Rating: 
Summary: I don't care what others say, I loved it!!
Review: I haven't always been a fan of James Herbert, it has only been the last 10 years or so that I have begun to really like him. I liked The Fog (I have owned a copy for 10 years and it was the book that got me into James Herbert). I bought Once on a whim and didnt even read the back, I read the Magic Cottage again after having it a year or so but only reading it the once, so I bought Once and read it n 2 days flat. I couldn't put it down. I'm not going to go into the prose, or the way it was written or other pretentious (stuff). The descriptions of the faerie folk were exquisite, the story was good, a bit expected but good, James Herbert is one of the authors who enable me to see the book in my head as a picture, through his descriptions I saw the story and I loved it. This is a book I will keep for ever and will read often. I hope Jame Herbert keeps writing for a long time as I find authors of today lacking in imagination.
Rating:
Summary: Freaky fairies, WOW!
Review: I just discovered James Herbert a few months ago and I found he has written a whole bunch of books. I have read The Others and I highly recommend it also. This book (Once) was addictive. I couldn't put it down until I finished it. Warning though there are some pretty kinky sex scenes in this book so I don't really recommend it for anybody under the age of 16 or 17. I enjoy Mr.
Herberts books because they depict an ordinary or in the case of The Others disabled person, and let them do some extraordinary things. Take away all the magic and mystical stuff in them and they are essentially just stories of the little man going against really bad people and winning. So if you like fairies read this book, if not then read it anyway.
Rating:
Summary: Who cares what everyone thinks
Review: I really enjoy a book when I can root for the bad guy. This is one of those books. I cannot stress enough the importence of getting emotionally involved when I read a book. This book did that to me. I laughed, I cried, I did some other stuff(when you read it you will know what I mean)On reading some of the other reviews on this book and others I begin to see a certain trend by reviewers. They review the book like they were professors of literature. I review like a common reader. I loved this book becasue it took me away for awhile into another world. I loved Thoms Faery world. I loved the evil sperm guzzeling witch. the ending could have been better, but hey I'm always dissapointed when a fun ride ends.
Rating:
Summary: An unusual but compelling story.
Review: I really enjoyed this book...a fairytale that's definitely for adults. I enjoyed the dreamlike descriptions just as much as the shockingly graphic parts. An interesting story which intrigued and absorbed me.
If you enjoyed stories about forests and woodland folk as a child and now like horror...this is the book for you!!
Rating: 
Summary: Things were going fairly well, until...
Review: I really liked the first two-thirds of this book, but after that I was physically unable to finish. I really liked the character of Thom and savored his chemistry with Jennet (although it was a bit creepy that the love interest is described as so childlike). The quiet parts where the two are exploring the forest and talking while Nell was off being wicked are the book's best feature. But once the romantic tension was resolved and Nell looked to be turning into a generic villian, I lost interest. It was disappointing to see a story that started out detailing unseen worlds of wonder devolve into a typical Good vs. Evil climax. Just when the book should have been roping me in, it lost me, and I've been unable to finish reading it for over a year.
Rating:
Summary: It's a modern fairy tale....just not a very good one
Review: I think James Herbert is a talented author. I have most of his books and I usually can't put his books down. I have to say though, I was dissapointed in "Once".
First of all, I didn't like the main character Thom. Basically the ENTIRE book he either whines how what he is seeing can't be true or he is amazed that he gets "aroused" (he recently had a stroke). The character is never really fleshed out and the reader really feels no interest in him. The other characters are even more bland. The "plot" of the book and the twist at the end were ridiculously easy to figure out and there was no feeling of suspense and I never found myself wondering or even caring what was going to happen next.
As far as the writing goes, Herbert does a good job describing things and making you almost able to visualize the Castle and it's forest but again since the plot was so bland, I really didn't care what the Castle looked like. The sex scenes are so so, not to frequent but really not contributing to the story. Most fantasy/sci-fi doesn't have many sex scenes and this might be a reason why as it does take away from the action and the story if not written well and the way Herbert writes the scenes in this novel they were more annoying than erotic.
