|
Post by dem bones on Oct 30, 2007 14:34:45 GMT
James Herbert - The Rats (Nel, 1974) Killercrab's scan. I've only got a crappy later version "The Rats is a book that can only be read once, as stripped of its initial ability to shock, it is a rather pedestrian read at best, with the narrative acting as no more than mortar for the bricks of sex and violence
Justin Marriott on The Rats, Pulp Mania #1, 2006.I thought I'd put it to the test. This is the third or fourth time I've read The Rats and, while it certainly loses some of its shock value, I feel it retains its rage and horror. Having recently enjoyed Scorpions, Night Of The Crabs and Devils Coach Horse, I can also boringly confirm what we already know: The Rats is without doubt the blueprint for just about every new wave of 'When Animals attack' nasties. It's all here. The simple plot. The no-nonsense hero fighting the rodents on the one hand, the incompetent, self-serving authorities on the other. The huge body-count. The almost supernaturally unerotic sex interludes. The one that got away. Civilised London. Swinging London. Dirty Bloody London!" The plot, such as it is. An old house near the wharf has remained empty since the deaths of the eccentric couple who lived there. He was something of a boffin who spent several years abroad and returned from New Guinea with a few black rats which may or may not have been exposed to radiation. What else would you do but breed them? Once the old boy and his wife are dead, the rats make a few tentative forays into the outside world. Gradually they overcome their fear of man. Soon they develop a taste for human flesh. And they're multiplying all the time. Harris (even his lover Judy calls him 'Harris') is a working class East Ender who teaches art at St. Michael's school. He still thinks of himself as a rebel student and gets passionate about the broken promises of the Government (any Government), inner-city poverty, the Ronan Point disaster, communal rubbish chutes, tower blocks in general, Thatcher putting the block on free milk for schoolkids, the incompetence of "authority". Variations of Harris (an idealised Herbert ?), the everyman hero, resurface in every Herbert novel I've read and they get on my nerves to be honest with you. The prototype is probably the most wooden character in The Rats (give or take his girlfriend) but he does what he's there for and has some terrific scraps with the rats so you can't grumble. Besides, he doesn't feature in half of the set-pieces and, as we all know, the set-pieces are what it's all about! And, for me, that's what makes The Rats great. It's maybe 80% set-piece, a series of pacy, effective, extremely bloody vignettes one after another. There's the sad story of Mary Kelly (not a name to inspire confidence at the best of times), a decent woman driven to madness and meths by the death of her husband-to-be, who dosses in the decrepit St. Mary's churchyard near Aldgate East station. Beaten unconscious by fellow alkies when she taunts them with a bottle of scotch, she is easy prey for the rats. But then, so are her comatose colleagues. Sweet little Karen Blakely, thirteen months. Her mum reckons she'll be OK for five minutes while she nips around to a neighbours house. Besides, she playful Shane the faithful puppy to look after her ... Then the full scale onslaughts: A late night attack on Shadwell Station - since modernised but you'd not like to get trapped down there - claims just the three lives thanks to the quick-thinking of the driver, but the following morning, "Black Monday", sees several passengers massacred when a packed commuter train stalls in a tunnel approaching Stepney Green (Henry Sutton, a mild mannered solicitors clerk who you immediately identify as rodent-fodder plays a blinder, leading two frightened women to safety before heading back into the darkness with the rescue party ... ). Then St. Michaels school comes under siege, the pupils barricaded in the upstairs classroom cheering on the firemen as they turn their hoses on the vermin - that probably wouldn't happen today. Harris is miserable that only the East End is copping it, none of the affluent areas, so he's probably mildly amused when, after a lull of several weeks, the rats resurface in a North London cinema, just as Stephen is copping a feel of Vikki's tits - his first decent bird after all the fatties and skinnies and it has to end like this! Worse is to follow at London Zoo where keeper George will stop at nothing to protect his beloved pets .... It's down to Harris to save the day, and he comes up trumps where the best minds the system can offer have loused up with his amazing Operation Extirpate. "It was the sort of inspiration that could only have come from someone not used to or bogged down by the intricacies of a scientific mind, so bold and uncomplicated was its concept." Herbert might be talking about his own novel. We spawned Rats/ Herbert/ 'When Animals Attack' threads like rats on the old forum, most of them in the Nel section
|
|
|
Post by killercrab on Feb 10, 2009 13:46:54 GMT
|
|
|
Post by ghostwriter2109 on Feb 12, 2009 17:37:23 GMT
I don't disagree with Justin very often (he's bigger than me) but I think Rats is a stonking horror.
Well thought out story that moves along at a good pace...and the mini back stories of a couple of the early deaths are wonderfully fleshed out.
