Haunted by Herbert

Despite the popularity of his novels, one thing that has always always eluded James Herbert is a successful film adaptation. Even a proposed television series of original chillers in 1987 never happened … as David J Howe found out.

James Herbert’s novel Haunted (published November 1989) originally started life as a proposed television series for the BBC in 1985/6. As was normal, BBC Producers would routinely discuss ideas and projects with the BBC’s Head of Series and Serials, and limited development was then done to see if they had ‘legs’ and could be commissioned.

The origin of the Haunted series proposal can be traced to a BBC Producer named Evgeny Gridneff, who, at the time had just completed recording on a mini-series called Hold the Back Page. ‘In September 1985 I was having discussions with Jonathan Powell, the BBC’s Head of Series and Serials, about producing Star Cops the following year, which he wanted me to do. As a freelance Producer one had to seriously consider work that was being offered, even if it was something that wasn’t your own idea or that you had originally proposed. At the same time, as one always has to think ahead, I was on the lookout for new ideas and projects to develop and I felt there was a gap in the market for a good horror series. I’ve always been a fan of the unusual. Tales of the Unexpected and the original series of Star Trek were firm favourites. As a teenager I also read a lot of Marvel comics and horror related comic books, so was broadly familiar with the genre.

‘I mentioned the idea of a horror series to Joanna Willett, who was my script editor at the time on Hold the Back Page.’

‘I remember I met with the horror writer James Herbert,’ recalls Willett, ‘but I can’t remember the exact circumstances of the meeting. I do know that James was initially resistant to something original for television, but warmed to the idea during our discussion.’

Willett mentioned Herbert as a possibility to Gridneff. ‘I read a couple of his books, which I enjoyed,’ he says. ‘But I was more interested in doing an original story rather than an adaptation of any of his books. So might he be interested in creating a TV series?

‘I contacted his agent, who later came back to say that James was initially interested. Next I approached Jonathan Powell with the idea and he seemed keen and told me to go ahead and see what James had to offer.’

In October 1985 Gridneff and Willett flew to Jersey, where Herbert was living, for a first meeting to discuss the possibility of him coming up with an original story for a TV series. ‘It was a good meeting and we got on well,’ explained Gridneff. ‘He was interested and had a few ideas floating about, but needed to think about it. His one proviso, if it did work out, was that he would write the scripts. He admitted he’d never before written a script but was willing for the challenge. He wanted control of the process, which was fair enough. Jo and I wondered, when we later flew back home, whether he could do it, as it’s quite different from writing a novel.’

‘That’s true,’ says Willett. ‘There was some nervousness from us about whether James could write it or not. Writing television is very different from writing novels. It’s far more collaborative. I remember James also being quite clear that he wasn’t used to rewrites on his novels.’

Gridneff started Producing Star Cops in December 1985, and was working on the series with the show’s creator, Chris Boucher. There was a lot of work to be done as Boucher had devised the show as half hour episodes, but Jonathan Powell wanted it as a series of 10 x 50’ episodes. ‘In the meantime,’ said Gridneff, ‘James Herbert produced an idea that he titled Spectres which I liked. This resulted in a lunch with James, myself and Jonathan Powell to discuss it all. As a result, Jonathan agreed to commission a series – which soon became Haunted.’

By May 1986, Jo Willett had moved on from the BBC to work at Euston Films and Granada Television, and Gridneff decided to proceed without a script editor. ‘James had sent a draft of the first episode of Haunted. I was disappointed, it wasn’t very good. It needed a major rewrite if it was going to work. I wasn’t looking forward to facing him, which I knew I had to do, so I arranged to meet him at his new home in Woodmancote, near Henfield. A beautiful house in its own grounds. After a few pleasantries, I asked him how he worked with his book editors and publishers. I knew he designed his own covers. He said that he delivered the manuscript and they published it. Didn’t the editors make suggestions for possible rewrites, I wondered?  He said they might have done, indicating to me that he might not have been prepared to do any rewrites. Ah, I thought, we might have a problem here as I had a lot of notes.

