James Herbert - The Survivor

[andydecker]

James Herbert - The Survivor (Signet 1977, 206 p., Original NEL 1976)

It began with a faint whispering, then a low, evil chuckle. A shiver of fear coursed along his spine. Then he saw them - long, pointed fingers, each with a life of its own, slithering toward him. And suddenly the hideous hand with nothing behind it was reaching out to grasp him in the grisly, intimately cold embrace of death ....

It had been one of the worst crashes in airline history, killing over 300 people, and leaving only one survivor. Now the dead were buried and the town of Eton tried to forget ... intil the young girl was found, screaming hysterically about malevolently grinning dolls and creatures of darkness. Until the fisherman's body was brought ashore, his face set in a grimace of utter terror. Until the priest was discovered cringing beneath the altar. Then the town was forced to face the shocking, dredful truth about was buried in the old graveyard ...

I only own the Signet edition, which has a very small print. I read this so long ago that I only have a hazy recollection, something about a twist at the end which I didn't see coming, but on whole being more sedate than say, The Rats or The Fog. At the time Herbert delivered a novel a year, and he tried not to do formula writing. Still, the next one Fluke, is only one I never bought because it didn't interest me at all at the time. Evil dolls are nowadays a tiresome chliché, still I like the cover.

[dem bones]

Bob Martin

The Nel, July 1977 edition. All I can remember is that it came as a crushing disappointment to me after The Rats and The Fog. Can't blame him for striving to perfect his craft, but the only subsequent novels that did it for me were Lair and Haunted.

[andydecker]

James Herbert - The Survivor (NEL, 1976)

(This edition Signet, 1977)

It began with a faint whispering, then a low, evil chuckle. A shiver of fear coursed along his spine. Then he saw them – the long pointed fingers, each with a life of its own, slithering toward him. And suddenly the hideous hand with nothing behind it was reaching out to grasp him in the grisly, intimately cold embrace of death …

It had been one of the worst crashes in airline history, killing over 300 people, and leaving only one survivor. Now the dead were buries and the town of Eton tried to forget … Until the young girl was found, screaming hysterically about malevolently grinning dolls and creatures of darkness. Until the fisherman's body was brought ashore, his face set in a grimace of utter terror. Until the priest was discovered cringing beneath the altar. Then the town was forced to face the shocking, dreadful truth about what was buried in the old graveyard …


This is the third of Herbert's novels, and it is pretty much a transitional novel as far as themes, technique and topics are concerned.

David Keller, the co-pilot of the crashed 747, survives the inferno without a scratch and with amnesia, the only survivor of over 300 passengers and crew. Racked by guilt he tries to get to the truth. Malevolent ghosts of the crash are terrorising the city of Eton, people are driven to despair and murder, while Keller is contacted by the medium Hobbs. Hobbs declares that the ghosts are getting stronger, among them Cathy, Keller's fiancé, who also died in the wreck.

Was a bomb on board or is it Keller's fault, who had an affair with the wife of the pilot which the man just learned before take-off? There was the old British Nazi Goswell was on board who is now becoming a demonic force, possessing Hobb's and other bodies. Is he the source of the evil happenings?

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}It was a bomb, smuggled on board by the insane aircraft company owner Pendleton to kill his competitor Barrett, who took over the company. As Keller confronts him, it is revealed that Keller was also a ghost the whole time, send by the victims to avenge their death.

As a novel this is a bit rocky. You have Herbert's by then trademark vignettes of random evil things happening, which do the gruesome encounters nicely, from the mobbed fat college boy who is lured to his death by the ghost of the little girl with the burned doll or the bitter wife killing her husband whom she feels has degraded her with his evil lust only to be killed by his corpse. But they feel arbitrary due to the mystery of Keller and Hobbs, the suffering medium, a precursor to Herbert's hero Ash. Basically this tries to get a balance working being a supernatural thriller and a horror novel, and it is a much, much more restrained work than The Rats or The Fog. Still you have to respect Herbert's willingness to end the story with a so thorough twist which would have felt more natural in a short story than a novel. And to do something different instead of writing the same book a dozen times.

More difficult is the reveal of the real culprit, which is only introduced as a nameless madman in the last third before you get the obligatory confession which seems right out of a Agatha Christ novel at the end. After all the supernatural horror this feels a bit banal and tacked on, as it isn't developed properly in the course of the narrative.

It is easy to imagine that Herbert's fans were a bit surprised (and disappointed) at the time of the first publication to get something that different from the all-out carnage of the Rats/Fog combo. Considering that Herbert managed to keep his career and sales going after that he did the right thing. The Survivor is not a bad novel, it is suspenseful and has some wonderfully effective horror scenes. But it can't deny that it is a bit all over the place.