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James Herbert
James Herbert
Born	8 April 1943 (age 66);
Occupation	Writer, Author
Nationality	English
Genres	Horror

This article is about the English horror writer; for the American music video director, see James Herbert (director).

James Herbert (born 8 April, 1943, London) is a best-selling English horror writer who originally worked as the art director of an advertising agency. Today, he lives near Brighton with his wife and daughters, and is a full-time writer. He also designs his own book covers and publicity.

[edit] Overview

His first two books, The Rats and The Fog, are disaster novels with man-eating Giant Black Rats in the first and an accidentally released chemical weapon in the second.

Herbert has written three sequels to The Rats; Lair deals with a second outbreak of the mutants, this time in the countryside around Epping Forest rather than in the first book's London slums; In Domain, one of Herbert's bleakest and most ironic books, a nuclear war means that the rats have become the dominant species in a devastated city. The third sequel, the graphic novel The City, is an adventure set in the post-nuclear future.

With his third novel, the ghost story The Survivor, Herbert used supernatural horror rather than the science fiction horror of his first two books. In Shrine he explored his Roman Catholic heritage with the story of an apparent miracle which turns out to be something much more sinister.

Haunted, the story of a sceptical paranormal investigator taunted by malicious ghosts, began life as a screenplay for the BBC, though this was not the screenplay used in the eventual film version. Its sequel was The Ghosts of Sleath

Others of Herbert's books, such as Moon, Sepulchre and Portent, are structured as thrillers, and include espionage and detective story elements along with the supernatural. The Jonah is in large part the story of a police investigation, albeit by a policeman whose life is overshadowed by a supernatural presence. The Spear deals with a neo-Nazi cult in Britain and an international conspiracy which includes a right-wing US general and an arms dealer. '48 is set in an alternate world of 1948 in which the Second World War ended with the release of a devastating plague by the defeated Hitler and, like The Spear, features British characters who sympathise with the Nazis. Others presents the story of a physically deformed private detective.

Herbert had previously tackled the theme of reincarnation in his fourth novel, Fluke, the story of a dog who somehow remembers his previous life as a human being. Rumbo, one of the characters from Fluke also turns up in The Magic Cottage. Once... includes another reference to the character of Rumbo. Nobody True continues the theme of life after death, being narrated by a ghost whose investigation of his own death results in the destruction of his illusions about his life.

Herbert has described Creed as his Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.^{[citation needed]} The character Joe Creed is a cynical, sleazy paparazzo who is drawn into a plot involving fed-up and underappreciated monsters.

The novel, The Secret of Crickley Hall, originally scheduled for release in April 2006, was eventually released in October. A long novel about a haunted country house in England, it examined the relationship between religious zealotry and child abuse. One of the characters in this novel is named after a real person, who won the honour by having the winning bid in the 2004 BBC Radio 2 Children in Need Auction.^{[citation needed]}

Various biographical and critical pieces by and about Herbert have been collected in James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, edited by Stephen Jones, and also in James Herbert: Devil in the Dark by Craig Cabell.

Herbert released a new novel every year between 1974 and 1988, wrote six novels during the 1990s and to date has released three new works in the 2000s.

"I am very insecure about being a writer", he stated in the book Faces of Fear. "I don't understand why I am so successful. And the longer I stay that way, the better it's going to be, because that's keeps me on the edge, striving if you like."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Works

[edit] Novels

The Rats (1974), made into a film in 1982 under the title Deadly Eyes; adapted into a computer game for the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum in 1985
The Fog (1975) (not related to the John Carpenter film of the same name)
The Survivor (1976), made into a film of the same name in 1981
Fluke (1977), made into a film in 1995
The Spear (1978)
Lair (1979)
The Dark (1980) (not related to the John "Bud" Cardos film of the same name)
The Jonah (1981)
Shrine (1983)
Domain (1984)
Moon (1985)
The Magic Cottage (1986)
Sepulchre (1987)
Haunted (1988), made into a film in 1995
Creed (1990)
Portent (1992)
The City (1993),
James Herbert's Dark Places
The Ghosts of Sleath (1994)
'48 (1996)
Others (1999)
Once (2001)
Nobody True (2003)
The Secret of Crickley Hall (2006)

[edit] Short stories

"Breakfast" (a chapter cut from some editions of Domain, about a woman who continues with her chores after the armageddon)

Available in Scare Care, ed. Graham Masterton, Tor 1989 and James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, NEL 1992.

"Maurice and Mog" (like "Breakfast" cut from some editions of Domain, about a man living in his nuclear shelter with a cat)

Available in Masques #2, ed. J. N. Williamson 1987; The Best of Masques, ed. J. N. Williamson, Berkley 1988; Dark Masques, ed. J. N. Williamson, Kensington/Pinnacle 2001, and James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, NEL 1992.

"Halloween's Child" (published in the Daily Mail)

Available in The Complete Masters of Darkness, ed. Dennis Etchison, Underwood-Miller 1990; Masters of Darkness III, ed. Dennis Etchison, Tor 1991, and James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, NEL 1992.

'"They Don't Like Us"

Available in A Feast of Stories by Britain’s Favourite Authors, ed. Clare Francis & Ondine Upton, Pan 1997 and James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, NEL 1992.

"Extinct"

Available in James Herbert: Devil in the Dark, Craig Cabell, Metro Publishing Ltd. 2003

"Cora's Needs" (a restoration of a chapter from Sepulchre that was cut down before publication)