‘I said I felt that the series was coming along, but that there still was a bit of work to be done on the script. He stared at me stony-faced and just said “Go on …” I then began the task of slowly going through all my notes. During each major point I could sense he was getting progressively angrier, only making the occasional disagreeing comment. I was now getting prepared to be shown the door. After I finished he dropped his copy of the script on the coffee table in anger. “I’m really furious,” he said. I waited for a barrage of words and was ready to make my leave. “What really makes me angry …” he added having calmed himself, “is that I think you’re right. It’s not working as it is. I need to look at it again. Your notes make sense. Thank you. I’m angry at myself for not getting it right first time.” He then agreed to do a rewrite and we parted on good terms.

‘In the interim he kindly invited me to the publication launch of his new book The Magic Cottage. He later delivered a much better version of Episode 1, which I was happy with, and was working on Episode 2. We also discussed bringing in other writers, which I believe was his suggestion. I remember a lunch meeting between him, me and Stephen Volk to discuss the possibilities.’

‘I remember meeting Evgeny and James in Julie’s wine bar in Notting Hill,’ recalls Stephen Volk, now an award-winning writer of screenplays and prose. At the time Volk had just finished working on the script for Ken Russell’s film Gothic. ‘The idea was a series which span out the Ash character and used him as a running character investigating hauntings, each a different story of the week. The concept was that some would be supernatural and some would have natural explanations. They asked me to look at Episode Three.’

‘The brief was to base Episode Three (which was a standard BBC 50 minutes in those days) on one of a couple of ideas that Herbert had provided as notes for the series. One was about a haunted church, and so I wrote a script which I called “The Church”. I recall it was to do with the ringing of bells, which turned out not to be supernatural but rather that the vicar was going mad.

‘My interest in the whole thing was in writing a modern ghost hunter. I was not enormously impressed by the characterisation of David Ash in the initial scripts, with his leather jacket and whiskies. That is all his characterisation seemed to be. To my mind it was essential in a drama to give him an attitude to what he investigated. I made him more cynical and sceptical, and that was connected to denial and the backstory about his sister’s death. (The ghost hunter who debunks because secretly he wants to believe … I later explored this in my script of the film The Awakening and to an extent in my TV series Afterlife). Herbert, I recall, didn’t much like what I’d done and was quite curmudgeonly about it.’

As with much television development, a lot of time can go by without anything much happening. During 1986 and 1987, Gridneff was busy on Star Cops and trying to develop other series. Haunted meanwhile had gone on the back burner. ‘I don’t remember much,’ Gridneff says, ‘apart from keeping in touch with James, mainly to let him know there was no news. No other scripts had been commissioned after Episode 3. We were waiting to get the green light to actually produce the series. I was invited to the publication launch of James’s new book Sepulchre at the Ritz in July ‘87, and we continued to have a good relationship.’

‘I’ve done a TV series for the BBC,’ Herbert revealed to Michael Parkinson on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs transmitted 14 September 1986, ‘which should be very scary. Not horrific in the sense of blood and gore but psychologically very chilling. I’ve got high hopes for that. The BBC have been very good. They’ve actually gone along with me with everything I’ve asked for, so we hope to start filming that next May. That’s actually a series and it’s going to scare. I promise you that.’

During 1987, Jonathan Powell was promoted to Controller of BBC1 and the role of Head of Series and Serials was taken by Mark Shivas. ‘Shivas wasn’t interested in doing Haunted or any of the other projects that I offered,’ says Gridneff. ‘Furthermore, my contract wouldn’t be renewed and I left the BBC in April 1988! It was not a happy time.’

Gridneff was left with having to let Herbert know the news. ‘I rang James to tell him that Haunted was not going to be done now at the BBC. However, no longer with the BBC myself, I was prepared to go and pitch the series to ITV and Channel 4 if he’d let me. He would only agree, however, if I’d be prepared to take out a paid Option on the series. I explained that I couldn’t afford to, hoping that as we seemed to work well together, he’d be happy to let me try and sell it without any finances involved. But it wasn’t to be. That was it. The end of the project.’

