A review by tobin_elliott
48 by James Herbert
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Still gamely making my way through Herbert's bibiography. This one was...different, yet similar to his others.
Wildly different in that Herbert does his own take on the post-apocalyptic genre. It seems like every big name horror author has to try their hand at an end-of-the-world scenario. Stephen King with The Stand, Robert R. McCammon with Swan Song, Graham Masterton with Plague, and now Herbert.
Of those four, I'd say this was the least successful, but it's actually, aside from a few sour notes, one of the more enjoyable Herbert novels recently.
It opens on an action scene that just goes on and on...maybe a bit too much, but it was fun, at least. Honestly, as others have said, this one rarely stops to catch its breath. So it's a plus, but it's also, at times, a minus.
Some of the other stuff is the standard boilerplate Herbert complaints:
- The virile male protagonist noticing the overly attractive female character at a most inappropriate moment
_ The virile male protagonist absolutely getting it on with said overly attractive female character, often because she pretty much throws herself at him.
- The third was non-standard but, while I get that Herbert was drumming up some conflict within the group with Nathaniel hating on the Nazi Wilhelm, the repetitious anger got to be a little over the top and uncomfortable.
Overall, the plot was a touch far-fetched (more than most of the post-apocalyptic novels I've experienced, anyway), and I had to really really lean into my suspension of disbelief at how the Blackshirts planned to save themselves.
But, overall, for all its issues, this was definitely one of the more fun, and more readable novels of his.
Wildly different in that Herbert does his own take on the post-apocalyptic genre. It seems like every big name horror author has to try their hand at an end-of-the-world scenario. Stephen King with The Stand, Robert R. McCammon with Swan Song, Graham Masterton with Plague, and now Herbert.
Of those four, I'd say this was the least successful, but it's actually, aside from a few sour notes, one of the more enjoyable Herbert novels recently.
It opens on an action scene that just goes on and on...maybe a bit too much, but it was fun, at least. Honestly, as others have said, this one rarely stops to catch its breath. So it's a plus, but it's also, at times, a minus.
Some of the other stuff is the standard boilerplate Herbert complaints:
- The virile male protagonist noticing the overly attractive female character at a most inappropriate moment
_ The virile male protagonist absolutely getting it on with said overly attractive female character, often because she pretty much throws herself at him.
- The third was non-standard but, while I get that Herbert was drumming up some conflict within the group with Nathaniel hating on the Nazi Wilhelm, the repetitious anger got to be a little over the top and uncomfortable.
Overall, the plot was a touch far-fetched (more than most of the post-apocalyptic novels I've experienced, anyway), and I had to really really lean into my suspension of disbelief at how the Blackshirts planned to save themselves.
But, overall, for all its issues, this was definitely one of the more fun, and more readable novels of his.