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On Being a BASKF: CELL and Going to the Wedding

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By: DThompson | in: Books |

I’m a BASKF, a Big-Ass Stephen King Fan, and before you go making the obvious crude jokes, I’ll bet you’re something of a BASKF yourself. Judging by my man Steve’s sales receipts, damn near every other person on the planet can lay claim to BASKF-dom.

Cell Stephen king

“Well then,” you might ask, “if you’re such a BASKF why are you reviewing Cell when Lisey’s Story is the new King book?” Actually, I’m such a BASKF that I only buy the hardback versions, but never open them. Opening a hardback damages the spine.Yes, I buy the hardbacks but only read the paperbacks. Go ahead, make more fun.
I know some of you out there aren’t making fun of me, but merely scoffing, “Feh! He thinks he’s a BASKF?! Why I buy every edition of the paperbacks just to make sure I have all the different covers!”
I, for one, will not make fun of you if you do this, or if you’ve had your print-out of The Plant bound at a specialty shop, or if you display your first edition Dark Tower: The Gunslinger in a glass case. I’m only saying I’m a BASKF, not the biggest BASKF.
Come now, we can all be slavish fans without arguing over who’s more insane.
Now that I’ve filled half a page telling you what a great fan I am allow me to digress even further from my promised review of Cell. I assure you, we’ll eventually get around to it.
Everyone out there who thought the end of the Dark Tower series was not the most satisfying, please raise your hand. Yes, it was pretty bad, and I believe Stephen knew it was bad. Why else carry on about how “the journey is the most important part” the way he did, actually asking the readers not to read the end of the book. (As if anyone would simply shut the book after reading, what, five thousand pages? Just shut it on the last fifty pages and say “Oh well, fun journey, who cares how it ends.”
Yeah, right. You’d have to be a pretty big BASKF to do that. You’d have to be an Annie Wilkes sized BASKF, and twice as crazy.
Once my dad and I drove across country to go to my cousin Patty’s wedding. Phoenix, Arizona to Chicago, Illinois, it was a very long trip, and a fun “journey” as well. We went through the Navajo Indian Rez, saw Four Corners (where you can stand in four states at the same time), traversed the Colorado Rockies, swept across the prairie plains of Nebraska, visited my old hometown of Omaha. It was a great great ride, but we didn’t turn around and go home when we arrived in Chicago because the journey was not everything. There was also the destination itself, visiting with the relatives, and ofcourse, the reason we went in the first place, the wedding. Let’s just say that as far as The Dark Tower series is concerned it’s all cross country drive and no wedding.

Dark Tower

Sorry to say that King’s latest paperback book is another case of “Weren’t the Rockies nice” only to discover there is no wedding. I feel particularly galled in that this book has one of the most ass-kicking pair of chapters King has ever committed to paper. I mean the first two chapters of this book are so good, this apocaypse is so visceral, so exciting, you feel like trashing your cell phone just on general principle. After chapter two I was ready to head down to the county offices and officially change my first-born’s name to “Cell” feeling this was a fitting tribute for what was sure to be the single greatest Stephen King book I’d ever read.
Cell, for those of you who refuse to pick up books from the shelf and scan the blurb on the back, is about the end of the world by cell phone. Basically, one pleasant October afternoon, everyone who has a cell gets a little ring up and goes stark raving bonkers. And, as our main character is in downtown New York City , which is already more than halfway to bonkers on any given average day, things really go berserk. From there commence two of the very best chapters you will ever read in your entire BASKFing life. Sure, by chapter four it was settling into a more pedestrian strain of Kingish storytelling but I reminded myself of chapters one and two and knew this book was going to be great.
Please don’t get me wrong! It is great, well worth the read, exciting, interesting, the whole magilla. Cell’s underlying theme centers on our new found fear of terrorism, both foreign and domestic. King explains “the Pulse”, the name the character’s give to the precipitating event, as probably caused by terrorists of one sort or another. The constant references to dialing 9-1-1 are hard to miss as well. Though not overtly terrifying, the terrorism undercurrent lends a feeling of unease to the writing. Since unbeievable and unforseen events have already occured in real life, the fictional events of the book are made to seem that much more plausible. 
Yes, Cell trades on Stand-like themes as well, but it’s its own story. Where The Stand was big and bloated and epic, Cell is leaner, nastier and entirely personal. Whereas The Stand owed a major debt to The Lord of the Rings, Cell is less fantasy inspired horror and more action thriller. Cell is a stripped down pedal-to-the-metal read where The Stand was long, complicated and full of side-trips. Neither type of book is necessarily better than the other, but they illustrate how the same author can take on a very similar theme and come out with two quite different results.
Unfortunately, where The Stand invited you to the wedding, and actually threw one (A great one). Cell invites you to what turns out to be an elopement. Yes, the end ran away before you got there and you’re left with what you get.
“So nice to see you, you must visit us again, enjoy your journey home. Alone.”

[Buy CELL on Amazon]


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Posted on January 29, 2007

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