‘I think the BBC just got cold feet about the idea of a supernatural drama series,’ says Volk. ‘As they invariably do. In spite of the name of a best-selling author being attached. It is ever thus. They don’t understand the supernatural genre and they don’t like it, even when they say they want to make it! As it happened I later did an adaptation of Herbert’s novel The Ghosts Of Sleath for Bentley Productions as 90 minuter, with an eye to ITV. It never happened, but I revisited David Ash in that, at least.’

Herbert’s second draft scripts for the first two episodes of the series exist. These introduce and tell the story of sceptical psychic investigator David Ash and his experiences at the haunted mansion of Edbrook. The scripts would no doubt have been further revised and amended prior to filming. The first episode, for example, runs to 167 pages, and at the industry standard of one page equalling one minute, would amount to around 2 hours 47 minutes. The second script has 115 pages which is around 1 hour 55 minutes. Willett recalls that the idea might have been, and that Herbert was very keen on, the opening episodes being more feature-length which would explain the longer length of the scripts. As to whether this might have been accepted by Jonathan Powell or not is lost to history …

James Herbert’s eventually published novel Haunted follows the scripted version pretty faithfully. Added to the novel are two flashback chapters (9 and 23) which deal with Psychic Researchers Kate and Edith’s past relationships with David Ash, and two supernatural experiences that they shared together. These would appear to be based on the additional episode ideas supplied by Herbert during the course of the development and discussions as Chapter 9 is all about a Church in which the bells keep ringing: it is different to Volk’s script though. Otherwise the novel is effectively a novelisation of the scripts.

‘When Haunted was published as a book and went to number one in the best seller lists, I rang James to congratulate him,’ said Gridneff. ‘He thanked me and said he was grateful for my input and suggestions on the original story during our script discussions. I had hoped I’d get some acknowledgement in the book – but there was none, which was sad.’

‘Typical BBC,’ said Herbert when interviewed about the project. ‘Everyone said they loved it, even the typists, and then Jonathan Powell, who had been in charge of drama, was promoted. A new guy, Mark Shivas, came in and apparently he didn’t like ghost stories and so nothing further happened.’

David J Howe

 

HERBERT ON FILM

David J Howe explores the various film adaptations of James Herbert’s work.

The first of James Herbert’s books to be adapted as films were The Survivor in 1980 with Robert Powell and Jenny Agutter and The Rats in 1982/3 (called Deadly Eyes in America), starring Sam Groom and Scatman Crothers and directed by Robert Clouse. ‘I had nothing to do with those two films,’ states Jim. ‘I heard after the event that The Rats had been sold to Golden Harvest who did all those Bruce Lee Kung-Fu films. I sent a note to David Hemmings when I heard he was directing The Survivor to offer my assistance if he wanted it – I didn’t get a reply. I’ve seen them. They’re terrible … absolute rubbish. I can only say don’t blame me.’

Following this was a film of Fluke in 1995 and also a higher profile film of Haunted in the same year. ‘I sold it to Lewis Gilbert,’ says Jim. ‘Lewis is a lovely man – in fact that was part of the problem. He’s so nice it’s very hard to argue with him. I actually stood in my office here, and said, “Lewis, I’m telling you from my heart, what you’re doing is wrong. I’m telling you. Twenty years experience writing horror … what you’re doing is wrong.” His response: “Oh darling, it doesn’t matter. What we’re doing is not set in concrete, we can change it.” Of course they didn’t change it because they were doing exactly what he wanted to do.

‘Despite my reservations it turned out to be a good quality film – it just wasn’t my story any more. It starred Aiden Quinn, Kate Beckinsale and Anna Massey with Anthony Andrews and Sir John Gielgud – a great cast. It was at the premiere that I got to meet Princess Diana. I remember she said to me, “So you’re responsible for all this, are you?” and I said, “Well yes. I hope you don’t mind some horror.” “I’m used to it …” she replied …

‘The film of Fluke on the other hand I’m quite pleased with. Years ago, an Italian film student called Carlo Carlei came to see me in London and said that he wanted to be a director and that my book Fluke had changed his life, and that it was the film he wanted to make. He explained that it might take a long time as he’d have to do others before until he had the budget. So he paid me year after year after year for the rights to the novel and finally he made a film in Italy that Hollywood liked and so they gave him the money to do Fluke. The script was OK and it turned out to be a great little film. That starred Eric Stoltz just before he did Pulp Fiction.’

