The Rats

This book was a great, fast read. Herbert's lean style of writing with The Rats will have you cranking through the pages in no time. Excellent suspense is dispersed liberally throughout as well as some gruesome detail that hits hard for being written in the early 70's. I would definitely recommend this to readers of classic horror or those interested in the deep roots of splatter punk.

Logistics of rodent defense and destruction. That is basically the problem for the hero of this horror novel and those he tries to protect. They aren't your average scampering rodent, either, so that makes the job all the harder. So, pretty entertaining variation on the trapped by monsters theme, with an interesting ending to go along with it. 3.5 out of 5

A bit of a horror classick. I've been a fan of the movie "Deadly Eyes", but figured that while the book it was based on would be a bit more descriptive it wouldn't be that much different so it took me awhile to actually gain the desire to read this. Well, the book completely blows the movie out of the sewer because its not just so much better, but so much different. Apart from the concept of giant rats and a few similarities they're completely different entities. Now I still like Deadly Eyes and wish it would get a nice dvd release, but compared to this book it's a horrible adaptation and letdown. It makes me very glad I saw the movie before reading the book.

Okay, the basic story is killer rats. Rats have never ever scared me. I've had a few for pets. But I do enjoy a good gory book and i'd heard this one was pretty gross. Well, it was. I thought i might not enjoy it given the fact that i like rats, but i was delighted to find how good the book actually was. Its short and bloody. The details are great. You get thrown in with each characters struggle. I loved it and can't wait to read the other two books in the trilogy.

My first book getting to know James Herbert and I must say this British writer is in a class all by himself. I picked this paperback up on a wimp (written mid 70's) and started reading and could not put it down until I finished it, well into the night. I'll also ad I will never look at rats the same way again. This book really distrubed me and chilled me, yet I've discovered a new favorite Horror/Thriller author who actually writes visually and you can feel every detail. This guy really knows his stuff and in my opinion writes just as good as any of "The KINGS", its great to read a book that is so finely crafted yet will make your skin crawl. Nice change of pace.