It's a shame that he's become a bloated author since The Fog...inasmuch that his new books are heavily padded.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Mar 12, 2009 18:54:22 GMT
The Rats (McMillan, 1999). Jacket photo: Stuart Knowles/ Trevillion Picture Library Picked this up for 50p in the Royal London Hospital Charity shop earlier as a present for my arm who has found memories of the nurses on the gloriously named Marie Celeste ward. The Rats: not exactly the type of novel you ever think of as a hardback really, and McMillan didn't help their cause by presenting it in a dull jacket (only saving grace: a photo of the author looking a bit mysterious in his shades on inner flap) ... and flogging it at £17.99 !!! Who were they targeting, remainder bookshops? Anyway, have to agree with ghostwriter. Despite what newspaper reviewers would have us believe, personally, i find very few books "unputdownable', even those which end every page mid-sentence on variations of "she unclasped her bra, releasing her enormous", but The Rats really is. It's probably advisably to give it a few years between re-reads, but the energy of the thing is remarkable. I started The Dark last week (rather tells its own story) and, while it's "good", probably even a "better" novel, i can't help but miss the almighty amphetamine rush of The Rats. But you can hardly knock a person for improving as a writer.
|
|
|
Post by franklinmarsh on Mar 12, 2009 20:55:39 GMT
Of all the covers of The Rats, that's got to be the shite-est hasn't it? I'm still struggling with Domain at present (the cover of which has at least got some rats on it but it's more an intriguing post-nuclear survival novel with some killer rats in it than The Rats 3. Of course, it could go bananas at the end, it's been so long since I read it.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Mar 12, 2009 22:21:58 GMT
Of all the covers of The Rats, that's got to be the shite-est hasn't it? 'Uninspired' doesn't even come close. My first thought was to steam off the sticker, but what's the point when it actually improves it? Just been reading through the three pages of newspaper reviews at the front of the Nel '85 Domain and, would you credit it, The Standard's critic found it "unputdownable". There's 421 pages of the bastard! It's getting me so, i'm wondering if the reviewers ever take time out to feed themselves and use the bathroom. Or do their editors have them hooked up to a drip?
|
|
|
Post by franklinmarsh on Mar 13, 2009 15:09:28 GMT
I'm glad you put that cover up Dem. That's the one I had back in the day. But Mr Herbert is at pains to point out that the vermin in this 'un have yellow eyes. (Might change later on - I'll keep you posted.)
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Mar 13, 2009 16:10:22 GMT
They really did a lot editions of these books ;D This is the umpteenth NEL editon of 1984. This is the first NEL paperback edition of 1979. Guess the editor came back after a long pub lunch when he greenlighted that. Just terrible in every regard. Cluttered and thrown together in 5 minutes. This is a first edition of Signet in USA, from 1985. I know I have read this back then, but I have zero recollection of the plot.
|
|
|
Post by Johnlprobert on Mar 13, 2009 17:55:19 GMT
There were two first editions of the Lair paperback I think - one had red foil embossed lettering, which is the one I had as part of a boxset for Xmas with The Fog and The Rats
|
|
|
Post by killercrab on Mar 13, 2009 20:44:30 GMT
Later editions that used the '74 artwork had the upturned paw removed. Also the art isn't wrap around as it is here. I'm trying to remember any other differences - both my copies are out of reach at the minute.
Great book. Strike that - excellent book.It's place as the seminal animal rampage book can't really be argued - without it we'd have no giant crabs etc.
KC
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Mar 13, 2009 21:26:30 GMT
That Lair might not be the best NEL cover but i'm quite fond of it, certainly more so than that Signet Domain. Speaking of which, how comes so many of us have read Domain but can't remember a damn thing about it? All i can think of is, the hero and his colleagues come upon the bunker where the British Government have holed up and discover the Prime Minister's rat-eaten corpse? Given who was in power at the time, it's possible that image has strayed out of my sleaziest fantasies and i've projected it onto Mr. Herbert's novel, so apologies to him if that is the case! Best wait to see what FM reports back when he's finished.
|
|
|
Post by erebus on Mar 14, 2009 17:40:31 GMT
May cause a bit of a fight here but to be truthful I always found Domain a bit of a boring read. Ive been through it 3 times now and have always felt a little redundant after it. There isnt the intensity of the rat attacks in the other novels. Plus we spend waaaaaay to much time underground with uninspiring characters. Some folk claim this to be there're fave which is fine but for me the other two are superior. The real horror in this novel is the devastation at the beginning and all the casulties etc.
By the way did anyone like the graphic novel THE CITY ?
|
|
|
Post by franklinmarsh on Mar 15, 2009 20:21:32 GMT
All i can think of is, the hero and his colleagues come upon the bunker where the British Government have holed up and discover the Prime Minister's rat-eaten corpse? Dem's position as unchallenged King of the Spoilers is unchallenged. Is there any point in me carrying on? I love that Lair cover! I borrowed The City from my local library and although the drawings were good, the thing struck me as pretty pointless.
|
|
|
Post by H_P_Saucecraft on Mar 16, 2009 2:22:36 GMT
By the way did anyone like the graphic novel THE CITY ? I borrowed it from my local library as well, I quite liked it, but have never found a copy anywhere, loved Ian Miller's illustrations. I wouldn't mind seeing a proper fourth rats novel, but I've yet to finish reading Domain, started reading it, when I was anywhere in the region of 15 - 17, I'm now 32, so that must be a record breaking pause . I was quite enjoying domain, so I don't know why I stopped. Doubt Herbert will write another Rats novel, but I'd like to see Slugs 3 from Shaun Hutson (I live in hope).
|
|
|
Post by erebus on Mar 16, 2009 18:33:24 GMT
Lol . Yeah but Hutson said it would have to be a huuuuuge amount of money thrown at him to write another slugs. Damn shame . Nevermind.
|
|