Other film options have been taken out on Jim’s books, but none have yet to see fruition. There was interest in Shrine from a film producer but this ran into financial problems, there was interest in The Magic Cottage from America but this currently in limbo, The Fog was optioned in the early eighties, but that has now expired, John Hough was interested in The Dark but this too fell apart. Creed also had many admirers, amongst them British comedian Lenny Henry. ‘Lenny rang me up out of the blue and arranged to do a big sales pitch to me to get the rights to do the movie. Now Lenny is very funny but he’s also very, very intelligent and he’s extremely nice, you just couldn’t wish to meet a nicer guy. I’d made up my mind within five minutes that I was going to let him have it, because I liked the idea of Lenny playing Joe Creed. It was a twist to it, it was unexpected.’

As of writing, however, the film has not yet materialised. ‘I’d love to have a decent film,’ Jim muses. ‘That would be one ambition, to have a really good movie made of one of my books.’

The Secret of Crickley Hall, was filmed by the BBC for television in 2012. ‘I haven’t had much involvement,’ said Herbert in a 2012 interview for Sussex Life, ‘but I read the script for the first part and thought it was brilliant. I really believed that it was unfilmable, but the director Joe Ahearne wrote the script as well and he is just really great.

‘I asked for certain things to be changed and they agreed to so much, but then when I got the second script I couldn’t finish it because they had changed too much. But I realise that once you have handed the book over it is up to the director’s vision. I went up to the filming in Buxton and watched a scene with Joe. Suranne Jones really surprised me with the sheer depth of her acting, so I am expecting good things.’

Finally, Shrine was optioned by Sam Raimi in 2018. In February 2020 it was reported by Deadline.com as having started filming by writer-director Evan Spiliotopoulos in Massachusetts with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Katie Aselton, Cary Elwes and William Sadler. The film was released as The Unholy in April 2021.

JAMES HERBERT 

 James Herbert OBE (April 1943 – March 2013) was not only Britain’s number one bestselling writer of chiller fiction, a position he held ever since publication of his first novel, but was also one of our greatest popular novelists. Widely imitated and hugely influential, his twenty-three novels have sold more than fifty-four million copies worldwide, and have been translated into over thirty languages, including Russian and Chinese. He was awarded an OBE by the Queen for services to literature. His final novel was Ash, published in August 2012.

 

 

 

Christmas Horror Picks

Christmas is a time for gathering your friends and family around a blazing fire, sipping brandy as you listen to the wind howl outside and the rain beat against the window panes. Then someone clears their throat and starts to tell tales of ghosts and ghoulies, of strange crazed men scuttling along alleys lit only by the full moon, of werewolves and of vampires. David J. Howe presents his pick of horror and fantasy books published in 1994.

