Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Cell

A rough Fall lead into a worse December and a very busy January, but I’m going to try to do a little more posting this winter. I’m rewarding myself with a Harry Potter reread so I’m going to try to go back and review the books that I skipped last year. To really illustrate what a slacker I’ve been, I picked up Cell by Stephen King at the train station in Washington back in July. Entertainment Weekly gets credit for luring me into this one; I read the first chapter in the magazine back in 2006 before it was published.

Cell is about a group of people who survive after a “pulse” turns anyone who uses a cell phone into, for lack of a better word, a zombie. After an initial burst of violence the zombies begin to flock and exhibit characteristics of a hive mentality. The book follows Clay Riddell as he attempts to travel from Boston to Maine to find his wife and son.

The use of the flocking and the zombies’ slow evolution are what save the book from being a simplistic zombie story. The Dark Man is quite scary and there are many suspenseful moments. The problem is that King has done this story before and much, much better in The Stand. I spent most of the book thinking about The Stand and how much it better it is. The other problem is the very abrupt ending. I’m all for an ambiguous end, but this felt like ambiguity for ambiguity’s sake.


All that said I found Cell to be truly scary, but most of my goodwill was corrupted by the weak ending. I don’t like to say that one shouldn’t read a particular book, but if you’re only going to read one Stephen King book there are many that are much better. I’d go with The Stand, It, Bag of Bones, Carrie, or Hearts in Atlantis instead or as well.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Dalek Attack!

For about a year now Clay and I have both had a mild obsession with Doctor Who and Torchwood, that has reached new heights in the past couple of months. Clay decided that he required action figures so he can make up his own stories. Since the first few arrived he's been creating tableaux in the living room every morning and evening.

The Doctor, Jack, and Rose have apparently apprehended the Dalek (the Snapple bottle) that managed to invade the TARDIS earlier this week. The thing behind them is not a stacked up bottle of Advil, wireless adapter and candle, it's the TARDIS console.

As you can see the figures are very detailed and actually look quite a bit like the actors.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Perfectly Safe

I took this on the way out of town for Christmas before the plane was deiced.