Cell (novel): Difference between revisions

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| author = Stephen King
| central theme =
| elevator pitch = When a signal transmitted via cell-phone turns users into bloodthirsty monsters, a father travels across the country in search of his son.
| elevator pitch =
| genre = Horror
| publication date = January 24, 2006
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When the Pulse hits, struggling artist Clay is in Boston, having just landed a lucrative deal for his graphic novel. Fleeing the burning city with new friends Tom and Alice, he hopes to return home to Maine to find out what became of his estranged wife and their young son. En route, the surviving Phoners begin displaying (even more) alarming changes in behavior..
 
Written by [[Stephen King]] and published in 2006. A film adaptation was in [[Development Hell]] since 2006, [[Eli Roth]] being involved until he left the production in 2009. [[Cell (film)|The film was released ten years later in 2016]], starring [[John Cusack]] and [[Samuel L. Jackson]], and with a script co-written by Stephen King.
 
{{tropelist}}
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* [[Ludicrous Gibs]] - {{spoiler|When Clay activates the rigged bus, it sends body parts raining on them. It also makes sure the Raggedy Man is ''really'' dead - his empty hoodie, with a hole where the heart should be, lands on top of a ride's ticket booth.}}
* [[90% of Your Brain]] - After the initial blast of crazy wiped out the higher reasoning of anyone talking on their cell phones at the time of the disaster {{spoiler|the Phoners who survive the chaos begin to regain some of their abilities, along with some [[Psychic Powers|entirely new ones]]}}. The characters develop a theory in-Universe that they are using parts of their brains which had been dormant before.
* [[No Ending]] - {{spoiler|When Clay finds Johnny, he [[Traumatic Toggle|tries to fix him by giving him a second dose of the Pulse]]. The book ends just as he puts the phone to his son's ear. Lampshaded by King in his afterword, in which he thinks it wouldn't be right to fully show the effects.}}
* [[Not Using the Z Word]] - Phoners. Of course, they're not ''really'' zombies.
** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by the main characters actually discussing the fact that they're not calling them zombies.
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* [[Technically Living Zombie]] - The Phoners, but only in the beginning.
* [[Title Drop]] - Near the end of the book, when {{spoiler|the Clay and the other Flock killers are imprisoned at the Northern Counties Expo}}, Clay passes the time by 'drawing' comics in his mind. The one he works on is called ''Cell''.
* [[Too Dumb to Live]] - When Clay separates from the group, he observes a Corvette and another [[Cool Car]] racing on the wreck-cluttered highway. {{spoiler|Needless to say, one of the cars crashes, disembowelingdisembowelling its occupant spectacularly.}}.
* [[Traumatic Toggle]]: In the final moments of the book, Clay attempts to invoke this trope with Johnny, hoping to fix him by giving him a second dose of the Pulse. The book ends before we can find out if it worked.
* [[Voice of the Legion]] - The Raggedy Man {{spoiler|is the representative of a large flock}}, and is able to use other people as his voice (since he is unable to speak on his own). He does this with almost all of the main characters at one point or another, including with Alice, {{spoiler|while she is dying on the side of road after being attacked by Gunner}}.
* [[Word of God]] - King confirmed on his website that {{spoiler|things turned out alright for Clay's son, Johnny.}}