Title / Publisher / Format / Author	Plot	Shocks	Character	Imagination	Gross Outs	Entertainment Value
The Ghosts of Sleath (HarperCollins h/b) James Herbert	Haunted psychic investigator checks out a ghost-infested village and finds more than he bargained for.	Subtle and varied. Hauntings include an eerie burning haystack, a small drowned boy, a bleeding gibbet. The ending is guaranteed to leave you squirming.	This is a sequel to Herbert’s novel Haunted and features the same lead characters. The people come over as very real with believable problems and anxieties. It might help to have read Haunted first.	Very much a ‘traditional’ ghost story told in Herbert’s unique voice. A modern-day fireside chiller.	Herbert is fairly restrained in this novel. However scenes in which a man has his face planed off with carpentry tools are pretty nasty.	A classic story by Britain’s master of horror.
Caliban’s Hour (Legend h/b) Tad Williams	Caliban, anti-hero of Shakespeare’s The Tempest returns to extract his revenge on Prospero and Miranda. But first he must tell his story.	This is a superb short fantasy novel taking recognised characters and revealing their hidden past. Biggest shock is when Caliban’s mother dies.	Caliban comes alive in this novel. He is portrayed as a tragic and sensitive character, full of true human regrets and passions. A superb prequel/sequel to The Tempest.	Williams is a natural storyteller and his fertile imagination transports you effortlessly to Caliban’s verdant isle. A totally believable and convincing tale.	Emotional rather than visceral horror. The slow realisation that the beast Caliban is more human than those who would teach him to be like them. Revulsion at man’s vanity and pomposity.	Superb character study by one of the finest Fantasy writers working today.
Nocturne (Gollancz h/b & p/b) Mark Chadbourn	New Orleans: the dead start to appear on the streets as a young Englishman, David Easter, searches for his lost love, Fermay, and his lost memory. The key to all these strange happenings is buried in Fermay’s past, but can David discover the truth before it is too late.	Many and varied as the plot twists and turns, keeping you guessing as to how all the pieces fit together. The realisation of what Fermay has to do with the horrific killings is a classic.	Fermay is a wonderful creation with whom you instantly fall in love. David Easter is also very believable as are the assorted crooks and villains who populate New Orleans’ seedy underbelly.	Chadbourn’s love of jazz music, New Orleans and horror are mixed together into a potent brew of suspense and terror. David’s amnesia slowly clears and as he remembers precisely why Fermay left him, we realise that he is in deep trouble.	An attack by a half-man half-bird creature is powerful stuff. Fermay’s role in the proceedings and why she left England also provide a stomach-churning scenario.	Spooky jazz/horror mix with a keen edge. Incredible pulling power.
Feersum Endjinn (Little Brown h/b) Iain Banks	In a future world where reality exists as levels of Virtual Reality in a massive super-computer, the rulers realise that someone is spreading a computer virus through the chaotic levels of the software, resulting in rampant instability and chaos in life’s infrastructure.	The beauty and effectiveness with which Banks draws all his disparate plot threads together into one seamless tapestry. There are many shocks along the way as the characters realise what is going on and how it affects them.	The novel follows three main characters and all are varied and colourful. Most distinctive is Bascule the Teller, a minor prophet who can only write in phonetic English making for challenging reading.	Banks’ imagination is awesome. This is a science fiction tour de force involving computers, virtual reality and altered states of existence. All rolled up in a triumbrate plot involving the saving of civilisation. Incredible, breathtaking stuff	When a soldier, digging in the ground, breaks through to find he is several miles above another ‘ground’ and falls to a rather messy death. Also, several attacks on Bascule by a disembodied skinless face which gibbers at him.	Science Fiction for people who think they don’t like science fiction. Superb storytelling from a great writer.
Lost Souls (Penguin p/b) Poppy Z. Brite	A rites of passage story involving vampires, death-rock musicians, and unrequited love.	Brite’s vampires are incredible, sensuous creatures. Fatally attractive to human females, once impregnated, the unborn foetus literally devours the mother from inside. There aren’t many female vampires keen to have kids!	The lead human characters, Steve and Ghost, are sensitively characterised and totally believable. The vampires are eternal, lonely, vicious, violent and ultimately tragic. The book is a literary and sensual feast which works on many levels.	It takes guts and certainty to put a new spin on vampires these days and Brite manages it in a pervasive and evocative debut novel which feeds all our senses. Taste the blood, smell the cloves and spices, sip the green Chartreuse. Never has a hidden world been better realised.	When the new vampire Nothing kills his schoolfriend. Vicious and loving, brutal and understanding. A twisted love story of epic grandeur.	Incredible sensory overload. A novel to be experienced and savoured.
