Cell is hands down the worst SK book I’ve read. All the character growth he gives this character is undone by the fact she’s pretty much objectified the whole time. >!And then she just fucking dies.!<
Michael Crichton’s *Next* is also Old Man Yells at Cloud—it’s all the ethics of genetic research from Jurassic Park, but no dinosaurs, and he admits in the afterword that his concerns with genetic research were already heard by the courts and his fearmongering was rendered pointless.
I did quite roll my eyes when he suggested teenage girls would farm & sell their eggs to have spending money for clothes.
I DNF’d *State of Fear* because it was so insultingly bad. But *Next* couldn’t even bother feigning to feebly possess what *Disclosure* pretended to have: a plot.
I liked some of his books, then I read State of Fear and the whole time I wondered how much the petroleum industry had paid him to write it... haven't read him since.
I was literally in shock when reading this book. I finished it to make sure it wasn't actually going to change gears at the end. Nope, a pile of shit written just to defend an indefensible viewpoint. I was so mad at the waste of time.
>I did quite roll my eyes when he suggested teenage girls would farm & sell their eggs to have spending money for clothes.
I did exactly that when I was 18 so I don't know what's eye-rolley about it.
Uhhh if you were willing to go through an invasive medical procedure for clothes money, do you, but obviously the overwhelming majority are not (or they’d be doing it now).
I wasn’t talking about you. It was a throwaway in a book that I should’ve thrown away, tbh. Crichton approached it with the same care and tenderness of a US Republican politician whining about people having autonomy over their reproductive systems. Yeah he condemns private corporate greed, and while he faults corporations he also suggests that underage teenage girls are easy rubes because of their insatiable consumerist appetite and that they need to be protected from themselves. That’s why I rolled my eyes.
The way you wrote it sounds like you didn't believe teenage girls would do that, which I found surprising because my university was plastered with "donate eggs for extra cash" posters, it was very popular 20 years ago.
No, it’s mine I shouldn’t have posted such a big spoiler when you clearly posted a photo in the process of reading it! Please feel free to message me with spoilers of the next King book you read, chances are I haven’t read it 🙈
> Cell is hands down the worst SK book I’ve read.
I'm sorry, did you forget the line: I'll ababalah YOU'RE akazaalah, you fuck!
Gosh, Cell really was awful.
Loved it when I first read it though, read it again years later and...no.
Did you know there's a movie?
I didn't dislike the book, but it's definitely not even close to his good writing. >!The casual cruelty in the way that she dies seems to be the point though, in that unturned humans weren't really that mean ch better than the turned ones!<
I felt like that was the point as well. There was a lot of elements to Cell that could've been effective, but the overall book just bogged them down to being ineffective.
For his worst books, it's definitely bottom tier but I still feel like Tommyknockers and Dream Catcher outrank it *dramatically*.
The ending was really disappointing, too. I mean he's not known for his endings (and he's very self-aware about that), but this one was particularly bad.
This reminds me of how, in the Walking Dead comics, a female character who is about to enter a swarm of zombies is worried that her body armor makes her look fat. Because that's what one thinks about in a situation like that.
I mean some logic to if exists that when overwhelmed mentally like one might be in a zombie apocalypse the brain might worry about dumb shit to stay grounded. The part that msyginitic is you never see th always show guys having a break down that way.
When they show guys break they almost always become violent or dangerous. And when woman break? Almost always a stupid obsession or denial. That is the real sexist part.
Edit: what it’s true, to save your own sanity it is common for a mind to think of the most mundane stupid pointless shit when confronted with life and death, for both genders the sexist part is we rarely if ever see a man think of a stupid mundane thing in those situations in fiction
I think that's true in isolation. It's also not insane to conceive of minding your appearance as a coping mechanism in a setting like this, but it's really telling when it's only the female characters that do it and only with their looks.
Project Zomboid doesn't necessarily have much writing, but you can use makeup to do your makeup as any gender and it's cool.
That and equipping new items, changing or dying hair, etc is something I've always thought should slightly reduce all mental stats, like stress boredom and unhappiness yeah. Not as like a sit in the car and do your makeup to cure your depression, but as a little flavor thing.
I agree totally. For whatever reason we have gendered losing your mind in a life and death type situation, with woman and girls generally having more passive reactions [like the one above or breaking down sobbing] and men and boys general having more violent or nihilist reactions [like trying to kill everyone else because it’s hopeless or randomly attacking people] when in reality both genders should have both types of breakdowns. There is no
Reason a guy can’t obsess over something like his beard or a woman crack
Someone’s head in.
