Sepulchre

Rating:
Summary: You love him or you hate him
Review: In Sepulchre, there is a house that holds a dreadful secret. "The Keeper", the psychic and the secret serve a force which threatens mankind itself. Judging from the reviews, readers tend to either love James Herbert or hate him. Personally, I believe he never ever gets the praise he richly deserves. I'm a big Stephen King fan, but when Herbert is on form (as he surely is in this book) he is close to unbeatable. If you've never read a James Herbert novel, make this one your first. It's fast paced and intricate, avoiding the descriptive overkill that sometimes blocks the smooth flow of King or Koontz. He has the amazing ability to make characters absolutely terrifying and utterly deplorable and if you like your horror sick and scary but with a vengeful ending this book is a must. It's yet another amazing example of Herbert's highly original mind.

Rating:
Summary: Different, sometimes frightening, sometimes stupid.
Review: What a puzzle this book was. I felt it has such potential, but just lost my interest when it went nowhere. I don't know what people thought was so wonderful about the ending (other reviews), I thought it was ho-hum. The story, or plot, should have been interesting, but it wasn't.
The best thing about the book was the Polish driver's history, and the mystery about the protagonist's true nature.

Rating:
Summary: The only horror here is the bad writing
Review: When you consider how good Herbert can be: Haunted, The Magic Cottage, Moon - this book is a real disappointment. The story begins quite well but starts to drag halfway through, so that by the time you reach the denouement, you are beyond caring. Part of the problem lies with the characterisation, which is wooden and lifeless. The characters are archetypes, never individuals, and so you care neither one way nor the other about them... Herbert's descriptive powers seem to have deserted him. The house of Neath never vividly comes to life. It is like a set on an empty film lot. Yet, the house is central to the story. The horror, despite its gaudiness (which is a lamentable feature of most of Herbert's works), never really horrifies, which for a horror book, is pretty damning. When Herbert writes well, he writes very well: When he writes badly, he writes books like Sepulchre.