"PORTENT.." CHARACTERS " JAMES RIVERS, DAINE,HUGO POGGS,BIBBY, EVA, JOSH and MAMA PITIE.. World is disturbed with Natural calamities..Where ever they happen whether it is great tidal wave destroying the Fort St.George(Grenada West Indies),Forest fire in New Orleans Louisiana, Falling huge rock...
First published back in 1994, ‘The Ghosts Of Sleath’ is the loosely fitting sequel to Herbert’s 1988 novel ‘Haunted’, which first introduced the psychic investigator David Nash. Although this novel is somewhat of a stand alone tale, it does still include a number of references to ‘Haunted’ which...
The first James Herbert book I read was 'The Ghosts Of Sleath'. At the time, I hadn't realized that it was the sequel to another book, titled 'Haunted'. But seeing as I knew the movie for that one so well, not having read the novel barely affected my understanding of David Ash. And I was also b...
Herbert has managed to produce another outstanding novel here, with a dark tale of corruption and despair. Admittedly, the characterisation isn't the greatest aspect of the novel, as you never really get to feel anything for any of the principal characters, but this does not subtract from the nov...
This is a temporary review but I couldn't mark this book 1 star without giving a selected few of my many reasons why it was so shit. So here goes:1) The characters are incredibly weak, unrealistic and their personalities change to fit the story rather than the plot showing how different personali...
My rating is based upon the general effect this book had on me as a child (I shouldn't really have read it so young) and upon my subsequent reading habits, and not upon the book's literary merits, assuming it has any.Summer, 1974 (possibly 1975): I went to the Botanic Gardens to see if any of my ...
First published back in 1981, ‘The Jonah’ was Herbert’s eighth novel to be published. Moving slightly away from his previous splatterpunk and down right gritty horror subject matters, this well written and intriguing tale delivers a well balanced mixture between a thriller and a horror.Set in a ...
It’s 1985, and Jon Childes is a computer teacher at a school for girls in the Channel Islands. He fled there after psychically aiding a police investigation three years earlier, causing his wife to divorce him, because it’s the ’80s and the “in sickness and in health” clause of the wedding vows d...
My sister recommended James Herbert and decided that since she thought I'd not have the heart nor stomach for horror (as I'm a fan of fantasy and dislike seeing anything gruesome or bone chilling freaky), that starting me off with The Magic Cottage would be a good first choice. Unfortunately, I e...
What an unusual topic for a story! This is my first James Herbert book and it certainly won't be my last. What a great book to start off the James Herbert readership with. The story is about James True who has out of body experiences (abbreviated to OBE for simplificity) which he learns to con...
Great, all I needed on such a morning. The policeman stationed outside the agency’s front door looked down his nose at me as I approached, his hard face expressionless. He must have watched as the traffic warden slapped on the ticket, but I guess it would have taken an ounce of humanity to explai...
We’d sat for a while and drunk coffee, but I guess we were too shocked to discuss Bob’s hysteria, and maybe somewhat embarrassed by it. Midge had remained very quiet when Val discoursed upon the evils and the unpredictable results of drug-taking. Not that I added much to the conversation – my hea...
How could he be sitting here talking to a tiny man - who was sitting cross-ankled in the middle of the table, the old book closed before him, and who would have been at least a foot tall if standing - proclaiming himself to be an elf, keeper of the cottage, and guardian to Thom?Thom had been dog-...
Jagged glittering streaks patterned the sky like thin, dashed brushstrokes; these were not clouds but dust particles, coalesced and held aloft by warm, rising air currents. In the far distance some were descending vertically like heaven-thrown javelins. The sky to the east was no less stunning, a...
Now she was tucked up in bed reading her new Philip Pullman, Cally fast asleep in the bed next to her. Loren laid the book down on her lap for a moment and smiled to herself. The news was all around school. The new girl had bopped Seraphina Blaney on the nose. Loren had be...