I Picked Up Cell by Stephen King

Got it at the airport bookstore yesterday. Took me long enough. When the thing first came out in...God! It was January! What the? Anyway, I when it first came out, I read some of the notices and a small portion that had been excerpted in an entertainment magazine, and I said, "ooh, looks like a good one this time! I'm getting that." Then I got to the bookstore and of course, BWONG! Giganto hardcover version.

I always forget about that. There's this long period of time on any "hot" book, where it's only available in the death-to-extra-trees edition. I suppose this is somewhat analogous to the theatrical release of a movie, and then the long wait before it finally comes out on DVD. I never minded that, though, because I love going to the movies. But where books are concerned...I don't have acres of bookshelf space to be storing chunky volumes, and I'm sorry Mr. King, but I'm probably going to be reading this thing in the tub anyway, or lying on my back in bed. Might as well wait for the little edition and save on wrist-strain.

Still, I had made the decision to get the book and I stuck with it. I would glance at the "K" section of the fiction shelves every so often, whenever I found myself strolling through bookstores and happened to remember to look. Finally, the paperback edition came out this month. After almost a year! Seems pretty long to me. For a while there I thought they maybe were making us wait for the movie!

Anyway, I've picked up a copy, and I'm four or five dozen pages into it, and it looks pretty gripping. I'm glad I decided to give it a read. But I tell you now - if it turns out to be the goddamned Devil behind the whole thing yet again, I am never buying another fucking Stephen King book as long as I live. Does humanity pose no threat at all? Can't we come up with ONE decent world-ending problem by ourselves? Must we rely on Satan for all of our plot machinations?

I'm sick of all this Diabolus Ex Machina.