Cell

CELL (Stephen King) - Two Stars

By page six in this novel, one character is ripping another's throat out using only her teeth.

Stephen King wastes little time with exposition in Cell, kind of a cross between The Stand, 28 Days Later and maybe Night of the Living Dead. In Cell, a mysterious cell phone "pulse" drives everyone using a cell phone into a state of mindless, homocidal violence. You never really know exactly what's going on in the book, as your only knowledge comes from the character's reflective supposition. I enjoy King's fables because many of them keep just their fingertips on reality: they aren't believeable, per se, but they aren't wholly unbelieveable, either.

King has just enough original material in the book to keep it from seeming like a rehash of known sci-fi concepts, but borrows just enough material to prevent the book from seeming entirely original. He still throws a few good curveballs into the story (nothing I'll spoil here: suffice to say that the development of the "phone-crazies" and the dawning realization that there's more to them than meets the eye is probably the foremost pleasure of the novel), but it remains just an average novel, not one of King's best, and probably only suited for King fans (which I would consider myself).

A couple of minor gripes: I understand that (main character) Clay's motivation to find his son (Johnny) is a reasonable one, but that doesn't mean that I want to read two paragraphs of him pining over his boy ever other page. King really goes overboard on Clay's fondness and worry for his son. And the resolution of the Clay-Johnny sub-plot I found unstatisfying, as it required just a bit too much of a suspension of disbelief for my tastes.

I've got Nabokov, Grass, and Ishiguro next up on my reading list, so we'll be getting back to the "high-brow" stuff on this page soon enough.

Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way

MAKE LOVE! THE BRUCE CAMPBELL WAY (Bruce Campbell) - Two Stars

How do you review a book like this?

Make Love... is, supposedly, Bruce Campbell's first person insight on the behind the scenes chaos of an "A-list" movie. In this case, that movie is "Let's Make Love," a supposed Mike Nichols-directed remake of a 1960s Marilyn Monroe movie, this time starring Richard Gere and Renee Zellweger. Bruce gets the minor part of Foyl, a doorman, and hilarity ensues... hilarity involving multiple run-ins with Colin Powell and the Secret Service, monster-truck shopping, kung-fu stunts with Richard Gere, infiltrating a Southern gentleman's club, wedding planning, impersonating studio executives, maddeningly slow dial-up, prison, and much much more.

Whereas Campbell's first book, If Chins Could Kill, was a non-fiction account of trying to make it in the movie business, Make Love... is fictional novel, and I think it suffers for it. If you found "Evil Dead" or "Army of Darkness" stupid, you'll probably feel the same about this book. Truly, a book for fans, it's an enjoyable, but throwaway read.

The white shirts is ass holes.
--B. Dawg Campbell, Chino Prison Bitch #22987

Son of a Witch

SON OF A WITCH (Gregory Maguire) - Three Stars

This was another book I had a real hard time rating. This sequel to Wicked (a book I gave four stars) isn't quite as good as that book. Indeed, I would rate most of my four-star books above Son of a Witch. On the other hand, the book does have its moments, and I'd rate it above most of my three-star books.

The story, involving the Wicked Witch's maybe-son Liir after her death, was less engaging than that of Wicked. This is mostly compensated for by Maguire's growth and improvement as an author: his writing style is much tighter and better sculpted in this novel. The use of heavy-handed metaphors (which plagued Wicked) is completely gone, and the florid intellectual musings of the first book have now been suitably toned down to a much more subtle, insinuating nature.

The biggest problem I had with Son of a Witch was that it ended just as soon as it was beginning. The novel is only 334 pages, and I didn't think it really hit its stride until about page 250. Maguire introduces numerous characters and plot threads, as if he's working this up to be an epic novel; indeed, I would've been fine with another 250 pages, because the pacing of the novel is exceptional and held my interest. Instead, it ends in sort of a rush and many of the subplots are left hanging. Indeed several of the subplots I thought vital to the story (the fate of the maunts of the Cloister of Saint Glinda, Trism and Liir's relationship, Candle and Liir's relationship and, the driving plot of the entire story, the quest for Nor) are left hanging in thin air when the book ends, and of the three subplots that are wrapped up, one is satisfying (the fate of Princess Nastoya), one is completely and utterly worthless (the Council of the Birds; seriously, what purpose did that whole subplot serve?), and one should not have been wrapped up at all (the truth about Elphaba and Liir, an aspect that I felt would have served the story better if it had been left an open-ended mystery).

This is half of a great novel that should have been twice as long as it is.

"These times," she continued, "so righteous! Everyone so much more moral! Put some clothes on your nakedness, girl, or the vice squad'll be down our throats. Or down your throat, anyway, if you look at 'em like that..."

"You got to hold on to your values, if you can still reach them," said the chanteuse. "Buy some values, rent 'em, steal 'em if you have to. Sell 'em for a profit when tastes change. Whatever works. Is this a crock, or what?"