James Herbert was one of the greatest British novelists of recent times. His death on Wednesday robs us of a truly talented writer. I first started reading his horror novels as a teenager. The Rats and The Fog were masterpieces of their genre. He never really got the recognition he deserved while he was alive so it is good to see the obituaries pay tribute upon his passing at the comparatively young age of 69. He sold more than 42 million books during his career.
I interviewed him last year on my Book Club radio show and was rather shocked by his appearance. It sometimes happens that when you meet a childhood hero, you’re a little disappointed, and I don’t mind admitting that this was the case here, but he was clearly quite ill. At times it was a difficult interview. You can listen to it HERE
For those of you not familiar with his books, here’s a short excerpt from his Wikipedia entry…
His first two books, The Rats and The Fog, are disaster novels with man-eating giant black rats in the first and an accidentally released chemical weapon in the second. Herbert wrote three sequels to The Rats; Lair deals with a second outbreak of the mutants, this time in the countryside around Epping Forest rather than in the first book’s London slums; in Domain, a nuclear war means that the rats have become the dominant species in a devastated city. The third sequel, the graphic novel The City, is an adventure set in the post-nuclear future. With his third novel, the ghost story The Survivor, Herbert used supernatural horror rather than the science fiction horror of his first two books. In Shrine, he explored his Roman Catholic heritage with the story of an apparent miracle which turns out to be something much more sinister. Haunted, the story of a sceptical paranormal investigator taunted by malicious ghosts, began life as a screenplay for the BBC, though this was not the screenplay used in the eventual film version. Its sequel was The Ghosts of Sleath. Others of Herbert’s books, such as Moon, Sepulchre and Portent, are structured as thrillers, and include espionage and detective story elements along with the supernatural. The Jonah is in large part the story of a police investigation, albeit by a policeman whose life is overshadowed by a supernatural presence. The Spear deals with a neo-Nazi cult in Britain and an international conspiracy which includes a right-wing US general and an arms dealer.
I don’t mind admitting that I got far more sex education from James Herbert’s books than I ever did from my parents or my school. And it seems I am not alone. Labour MP Tom Harris tweets
Sad to hear of the death of James Herbert. I recall that certain pages of his books were very well-thumbed by me and school friends.
And Professor Phil Cowley says…
I remember a maths class with that book passed, repeatedly, under the desks. Still don’t know much about algebra.
That gym scene in The Fog is still etched on my mind!
