Seemed incomplete

**FlakeNoir** · March 16th, 2013

**not_nadine** · March 16th, 2013

I did not even need to open it.

**doowopgirl** · March 16th, 2013

Originally Posted by jimson

Didn't really do it for me. Seems like it could have gone somewhere but didn't.

Ahh, you see the point is that the ambiguity is for you to decide where it goes. While Cell wasn't in my top ten, I did like it and I thought it was the type of story that didn't need a ribbon around it to finish it off.

**Tim D.** · March 16th, 2013

I liked Cell well enough. I wouldn't rank it as one of the top SK books but it was a fast and enjoyable read that I finished in one afternoon. And I believe that SK said something to the effect that Cell was the literary equivalent of a shot of cheap rot gut whiskey, so I don't think he wrote it with any intention of it being a masterpiece. As for the the open ending, I liked it. It lets you kind of figure out for yourself how things ultimately ended up. And that's something that irks me about American entertainment today, everybody always wants everything explained to them and tied up neatly at the end so they won't have to do any more thinking than necessary. Sometimes a vague ending is very effective. Anyone see the movie No Country For Old Men? A brilliant film, I thought, and one that certainly didn't tie everything up at the end (much to the dismay of the audience of redneck yokels I first saw it with) but an ending I thought was very effective and suited the story well.

**jimson** · March 17th, 2013

Almost all stories leave the future open to interpretation but it's a matter of degree. Sometimes you feel like a story was cut off in the middle.

As far as Cell is concerned, I read it less than a year ago and while I never said I hated it, it didn't make much of an impression on me in that I don't even remember if there was ever even a clue given as to what might have been the source of the "cell signal."

Is there a sequel coming or what?

In UDT, you do at least learn a possible explanation as to how and why it came to be.

But hey, that's just my opinion. If others enjoyed it better than I did, that's great.

**Walter Oobleck** · March 17th, 2013

Originally Posted by jimson

Almost all stories leave the future open to interpretation but it's a matter of degree. Sometimes you feel like a story was cut off in the middle.

As far as Cell is concerned, I read it less than a year ago and while I never said I hated it, it didn't make much of an impression on me in that I don't even remember if there was ever even a clue given as to what might have been the source of the "cell signal."

Is there a sequel coming or what?

In UDT, you do at least learn a possible explanation as to how and why it came to be.

But hey, that's just my opinion. If others enjoyed it better than I did, that's great.

No...no sequel. I recall an older thread...gone now perhaps w/the retooling...that King is finished w/this story.
I've enjoyed all of King's stories...and it has only been w/repeated readings that I've...willingly...caught or have seen
what could be interpreted as faults in the story. Was it Coleridge who spoke about the fabled willing suspension of disbelief?
I don't recall if he also suggested a reader could be too-willing...but that seems like a reasonable point...

This is one of the few stories from King that generated a...nightmare...that featured non other than Stephen King. And a gas station
of all places, me, gassing up outside, heading in to pay...Stephen King inside...not manning the till, but seated at a desk, reading.
Imagine my surprise. Then a kind of sadness, as I realized I had no book for him to sign. We communicated by thought...great stories!...I told him
and he thought back at me, thanks.

Then all these...people...hunkered down in an aisle got up and left...him in tow...

I think I was the object of horror in this scenario...the monster...as they all seemed to be in a hurry to vacate the store.
Could be my teeth...or something...I've never been able to determine...but I believe the physiology has something to do with it.

What I liked about Cell is what I like about his other stories...even after a number of years since I last read it...the storyline is fresh in
memory...scenes can be rewound and played...I don't have to see the movie as I always feel as if I've already seen the movie...reading it.
Actually sitting down in the theater...or at home...is almost a disappointment. Many have been super...but I'm a reader.
Subsequent reads of Cell have resulted in a variety of reactions...disappointment among them.

**Spideyman** · March 17th, 2013

Stephen King has a message about the ending of cell on the main page of this site.

12:41pm March 24th, 2006:
Regarding Cell...
CELL SPOILER: "Based on the information given in the final third of Cell—I’m thinking about the reversion back toward the norm of the later phone crazies—it seems pretty obvious to me that things turned out well for Clay’s son, Johnny. I don’t need to tell you this, do I?”

-Steve