting and character development found in the bulk of King's work. Though the lack of these elements weakens the less-than-subtle message woven into the tale, King fans will, no doubt, want to read for themselves.-Nancy McNicol, Ora Mason Branch Lib., West Haven, CT Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

King's apocalyptic cautionary tale suggests that cellular communication could be as pernicious as it is pervasive. Artist Clay Riddell has just traveled from his native Maine to Boston to sell his first graphic novel when all hell breaks loose. Vehicles crash at random. Language turns to gibberish. Bystanders devour the flesh of strangers. As King (From a Buick 8, 2002, etc.) describes this urban meltdown in gory, graphic detail, it becomes increasingly obvious to Riddell that all who have suddenly become crazy were talking on their cell phones. Some sort of simultaneous transmission has transformed the city's citizenry into mindless zombies. The author taps into the collective dread of a society battered by 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina as he depicts a battle for survival that pits "normies" such as Clay, the few who didn't have cellular access, against hordes of "phoners," who quickly develop a flocking instinct and telepathic communication. The plot can't sustain the sizzle of its sensational opening: More concerned with the effects of this cell-phone terrorism than its cause, the author never indicates what's happening beyond Clay's immediate vicinity. Yet the hero's odyssey remains compelling as he attempts to return home to estranged wife Sharon and beloved son Johnny, and the surrogate family of refugees he attracts along the way adds a human dimension. Clay doesn't have a cell phone, but his son does, and he has no idea in what form he might find Johnny if he manages to find the boy at all. As King acknowledges in his dedication, he owes a debt to zombie-flick director George Romero and horror/fantasy author Richard Matheson. The revenge of a cellphone-hater.

Kirkus Reviews