All in all I don't recommend this book and think you might like The Magic Cottage or one of his other novels instead. It was a good premise, a fairy tale for adults and it's too bad he couldn't make it work.
Rating: 
Summary: Rubbish
Review: I used to be a fan of James Herbert but must say that my taste for his books took a decided downturn after reading the first few chapters of this book. But given the hardcover price, I felt the need to read at least half and skim the rest. I was appalled by the stereotypical characters and their lackluster development, the explicit sex scenes (which not only interrupted the flow - what little there was - of the story but were also terribly cheesy!!) and predictable end. What a waste of money...
Rating:
Summary: Another Hit For Herbert
Review: If you are fan of Herbert's or just like good horror/suspense, his newest work will not disappoint.
Rating:
Summary: WORDY AND UN-ORIGINAL
Review: In truth, I did read the reviews for this book, but decided to take a chance and buy it anyway. By the time I got to page 40, I felt like I was back in a school--it became 'required' reading instead of pleasure reading. I considered it 'required' because I had paid my money for this book so I was 'required' to read the whole thing.Soft porn aside, the whole fairy journey was long, boring and unoriginal. The characters were stereotypical: the bad witch Nell vs. the good fairie Jennett. The good 'son' versus the 'bad' one, yada yada yada... Mr. Herbert has some really nice passages but they got bogged down with too many other passages. And the thing where he put explanations in parenthesis looked like footnotes to himself he didn't bother to work into the story. Disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Complete and Utter Intolerable Rubbish!
Review: Of all the imbecilic,fatuous,stodgy,b-rated horror novels that I have read, James Herbert's banalistic Once... is the crowned tepid travesty of terror conquering them all. Its a 460 page, tediously detailed, overly descriptive monotonous load of poppycock crammed full of absurd chimerical fairy beings, laughable and comically ludicrous in their unoriginality, pointless digressions from the main storyline (there are entire events thrown haphazardly throughout that are irrelevant and senseless, as pertaining to the plot),foolish and endless philosophizing about a moronic and asinine metaphysical idea of the ontological state of the universe, and silly diabolical entities meaning to terrify, but instead, soliciting chuckles of derision. Interspersed throughout all of this drivel are explicit scenes of lewd licentious sex that fill up entire chapters and fail to entertain. A preposterous poorly written parody of a book that attempts to masquerade as an misshapen prodigy born of a mishmash between Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker's literary masterpieces but horribly falls flat on its face wide of its intended mark. Once...begins well, the first few chapters are well written, literary honey proffered to grasp the reader's attention and draw them in, and then, like a mousetrap snapping over a hapless creature's head, the reader finds themselves admist a gigantic yawn over a hundred pages into the book, wondering when the story will finally begin. And when it does it comes as a great disappointment. Predictable and cliched, the plot follows the overdone good vrs evil duality, preaching about god and his beloved son, while lauding carefree and open lovemaking. And to make matters worse, the author obviously failed to do any research into the meanings and uses of occultic symbols, using them solely to invoke a mysterious and nefarious atmosphere. For instance, during a climactic scene between the ultimate antagonist and protoganist the evil-doer is made (without any explanation)to hold an ankh during her spell casting, which is absolutely execrable being the ankh is an ancient Egyptian artifact symbolizing eternal life and even used by the early Christians as a representation of Christ on his cross. So was Herbert's ridiculous portrayal of the pentagram. Furthermore, his knowledge of Wicca is extremely lax being its a "white light" religion, not the wicked satanic cult as rendered in this onerous tome of fantasy. Dull in its prose, the characters are pizzazzless and impossible, Thom Kindred is quite the unbelievable character as someone who had just survived an accident that left his whole left side of his body necrotised, as he sprints through the forest numerous times, gets stung by wasps, bitten by oceans of spiders, and falls down stairs. It was all I could do to finish this jaundiced, maliciously
cumbersome novel. Do as I advise, if you want to read an entertaining, delectable,
adult oriented fairytale do yourself a favor and seek out Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker or even Stephen King. Don't waste your time or hard earned money on this vapid nonsense.
Oh, and one more thing, the only reason this motley collection of words attempting to pass itself off as literature got even one star from me is because I couldn't write this review without it.
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