![]() ![]() Grady Hendrix wrote, “Read Herbert and you’re like a baby gripping a 10,000 volt cable, hands smoking, unable to tear them away even as your brain turns to cinders.” When Herbert died, Stephen King remarked, “Herbert was by no means literary, but his work had a raw urgency. The book alternates between chapters that function as short stories focusing on the rats’ victims, and a larger narrative in which those still alive come to realize the seriousness of the threat and combat it. ![]() ![]() More interesting than the plot is how it is structured. The plot of The Rats is as simple as they come: there are giant rats. Even today, his most famous work is still his first. His final novel, Ash, was released in 2012. ![]() From 1974 until 1988, he published a novel almost every year, slowing down only slightly in the ’90s and beyond. His first novel, The Rats, was released in 1974 and sold out its initial print run of 100,000 copies in three weeks. In keeping with this background, he designed his own book covers and publicity campaigns. He studied at the Hornsey College of Art and worked in advertising until he transitioned to writing. That sympathy, I think, is partly why his horror is so effective and why he endured as one of Britain’s most popular authors for decades. I have yet to read anything by Herbert where he seems to delight in the ordeals he unleashes upon his characters. James Herbert once said, “I hate violence and I didn’t plan to write horror it just poured out of me.” Reading his work, you can tell. ![]()
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