Post by Vaughan on Aug 8, 2009 7:03:33 GMT
If you’re going to define a sub-genre, going to have a best seller with it, going to create a little niche market, then others are going to follow. Call it inspiration, call it homage, claim whatever artistic device you feel legitimizes it best – but let’s face it, it’s an economic goal that will drive it to market from a publishers standpoint.
Once something is big, it’s emulated, copied, manipulated first in small ways, and then larger ways, until yet another sub-genre materializes. Then it all starts again.
But who could argue that more of the same should be denied the guy that started it all? James Herbert had given us The Rats, a hugely popular book, and if anyone was going to benefit from its success, surely Herbert was the guy most deserving? And so we got The Lair, a sequel to The Rats, appearing a mere five years after the original.
The Lair runs a familiar path, although things are fleshed out a little better, the basic story benefiting from an additional fifty-odd pages on the original. Transpose London for Epping Forest, and you probably already have a pretty good idea of what new opportunities this inspiring scenery afforded Herbert. Rather than the hustle and bustle of urban life filling the pages, you have the broken tranquillity of the forest.
Herbert is careful to refer back to scenes in the first book, giving nice continuity, and while there is in reality little new going on here, the story feels smoother, more satisfying, one might say more “professional”. That can sometimes be a bad thing, but not in this case.
Still, having said that there is still one jarring sequence in the book. Amazingly for a title with 244 pages in all, things take a severe turn for the worse on page 191 through 200. I mean, a nine page seduction sequence! These novels are riddled with hilarious sex scenes, but in this case Herbert is apparently enjoying it way too much, and this seems to go on and on. Wholly unnecessary, it enlightens and enlivens nothing, and is a bit squirm inducing – which is saying something when you’re reading a book about giant rats!
Maybe I’m being a bit harsh overall, given you can skip pages 191 to 200 completely and not miss a thing of consequence, it’s just curious to me when Herbert seems to lose his own plot. We’ll set that aside though.
Perhaps not surprisingly, I enjoyed The Lair. It follows the path of the first novel, but when they’re this good it’s a road you don’t mind travelling a second time. Herbert does a good job (for the most part) keeping things chugging along, and the action sequences are a little better that those in the first book.
Of course there is a third book in the series – Domain. And yes it’s sitting on my shelf. I’ve heard only bad things about it, and talk about bloat, it runs for 420+ pages. Ouch! But maybe I’ll tackle it soon, just to finish things off. Hell, I’ve gone this far, and I’m the sort who is attracted to things people tell me to stay away from.
But even if we only had The Rats and The Lair we’d have a hell of a good time. Let’s face it, we wax lyrical about the significance of these novels, and the reason for that is that they’re just very very good. Perhaps this one was unnecessary, but as I have said, who can begrudge Herbert, of all people, going to back to the trough? Or the cellar.
Once something is big, it’s emulated, copied, manipulated first in small ways, and then larger ways, until yet another sub-genre materializes. Then it all starts again.
But who could argue that more of the same should be denied the guy that started it all? James Herbert had given us The Rats, a hugely popular book, and if anyone was going to benefit from its success, surely Herbert was the guy most deserving? And so we got The Lair, a sequel to The Rats, appearing a mere five years after the original.
The Lair runs a familiar path, although things are fleshed out a little better, the basic story benefiting from an additional fifty-odd pages on the original. Transpose London for Epping Forest, and you probably already have a pretty good idea of what new opportunities this inspiring scenery afforded Herbert. Rather than the hustle and bustle of urban life filling the pages, you have the broken tranquillity of the forest.
Herbert is careful to refer back to scenes in the first book, giving nice continuity, and while there is in reality little new going on here, the story feels smoother, more satisfying, one might say more “professional”. That can sometimes be a bad thing, but not in this case.
Still, having said that there is still one jarring sequence in the book. Amazingly for a title with 244 pages in all, things take a severe turn for the worse on page 191 through 200. I mean, a nine page seduction sequence! These novels are riddled with hilarious sex scenes, but in this case Herbert is apparently enjoying it way too much, and this seems to go on and on. Wholly unnecessary, it enlightens and enlivens nothing, and is a bit squirm inducing – which is saying something when you’re reading a book about giant rats!
Maybe I’m being a bit harsh overall, given you can skip pages 191 to 200 completely and not miss a thing of consequence, it’s just curious to me when Herbert seems to lose his own plot. We’ll set that aside though.
Perhaps not surprisingly, I enjoyed The Lair. It follows the path of the first novel, but when they’re this good it’s a road you don’t mind travelling a second time. Herbert does a good job (for the most part) keeping things chugging along, and the action sequences are a little better that those in the first book.
Of course there is a third book in the series – Domain. And yes it’s sitting on my shelf. I’ve heard only bad things about it, and talk about bloat, it runs for 420+ pages. Ouch! But maybe I’ll tackle it soon, just to finish things off. Hell, I’ve gone this far, and I’m the sort who is attracted to things people tell me to stay away from.
But even if we only had The Rats and The Lair we’d have a hell of a good time. Let’s face it, we wax lyrical about the significance of these novels, and the reason for that is that they’re just very very good. Perhaps this one was unnecessary, but as I have said, who can begrudge Herbert, of all people, going to back to the trough? Or the cellar.