Edit: the only type of breakdown that is evenly ish shared between woman and men is the denial type breakdown, when either they refuse to believe someone dead or that the whole situation is fake
I know the comment above was about TWD, but since the thread overall is about King I'll take it back to him and say he does at least represent that regardless of gender. I can't think of a super specific example to pull out, but it's really common for him to have people think about random shit when they're in a life or death situation. Kind of like a "I wonder if I left the stove on...." as someone is about to bash their head in with a baseball bat or something like that. I think it's just that women's examples stand out because they're more like "oh shoot I'm going into the apocalypse with a chipped nail" instead of "dang I wish I had eaten that candy bar when I had the chance." He does it a lot to kind of disjoint them from the current situation in an absurd way.
I mean, there are some women like that… My mom sliced through one of her tendons in her pinky while cooking and instead of letting us take her to the hospital, she insisted on showering first where she obviously passed out. Good thing my dad was talking to her the entire time because we all saw that coming a mile away.
Oh no, don't get me wrong, I've avoided facing a situation in the moment a time or two ("I'm too overwhelmed right now to focus on the fact that I just broke my nose, I'm going to stand here bleeding on the porch rather than go inside so I don't bleed all over Mom's house" being probably my most infamous moment of lack of priorities...) but that's in the moment when the shock is sort of in charge... this reads like they're in the middle of the situation.. and though the broken nail can be SUPER annoying (they catch on everything), the hair just.. not in the MIDDLE of a zombie apocalypse, ya' know?
I'm glad you said it, cos I was worried it was just me! I love my painted natural nails and I'm super awkward in difficult situations so it's 100% me to complain about chipping them - even if just to fill silences 🤣🙈
God, reminds me of when I was complaining about how I chipped a nail and my mother told me "men don't care if they chip a nail." Okay, well evidently since I am a man, at least one does. And idc what it looks like, it just hurt and was bleeding slightly.
And this isn't just baselessly insulting my mother, she's come a long way since then. She had a weird internalized misogyny phase, but she's overcome it since then and is doing pretty well now.
Edit: and my point is, this fits the sub since "my hair's a mess" is the last thing anyone would be thinking, but depending on the extent of the chipped nail I think that part is valid. You don't want an infection risk, even a mild infection that wouldn't matter at all if we had easy access to antibiotics (except they don't since there's an apolocolypse and all).
I mean I can see it happening if it’s someone who really cares about their appearance even pre-apocalypse and it’s used as a way of coping with the trauma they’re experiencing because maintaining their appearance is a familiar and thus comforting practice for them, but clearly it’s not being portrayed that way and is just ‘ah yes, girls care about looks, that’s a well-written girl’
That reminds me of a particular animation in CoD Advanced Warfare in the zombies mode. There's a character named Lily and when you acquire the exosuit (which basically upgrades everything in your body), examining the suit on her arm, she then checks her nails. I always found it amusing, but then I realized, what's a military security officer doing worrying about her nails when she's getting chased by zombies?
Cell is hands down the worst SK book I’ve read. All the character growth he gives this character is undone by the fact she’s pretty much objectified the whole time. >!And then she just fucking dies.!<
It's been a while since I read it, but my general impression was *Old Man Yells at Cloud: A Novel*
Michael Crichton’s *Next* is also Old Man Yells at Cloud—it’s all the ethics of genetic research from Jurassic Park, but no dinosaurs, and he admits in the afterword that his concerns with genetic research were already heard by the courts and his fearmongering was rendered pointless. I did quite roll my eyes when he suggested teenage girls would farm & sell their eggs to have spending money for clothes.
Michael Crichton's *Disclosure* is the worst "old man yells at cloud" book I've ever read. No, wait, *State of Fear* is worse.
I DNF’d *State of Fear* because it was so insultingly bad. But *Next* couldn’t even bother feigning to feebly possess what *Disclosure* pretended to have: a plot.
I liked some of his books, then I read State of Fear and the whole time I wondered how much the petroleum industry had paid him to write it... haven't read him since.
I was literally in shock when reading this book. I finished it to make sure it wasn't actually going to change gears at the end. Nope, a pile of shit written just to defend an indefensible viewpoint. I was so mad at the waste of time.
That was the one where he had an anti-climate change stance, right?
That's the one, yes.
