Cell » (Unabridged)

Few authors have tapped into our secret fears as adeptly as Stephen King, Master of the Macabre and one of the most widely read novelists writing today. With his trademark blend of fantasy, horror, and psychological suspense, this prolific and immensely popular contemporary writer continues to remind us that evil is still a potent force in the world.

On October 1st, God is in His heaven, the stock market stands at 10,140, most of the planes are on time, and Clayton Riddell, an artist from Maine, is almost bouncing up Boylston Street in Boston. He's just landed a comic book deal that might finally enable him to support his family by making art instead of teaching it. He's already picked up a gift for his long-suffering wife, and he knows just what he'll get for his boy Johnny. Why not a little treat for himself? Clay's feeling good about the future.

That changes in a hurry. The cause of the devastation is a phenomenon that will come to be known as The Pulse, and the delivery method is a cell phone. Everyone's cell phone. Clay and the few desperate survivors who join him suddenly find themselves in the pitch-black night of civilization's darkest age, surrounded by chaos, carnage, and a human horde that has been reduced to its basest nature...and then begins to...

The New York Times - Janet Maslin

When the book's overview begins to emerge, though, it justifies the dawdling. The zombies evolve in interesting ways. Midway through the book, Mr. King takes the story to a private school that has become a post-Pulse campground and reveals the telepathic patterns that have begun to shape collective behavior. It is the author's little joke that these messages are delivered via the worst easy-listening songs he can name, to the point where Lawrence Welk and "You Light Up My Life" become part of the apocalypse.