While waiting for a couple of books to arrive I decided to look through my pile of ‘to be read’ books for something to engage my time. I’m waiting on Volume twelve of Theodore Sturgeon’s complete short stories, a collection of shorts from Harlan Ellison and the last omnibus of Doc Savage (winging its way from America with free postage so that’ll take forever) with his final adventure, Up From The Earth’s Centre. I didn’t find anything I wanted to read, or anything that captured my interest. Everything seemed to be four hundred pages or above. I’m growing averse to big thick books; they don’t entice me at all. A novel of a couple of hundred pages is just fine for me at the moment.
A couple of days later while sorting out some books that could go onto the bookmooch list I came across a boxed set of James Herbert novels. I remember buying it for £9.99; five books so that works out at a couple of pounds each. There was only one or two that I had read before.
I used to read a lot of James Herbert; I either bought his books new, second hand or borrowed from the library. He’s a good solid writer that has produced a quality laden body of work over the years. I briefly checked through them before deciding on ‘The Haunted’ (Cheers Larry) and I’m now about a third of the way through it – mainly due to the short chapters he has with this book. After reading one I look at the page count of the next chapter and think, ‘yeah, I can read one more.’
There may be a little nostalgia about choosing this book and James Herbert as, even though his books are horror novels, I know it’s not likely I’ll come across a lot of swearing, sex and mindless violence. It’ll be just a good story well told. Not that I’ve got anything against swearing sex and mindless violence; that can be a good night out. Sometimes they can be out of place in fiction, sometimes they fit perfectly and sometimes they are required. But it’s good to read something that is story and character based, well paced and from a master writer.
Ah another Herbert fan, I've read most of his books,one of my favourite authors (I set up my own Yahoo group on the author but nobody went there)
ReplyDeleteThe Haunting,surely you mean Haunted,the first
David Ash book,followed by The Ghosts of Sleath (new one out soon apparently)
It was filmed in the 90s with Aidan Quinn I think.
And yea I know what you mean about big books-just look at those Peter F Hamilton books,each one bigger than War and Peace and each part of a trilogy-nightmare!!
Great if you got time to read, which I dont.
I did note there is not much of an Internet presence for Herbert; there are a couple of fan sites. Wikipedia gives his age as 67! Dear God, everyone except me is getting old :)
ReplyDeleteDidn't know that about the 90s film, but I do remember 'fluke' being turned into a film. That was a great choice from his list of novels. Not.
I've read the Ghosts of Sleath but didn't connect The Haunted to it; but then again I did read 'Ghosts' years ago. The last book of his I read was 48, bought cheap from Asda and enjoyed immensely.
oh I loved Fluke,the book anyway.And yea '48 is superb! Totally different for Herbert! Also try Portent which is about our ecosystem getting its own back, like the movie 2012 or Day After Tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favourites is The Magic Cottage,notable for featuring Phil Collins!
The first one I read was Moon-must re read it,its been years!
Also The Fog is good (his first novel),featuring creepy cows,lol.
I recently read The Survivor for the first time, another early book and also made into a film in 1981 with Robert Powell.