'Salem's Lot by Stephen King (1975): Because The N.The Rats by James Herbert (1974): Down in the Tube.Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg (1978): Damned.Dark Dreamers, edited by Stanley Wiater (1990): Fi.Dark Forces, edited by Kirby McCauley (1980): Face.Finishing Touches by Thomas Tessier (1986): One La.The various set-pieces of carnage - a primary school, the tube, a movie theater - are well-conceived and executed, filled with as much blood and bits of bodies and grue as he could get away with. Herbert plunges into his novel without apology or surcease (or, as Stephen King put it in his 1981 horror memoir Danse Macabre, he "does not just write, he puts on his combat boots and goes out to assault the reader with horror") and the result is a really enjoyable piece of pulp horror fiction, barely 200 pages long. The rest of the book's characters are mostly interchangeable men and women introduced with a lively little backstory, snapshots of post-war British life at various social levels - mostly lower to highlight the fault and ineptitude of government - and then mercilessly cut down by horrid ravenous vermin the size of dogs. Harris, the young teacher in charge of a class of hooligans, who finally faces down the hordes of mutant rats, seemed to me Trevor Bannister, from "Are You Being Served?" His girlfriend Judy would no doubt be played by the loverly Jenny Agutter. I can see the bad hair and enormous sideburns, the plaid slacks, black-framed glasses, ladies in stockings, miniskirts, and bunned-up hair. It's set mostly in the tower blocks and slums of London, early '70s. Since James Herbert's debut horror novel is propelled by the same energy and pacing as a B-movie from the era, I now felt inspired to cast it.
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