James Herbert
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
About the man:
James ("call me Jim") Herbert was born in 1944 in the East End of London. His upbringing has sort of influenced some of his writings. James is, of course, the greatest horror writer around. His 19 books have made him very rich, and some like The Rats and The Fog have become legends. His two motors, a Cherokee jeep and a Jaguar XJS, have FOG and RAT on their number plates. It's only natural. Because he is very rich, he lives in a rather nice house in Sussex. But, of course, like all rich & famous people he does spend time abroad.
He also owns one of Gordon Giltrap's guitars.
However, James isn't like a serial killer or a lunatic or anything like that. He's just a normal forty-something man who can write a damn good book or twenty. It's like with bands like Iron Maiden: they're not Satanists or anything like that. They can just churn out some pretty out of the ordinary stuff. So shut up.
The 19 books have sold 42 million copies (the magic number strikes again!)and have been translated into 33 languages. 4 of them have become movies, but according to James they're not very good. He's getting £2 million for his next two books.
About the books:
The Rats intorduced a new genre to horror. Commonality. No person or situation is immune. Previously bad things only happened to rich & important people. With James's books, anyone from MPs to social workers could get eaten, infected, murdered, mutilated, spooked etc. Usually it happened to normal people. And it kicks, people love it!
The Rats was inspired by the line from a Dracula movie: "I have seen 1000 rats with red eyes looking at me from the lawns". James was itching to write a book, and this provided the inspiration. The film was released in 1982, and two sequals (Lair & Domain) followed. Domain is the best.
The latest book, Others, was inspired by a poignant story from a friend of James's. This lady he knew worked a night shift at an East End children's hospital. When she finished her shift, she checked out this room upstairs with no marking or number or anything. Inside were cots with little freaky babies inside. They were all doformed with massive heads and the like. Nobody really knows what exactly happens to these babies. James hoped that the book would start a debate, but nothing appears to have happened. I want one right now. Just what happens to these kids?
If you've read a few of James's books, you'll notice almost all of them have one thing in common.
Sex.;-)
In graphic detail.:-)
Funny.8-)
Students have been known to use these books as manuals. Nothing wrong with it, they're the best thing I've ever had to go on.
But hey, there's more to his books than death and porn. Some of them have pretty good moral values (like the aforementioned Others). Take Fluke for example. Not a very scary book at all. But it tells a charming and sometimes tragic tale of how a dog, that knows that he is not all as he seems, tries to fit into a doggie society. By that I mean he has to live with other canines, work out how to do the right thing, and at the same time try and find out why he's not like any other dog.
Portent addresses enviromental issues, and the rat trilogy cumulates with 'Ban The Bomb'. It probably wasn't Herbert's intention to have it seem like this, but it can.
But James is no hippy. The rest of the books are filled with morbid types of things. Just remember that, OK.
After the Fred West case went public in '94, James got a call from the police. The Ghosts Of Sleath bears an uncanny resembelance to the Fred West case. Creepy. The detective investigating the case bought the book for a light read and "nearly dropped it to the floor".
Cool!8-)
James ("call me Jim") Herbert was born in 1944 in the East End of London. His upbringing has sort of influenced some of his writings. James is, of course, the greatest horror writer around. His 19 books have made him very rich, and some like The Rats and The Fog have become legends. His two motors, a Cherokee jeep and a Jaguar XJS, have FOG and RAT on their number plates. It's only natural. Because he is very rich, he lives in a rather nice house in Sussex. But, of course, like all rich & famous people he does spend time abroad.
He also owns one of Gordon Giltrap's guitars.
However, James isn't like a serial killer or a lunatic or anything like that. He's just a normal forty-something man who can write a damn good book or twenty. It's like with bands like Iron Maiden: they're not Satanists or anything like that. They can just churn out some pretty out of the ordinary stuff. So shut up.
The 19 books have sold 42 million copies (the magic number strikes again!)and have been translated into 33 languages. 4 of them have become movies, but according to James they're not very good. He's getting £2 million for his next two books.
About the books:
The Rats intorduced a new genre to horror. Commonality. No person or situation is immune. Previously bad things only happened to rich & important people. With James's books, anyone from MPs to social workers could get eaten, infected, murdered, mutilated, spooked etc. Usually it happened to normal people. And it kicks, people love it!
The Rats was inspired by the line from a Dracula movie: "I have seen 1000 rats with red eyes looking at me from the lawns". James was itching to write a book, and this provided the inspiration. The film was released in 1982, and two sequals (Lair & Domain) followed. Domain is the best.
The latest book, Others, was inspired by a poignant story from a friend of James's. This lady he knew worked a night shift at an East End children's hospital. When she finished her shift, she checked out this room upstairs with no marking or number or anything. Inside were cots with little freaky babies inside. They were all doformed with massive heads and the like. Nobody really knows what exactly happens to these babies. James hoped that the book would start a debate, but nothing appears to have happened. I want one right now. Just what happens to these kids?
If you've read a few of James's books, you'll notice almost all of them have one thing in common.
Sex.;-)
In graphic detail.:-)
Funny.8-)
Students have been known to use these books as manuals. Nothing wrong with it, they're the best thing I've ever had to go on.
But hey, there's more to his books than death and porn. Some of them have pretty good moral values (like the aforementioned Others). Take Fluke for example. Not a very scary book at all. But it tells a charming and sometimes tragic tale of how a dog, that knows that he is not all as he seems, tries to fit into a doggie society. By that I mean he has to live with other canines, work out how to do the right thing, and at the same time try and find out why he's not like any other dog.
Portent addresses enviromental issues, and the rat trilogy cumulates with 'Ban The Bomb'. It probably wasn't Herbert's intention to have it seem like this, but it can.
But James is no hippy. The rest of the books are filled with morbid types of things. Just remember that, OK.
After the Fred West case went public in '94, James got a call from the police. The Ghosts Of Sleath bears an uncanny resembelance to the Fred West case. Creepy. The detective investigating the case bought the book for a light read and "nearly dropped it to the floor".
Cool!8-)