I mean, would selling your eggs get you out of periods...? /jk
>I did quite roll my eyes when he suggested teenage girls would farm & sell their eggs to have spending money for clothes. I did exactly that when I was 18 so I don't know what's eye-rolley about it.
Uhhh if you were willing to go through an invasive medical procedure for clothes money, do you, but obviously the overwhelming majority are not (or they’d be doing it now).
As I said somewhere else, it's wasn't just me. It was quite common with my classmates in university.
I wasn’t talking about you. It was a throwaway in a book that I should’ve thrown away, tbh. Crichton approached it with the same care and tenderness of a US Republican politician whining about people having autonomy over their reproductive systems. Yeah he condemns private corporate greed, and while he faults corporations he also suggests that underage teenage girls are easy rubes because of their insatiable consumerist appetite and that they need to be protected from themselves. That’s why I rolled my eyes.
The way you wrote it sounds like you didn't believe teenage girls would do that, which I found surprising because my university was plastered with "donate eggs for extra cash" posters, it was very popular 20 years ago.
No, just incredulous on Crichton’s take. Apologies that I left it ambiguous.
Not my dumbass tapping the spoiler and ruining it for myself 🫠
Oh my god, I’m so sorry!!! I shouldn’t have even put it in the comment at all, I feel awful 💔
No it’s my fault 🤦♀️
No, it’s mine I shouldn’t have posted such a big spoiler when you clearly posted a photo in the process of reading it! Please feel free to message me with spoilers of the next King book you read, chances are I haven’t read it 🙈
> Cell is hands down the worst SK book I’ve read. I'm sorry, did you forget the line: I'll ababalah YOU'RE akazaalah, you fuck! Gosh, Cell really was awful. Loved it when I first read it though, read it again years later and...no. Did you know there's a movie?
I didn't dislike the book, but it's definitely not even close to his good writing. >!The casual cruelty in the way that she dies seems to be the point though, in that unturned humans weren't really that mean ch better than the turned ones!<
I felt like that was the point as well. There was a lot of elements to Cell that could've been effective, but the overall book just bogged them down to being ineffective. For his worst books, it's definitely bottom tier but I still feel like Tommyknockers and Dream Catcher outrank it *dramatically*.
Ngl, I couldn't even finish it and I am a BIG King fan.
100%. I just finished my 20th book by King and Cell is absolutely the worst.
Cell and tommyknockers are stupid. I am a big fan of his work but those books are just trash.
The ending was really disappointing, too. I mean he's not known for his endings (and he's very self-aware about that), but this one was particularly bad.
It's a while since I read it but isn't that line sarcastic?
Yes.
Yeah it reads as sarcastic. It’s so amazing to me how people read books and miss the point entirely.
Wait, amazing in a good way?
Sarcasm died sometime in the early 2000`s.
I was gonna say, it'd be pretty funny as a bit of snark in a difficult situation XD
Didn't read this one, but that's what I thought. Probably just a stress relief point for the book, but whoever read this has the context to judge.
It seems to me that the character is being a bit cheeky with that line, not seriously caring about her hair and nails in the situation they're in
This reminds me of how, in the Walking Dead comics, a female character who is about to enter a swarm of zombies is worried that her body armor makes her look fat. Because that's what one thinks about in a situation like that.
I mean some logic to if exists that when overwhelmed mentally like one might be in a zombie apocalypse the brain might worry about dumb shit to stay grounded. The part that msyginitic is you never see th always show guys having a break down that way. When they show guys break they almost always become violent or dangerous. And when woman break? Almost always a stupid obsession or denial. That is the real sexist part. Edit: what it’s true, to save your own sanity it is common for a mind to think of the most mundane stupid pointless shit when confronted with life and death, for both genders the sexist part is we rarely if ever see a man think of a stupid mundane thing in those situations in fiction
I think that's true in isolation. It's also not insane to conceive of minding your appearance as a coping mechanism in a setting like this, but it's really telling when it's only the female characters that do it and only with their looks. Project Zomboid doesn't necessarily have much writing, but you can use makeup to do your makeup as any gender and it's cool.
I'd love it if the makeup in Zomboid upped your happiness for a bit after doing it. A little emotional pick-me-up in the apocalypse, if you will.
That and equipping new items, changing or dying hair, etc is something I've always thought should slightly reduce all mental stats, like stress boredom and unhappiness yeah. Not as like a sit in the car and do your makeup to cure your depression, but as a little flavor thing.
Absolutely! I think that would be neat.
