Cell

So, I-don't-know-how-long after swearing off Stephen King forever (lousy Dark Tower series, topple my idol), I'm reading his new book. Rather, his next book, because I didn't even hold out long enough to give one amiss.

It's called Cell, and while it's too early to tell whether it sucks or not, I'm 65 pages into it and he hasn't fucked it up yet. Granted, it's a King book, so we still got a loooong way to go...

The premise is kind of cheeky -- at 3:03 in the afternoon of October 1st, anyone talking on a cell phone goes stark raving mad. We follow a small band of survivors trying to get from Boston to some small town in Maine, as they make their way through the wasteland that was America.

Hmm. Wait on -- that last part sounds vaguely familiar. King's The Stand leaps to mind. So does The Mist, even. Richard Matheson's I Am Legend and Romero's Night of the Living Dead aren't far behind, either. (The book is dedicated to Matheson and Romero, so at least King knows which side his bread is buttered on, huh?)

So why go back to King? After Dreamcatcher, From a Buick 8, the bland stories in Everything's Eventual, and the fucking awful ending to the Dark Tower? (And by "ending", I'm talking about the last four books in the seven book series.) Why even bother?

Eh. I guess I'm a sucker for Apocalyptic settings.