I realize that I said my last book was going to be “Tropic of Cancer,” and I’m still reading that, but I also picked up an audiobook of Stephen King’s “Cell” to listen to while I worked. And I just finished that. So, I’m not sure how this fits into the timeline of my reading, but here goes.
I am an unabashed Stephen King fan. I’ve never read anything he’s written that I haven’t liked, even if I knew it wasn’t always award-winning literature. And this book probably won’t be winning any awards anytime soon. This was King’s homage to the zombie horror genre of books and movies, and he does a fine job. He uses a somewhat silly-sounding premise (a “pulse” sent out over all cell phones turns the user into a mindless zombie) to build a survivor road trip story around. There are a lot of similarities between “Cell” and King’s own “The Stand,” except that in “Cell” there are mindless zombies chasing the survivors around.
As for listening to it as an audiobook, I must say I had my doubts at first. But now it feels like I just read it, even though it was in the voice of some B-list actor. I may have to check out other audiobooks.
[This article is part of the 26 Books project that I'm doing this year.]
I definitely dig the audiobook thing. I have an hour commute each day, and the time goes by so much faster when I listen to audiobooks.
Be careful, though. Some voices loll me to sleep—not good on the highway, or, for you, at work.
I know you could care less about Harry Potter, but the guy who voices them, Jim Dale, does a fantastic job. It might be worth checking out if he’s done any books you’d be interested in.
I’ll have to pick this one up.
I just read Max Brooks’ latest zombie book: “World War Z.” It’s an oral history of a fictional near-future worldwide zombie outbreak. I highly reccommend it.
“World War Z” is on my short list of things to read.