This was the first Stephen King book I read (I had been meaning to read one of his books for quite some time, but never got around to it until now), and I think I can say, I wasn’t completely disappointed.
The starting is nice, and I have to say for this for this book - it captures your attention from page 1, para 1, and holds it till the end.
It brought to mind some of the age-old horror flicks I haven’t seen for quite some time. I think people stopped writing about zombie-town stories a couple of decades ago. Stephen King has tried to revive that, with moderate success.
The book is of the Us Vs Them genre. If you cannot have enough of Dracula/Zombie town stories, this book is for you. So essentially, this is a really old theme with a new starting point / angle.
Since the name of the book is CELL, it does play a role in the beginning and in the end; however, the whole concept could have been woven around something other than CELL, and it would have been the same story. Having said that, I’d quickly add this: using an object of everyday use as a channel of untold horrors IS a masterful stroke.
The seed idea is kind of nice, but then, the whole story just degenerates into a long-forgotten zombie town theme. But the pace is nice, and the story is well told.
All in all, a readable book. And it HAS been a while since someone wrote a zombie book.
PS: They say that CELL is different from other Stephen King novels - so I’d like to read one of the "regular" books of his.