reviewed by Ed Gorman, the author of TICKET TO RIDE, THE MIDNIGHT ROOM and many other f
ine books.
The Fog, James Herbert
Just after Stephen King created the horror industry back in the Seventies U.S. publishers began importing British writers who walked the same streets as the master. One of those was Brit superstar James Herbert. While he never quite found the audience he deserved over here, a number of his novels have stayed with me long after the more successful imports have faded completely from my memory.
My favorite Herbert is titled The Fog and it continues the long and heralded tradition of the British disaster novel. Sometimes the disaster is an alien invasion as with H.G. Wells and sometimes the disaster is unworldly seeming yet of our world as with the great John Wyndham.
In Herbert's novel a yellow fog begins moving across England causing much of the population to go insane and begin committing atrocities on family, friends and anyone else they can get their hands on. Even animals go insane; pets become killers. A group of scientists in a bunker race to learn why one of them is immune to the effects fog.
What raises this story to the level of a classic is not just the shock effects--Herbert can jolt the most jaded of readers--but the portraits he draws of his people. He cuts across all ages and all classes. Unlike most Big Bestsellers he makes us care about them and in so doing he gives the reader the race-against-the-clock story with the scientists and the anxiety of seeing real people face their fates.
Centipede Press has just issued a collector's edition of the novel complete with a beautiful cover homage to the U.S. paperback edition and a long, fine introduction by horror legend Ramsey Campbell.
Thought it's a lengthy novel, I read this new edition in two sittings. It's a thriller that truly belongs on the same shelf as H.G. Wells, the early catastrophe novels of J.G. Ballard and the classic work of the late John Wyndham.
My favorite Herbert is titled The Fog and it continues the long and heralded tradition of the British disaster novel. Sometimes the disaster is an alien invasion as with H.G. Wells and sometimes the disaster is unworldly seeming yet of our world as with the great John Wyndham.
In Herbert's novel a yellow fog begins moving across England causing much of the population to go insane and begin committing atrocities on family, friends and anyone else they can get their hands on. Even animals go insane; pets become killers. A group of scientists in a bunker race to learn why one of them is immune to the effects fog.
What raises this story to the level of a classic is not just the shock effects--Herbert can jolt the most jaded of readers--but the portraits he draws of his people. He cuts across all ages and all classes. Unlike most Big Bestsellers he makes us care about them and in so doing he gives the reader the race-against-the-clock story with the scientists and the anxiety of seeing real people face their fates.
Centipede Press has just issued a collector's edition of the novel complete with a beautiful cover homage to the U.S. paperback edition and a long, fine introduction by horror legend Ramsey Campbell.
Thought it's a lengthy novel, I read this new edition in two sittings. It's a thriller that truly belongs on the same shelf as H.G. Wells, the early catastrophe novels of J.G. Ballard and the classic work of the late John Wyndham.
4 comments:
Big James Herbert fan here. I try to read at least one of his books a year and have never been disappointed, from his first novel, THE RATS, in which he seemed to be just going for the grue, to his last, ASH, a wildly imaginative, edge-of-your-seat political thriller (with Princess Diana, her secret son, Lord Lucan, Muammar Gaddafi, and Robert Maxwell, living together in an isolate Scottish castle), jumped from theme to theme, giving each his own unique twist, vivid plotting, and deep characterization. Herbert was the real deal.
Lord Lucan 's name came up often when I lived in England. Maybe not so much Gaddafi.
Like Jerry, we are big James Herbert fans, especially THE FOG and the RATS trilogy. But I missed his later work, and never heard of ASH, which sounds like something I need to look for. Of course, Bill Crider was a big fan too.
As usual, Ed nails the review. I remember seeing John Carpenter's THE FOG, hoping it was a Herbert adaptation, and being disappointed.
FLUKE is narrated by the title character, a dog who remembers his past life as a human being. I believe there was a movie version of that one.
Like Jerry, Jeff, and Bill Crider, I'm a fan of James Herbert's works. He knew how to tell a story...
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