Have all the other reviewers been making that joke already? I'll bet they have, haven't they? And do you know, I haven't even finished the book yet. I just wanted to get the joke in. Fine, I'll go finish reading it. FINE. Humorless jerks.

Later:

I have finished the book and will review it for real now. If I had not known that Stephen King hated cell phones, I would have thought he got the idea from under the bed: here's a common object, what if it were EEEEEE-VILLLLLLL??? Knowing, though, that he hates cell phones, the story seemed bitter and pointed--like some old man telling you not to buy any car manufactured by "the Japs." The "we hate people with cell phones" thing--like the old "we hate people with answering machines" thing--is officially over now that pretty much everyone has one. It is time to start hating something else, such as people who DON'T have cell phones; that's how we handled the answering machine situation, if you recall. Let's pretend he DID dig this idea out from the usual Scary vault, rather than from the I'm Trying To Make a Prissy Point vault, and it will go better for all of us.

It's no spoiler to say that what happens is that everyone who uses a cell phone goes berserk. There are some horrible violent scenes to get you involved right away. It was unnatural, though, how quickly everyone figured out it was the cell phones to blame. Basically it went like this: "That woman went berserk and ripped out another woman's jugular with her teeth. Hey, she was talking on a cell phone right before that! I'll bet it was THE CELL PHONE!!! ESCHEW ALL CELL PHONES!!! " Still, you'll feel the creeping awfulness: in such an emergency, where people were suddenly doing violent things, would you or would you not reach for your cell phone to call the police, find out if your family was safe, etc.? So it makes sense how fast the problem spreads.

This brings us to the next step in an end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it novel: the band of travellers. Trying to stay safe from "phone crazies," trying to find supplies in abandoned houses/shops, and coming upon revolting scenes left and right, our band of "people to emotionally invest in" forms: Clay, whose wife and son are in the next state; Tom, a gay and therefore unusually tidy man with a cat; and Alice, a teenager they rescue. And I would like to pause her to fervently--FERVENTLY--thank Stephen King for merely tiptoeing gently around the subject of why there are so few babies and young children around, rather than spelling it out with visual aids. In gratitude, I take back the word "prissy," above.

Our gang is headed to find out what happened to Clay's wife and son, but they are also being herded to the town of Kashwak, where it appears all the "normals" will meet up and perhaps form a new society after all the violent lunatics die, kill each other, or are killed off. And is it that simple? Of course you know it is not, don't be a baby. The violent animals formerly known as humans begin to MUTATE.

I read every new Stephen King book because I LIKE Stephen King books, so I'm not going to sit here and complain. Much longer. I will say, though, that it has always grated on me how a main character will get something silly in his head (in this case a "panic rat") and keep thinking it. It's as if this is supposed to get us inside the head of someone experiencing it. Just tell us the story: the fearful empathy will instill itself.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, by Terry Ryan (2001)

After all the hype, the relentless relentless hype, I had expected more of this book than another "ten children in a poor family with a drunk father and a scrappy resourceful mother" memoir. Thinking back on it, I don't know why I did.

The only thing that sets this book apart from all the other books of this sort is the insertion of all the little rhymes and jingles and slogans the mother of the family writes for contests. Since I hate this kind of thing ("Dial is wonderful--'s fact, gals, absorb it! YOUR satellite can cling closely in orbit"), this book and I were not a good match. It was like watching a made-for-television oppressed-woman movie--with tons of low-budget commercials.