I got this book as a stocking stuffer for Christmas. I had heard King jumped the shark quite some time ago, so I wasn’t expecting much. Maybe because I had low standards, I actually enjoyed it so far (I’m nearly done). Somebody mentioned they didn’t like the fact that the phone-zombies got psychic powers; I’m on the fence about it.
It is definitely better than the movie Pulse, in my opinion.
He did this story already both as The Stand, and as the one with the spaceship in the woods.
King still knows how to get into that part of my brain where primal fear and wonder reside, and pluck those neurons.
I can still find parts in his books that work for me. But the last book that worked fully for me, unfortunately, was The Waste Lands.
I’ll still read what he writes, though.
The last good book Stephen King wrote was Carrie.
Wasn’t that the first 
Ach. Cell was a recombination of The Stand and The Tommyknockers.
While I do like his longer work, with The Stand as my personal upper limit, King is a rather good writer of short stories.
The Tommyknockers.
Haven’t read Cell yet but, like the OP, found it as a stocking stuffer. I have high hopes for it, although I have to admit, much like the OP also does, King hasn’t had much good lately. Bag of Bones was plotless, I thought. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon* wasn’t really any sort of new idea. And From a Buick 8 just plain sucked in every aspect.
However I still remain a King fan and hope he can redeem himself a little with this one.
I just read Cell, and it was okay. Not great, kind of fizzled out, definitely reminded me of The Stand (one of my favourite books ever), but good enough to have me reading it every time I had a spare moment. Then I re-read Everything’s Eventual, which has one of the scariest stories I’ve ever read in it (the one where the guys spends an hour in a hotel room). Stephen King is the best writer of short stories that has ever lived. There. I said it.
Interesting premise to Cell, mind you. Stephen King just didn’t seem to do much with it.
It’s the only King novel I’ve read that could have been longer.
Obviously, if you are looking for good literature, Stephen King isn’t the way to go. That being said, I have enjoyed everything he has written while being kicked back and entertained with his creative imagination.
I liked Cell. It was fast moving and interesting. I can’t imagine bashing something that no one should have very high expectations over anyway.
It sounds to me like you’re contradicting yourself. To me, something that catches my interest and entertains me IS good literature. Then again, I’m not much of a literature snob. I’ve read Ayn Rand and enjoyed it, and read Anne Rice and enjoyed it. If I want to be entertained, I read a book. If I want to be lectured, I read a textbook (or Ayn Rand ).
I enjoyed it. It didn’t pretend to be anything than what it was. Good way to kill a few days.
Besides, books about cellphone zombies are a sadly neglected area of modern literature. 
I enjoyed about the first third of the book. The idea of a good percentage of the population suddenly going insane makes for a good apocalypse, in my mind.
… But then they started developing psychic powers. I hated the idea of it being a terrorist attack. I hated the “reset” idea at the end.
I should’ve stopped reading it when it got silly.
I thought it kind of petered out at the end, as many of his later books have, but the first chapter was one of the most terrifying things I’ve read in a long time.
That aspect ruined the book for me. It started out as a terrific little zombie tale and ended up mired in the usual Stephen King bullshit.
That’s at least three books with very promising concepts he’s ruined by adding completely unnecessary psychic bullshit, the other two being “Rose Madder” and “Dreamcatcher.”
AS much as I have always enjoyed King’s stuff, the last few books since The Accident seem a little thin and the endings seem to be a fast fizzle. ‘The Cell’ just didn’t work for me but he obviously didn’t like his own characters very much. Now and then that happens and I wonder why he didn’t clean them up and like them more.
That’s an interesting point, Terrorcotta (good name for this discussion, by the way ). I’ve always felt that one of Stephen King’s big strengths was writing his characters. I see what you mean about “Cell,” though. There were no Stuart Redmans or Glen Batemans in this novel.
Tanks,** featherlou!** The first thing I thought when I read ‘Tommyknockers’ was that he did NOT like the protagonist or many of the other characters and it’s one of the few King books I’ve never read more than once. I felt the same thing with ‘Cell’ and I was real sorry about it.
King’s characters are what make his work so readable.
Agreed. When I got to that part, it knocked me right out of the moment. I went from reading a story to just looking at a book.
A resounding “meh” overall.
Where the heck do you find a stocking big enough to hold a Stephen King book? Are you people all afflicted with gigantism?