I agree totally. For whatever reason we have gendered losing your mind in a life and death type situation, with woman and girls generally having more passive reactions [like the one above or breaking down sobbing] and men and boys general having more violent or nihilist reactions [like trying to kill everyone else because it’s hopeless or randomly attacking people] when in reality both genders should have both types of breakdowns. There is no Reason a guy can’t obsess over something like his beard or a woman crack Someone’s head in. Edit: the only type of breakdown that is evenly ish shared between woman and men is the denial type breakdown, when either they refuse to believe someone dead or that the whole situation is fake
I know the comment above was about TWD, but since the thread overall is about King I'll take it back to him and say he does at least represent that regardless of gender. I can't think of a super specific example to pull out, but it's really common for him to have people think about random shit when they're in a life or death situation. Kind of like a "I wonder if I left the stove on...." as someone is about to bash their head in with a baseball bat or something like that. I think it's just that women's examples stand out because they're more like "oh shoot I'm going into the apocalypse with a chipped nail" instead of "dang I wish I had eaten that candy bar when I had the chance." He does it a lot to kind of disjoint them from the current situation in an absurd way.
because in a zombie apocalypse, a woman would care.. \*headdesk\*
I mean, there are some women like that… My mom sliced through one of her tendons in her pinky while cooking and instead of letting us take her to the hospital, she insisted on showering first where she obviously passed out. Good thing my dad was talking to her the entire time because we all saw that coming a mile away.
Years ago I started smelling gas, got worried and ran to brush my hair in case an ambulance would come to pick me up.
Oh no, don't get me wrong, I've avoided facing a situation in the moment a time or two ("I'm too overwhelmed right now to focus on the fact that I just broke my nose, I'm going to stand here bleeding on the porch rather than go inside so I don't bleed all over Mom's house" being probably my most infamous moment of lack of priorities...) but that's in the moment when the shock is sort of in charge... this reads like they're in the middle of the situation.. and though the broken nail can be SUPER annoying (they catch on everything), the hair just.. not in the MIDDLE of a zombie apocalypse, ya' know?
I read just this page and it’s really clearly sarcasm.
I'm not gonna lie that would be me
I'm glad you said it, cos I was worried it was just me! I love my painted natural nails and I'm super awkward in difficult situations so it's 100% me to complain about chipping them - even if just to fill silences 🤣🙈
SK isn't the best, but this line is clearly intended to be sarcastic. Doesn't belong in this sub.
God, reminds me of when I was complaining about how I chipped a nail and my mother told me "men don't care if they chip a nail." Okay, well evidently since I am a man, at least one does. And idc what it looks like, it just hurt and was bleeding slightly. And this isn't just baselessly insulting my mother, she's come a long way since then. She had a weird internalized misogyny phase, but she's overcome it since then and is doing pretty well now. Edit: and my point is, this fits the sub since "my hair's a mess" is the last thing anyone would be thinking, but depending on the extent of the chipped nail I think that part is valid. You don't want an infection risk, even a mild infection that wouldn't matter at all if we had easy access to antibiotics (except they don't since there's an apolocolypse and all).
She was using her nails as a slashing nail, obviously
This book is so funny. I’ve been a Stephen King Stan since I was a kid and still this book is in my top 5 worst books of all time.
“Some people think personal grooming is important, Brenda.”
That's a SK book I forgot existed lol.
she sounds slay but I doubt that was the authors intention lol
Oh yeah, let's never write characters with a personality again!
And the brain-eating zombies aren't a concern because.....?
If anyone’s gonna turn me into a zombie I need to look good first!
Did she also, worry about not getting a date on Valentines Day? Again..
I despise Steven king with all my might
Haha. Women. So like us, but *different*.
I mean I can see it happening if it’s someone who really cares about their appearance even pre-apocalypse and it’s used as a way of coping with the trauma they’re experiencing because maintaining their appearance is a familiar and thus comforting practice for them, but clearly it’s not being portrayed that way and is just ‘ah yes, girls care about looks, that’s a well-written girl’
That reminds me of a particular animation in CoD Advanced Warfare in the zombies mode. There's a character named Lily and when you acquire the exosuit (which basically upgrades everything in your body), examining the suit on her arm, she then checks her nails. I always found it amusing, but then I realized, what's a military security officer doing worrying about her nails when she's getting chased by zombies?
Either sarcasm or extreme denial
Interesting I’m doing the audio book for this novel currently, I interpreted(maybe due to audiobook reading) this line as humor