The Sleepless (Heinmann p/b) Graham Masterton	An ancient life-force sucking evil has been manipulating events since the dawn of time. An accident investigator stumbles onto the secret and comes face to face with the terrifying ‘Mr Hillary’.	A brilliant twisting tale of an evil insidiously entwined throughout our history. Shocks aplenty.	Masterton’s characters are realistic and identifiable. We know these people and the situations with which they are confronted stretch their human abilities to the very limits.	With over 24 horror novels to his name Masterton still writes a fresh tale. This book takes as its premise the children’s rhyme ‘Green grow the rushes-oh’ and imbues it with a sinister and horrifying meaning. Not for the squeamish	Masterton is king of ‘squirmy’ fiction. Here we have multiple murder by pneumatic bolt-cutters and felines found in unnatural places. Gross, great fun and completely terrifying.	A superb chilling story from an accomplished writer. Not for the weak hearted.
Host (Penguin p/b) Peter James	A college professor invents a ‘learning’ computer called ARCHIVE which will, it is hoped, eventually mimic human behaviour. A student discovers how to download memory onto computer disk and then upload it to another host. When the student dies, her memory and personality gets uploaded to ARCHIVE with horrific results.	A novel dealing with cryonics and sentient computers. Numerous nervous moments: the discoveries, the science, the intrusion of a stranger into a formally happy family life. The ending.	James handles his characters with care and attention and they become effective as a result. Both the older professor and the young student with whom he forms a liaison are well written. The computer is cold, as is the cryonics. It all works well together.	James’ work is often based on real life fact and this is no exception. The skill is in projecting it just far enough ahead to be terrifyingly real with the ‘scientific breakthrough’ scenario that is both effective and plausible. These fictions of today may well be the fact of tomorrow.	Some superb set pieces. The dropping of a cryogenically frozen head has shattering results. The kidnap of the professor’s son and what his eventual fate might be. Chillingly effective.	Detailed research gives this novel a ‘true life’ edge which leaves the reader wondering if what they have just read is really fiction. Very enjoyable stuff, especially for those who consider  computers to be an unknowable force. You are being watched!
The Pan Book of Horror: Dark Voices 6  (Pan p/b) Edited by David Sutton and Stephen Jones	This annual collection of horror is still going strong and proves that short stories are just as popular and effective as their longer counterparts. This volume features multiple personalities, mythic terrors, Mexican ghosts, man-eating plants, medical experiments, metamorphosis, maggots, maniacs and loads more brilliant stuff starting with the letter ‘m’.	There are shocks aplenty in its 19 stories. A Roman curse rebounds on its modern day initiator with devastating results; a son finds the ideal base material for his maggot farm; a multiple murderer discovers that his latest intended victim is not as helpless as he thinks. There are too many to list but you are bound to find something here to touch a personal nerve.	Imagination …? A supergroup comprised of Elvis, Joplin, Hendrix, Lennon, Moon and Bonham … making love with a dolphin …  a comedian who makes his big entrance from inside another comedian … a husband who discovers that you shouldn’t two-time your wife if she is a seamstress … all from the cream of todays short horror story writers.	With stories by John Brunner, Michael Marshall Smith, Kim Newman, Nancy Holder, David Case, Nicholas Royle, Daniel Fox, Kathe Koja and others, the characters who populate these tales of terror are either bitter, twisted or dead. Sometimes all three … and before the end of the stories. Hardly a duff one in sight.	There are several wincingly good denouements to the stories but I can’t tell all here or there would be no point in reading them. Trust me on this.	If you like your chills to be short and sharp then this collection delivers. Superior horror fiction.

 

David J Howe

1994

The Secret of Crickley Hall Book Review

THE SECRET OF CRICKLEY HALL
By James Herbert
Published by Macmillan
600pp £17.99 h/b

James Herbert’s books always guarantee a great read with some tremendous shocks and scares along the way. Earlier ghostly epics from Herbert include Haunted and The Ghosts of Sleath but The Secret of Crickley Hall manages to equal them in the spookiness stakes as well as being genuinely unsettling and nasty. It’s about a family, Gabe, his wife, Eve, and his two young daughters Loren and Cally, who move into the eponymous Hall on a temporary basis. However the ancient pile has ghostly secrets. It seems that during the Second World War, a group of children was evacuated to the Hall and placed under the care of Augustus Cribben and his sister Magda. However Augustus was a sadistic masochist with a taste for severe punishment, as well as indulging in a spot of self flagellation, and during a flood in 1943, he and all the children perished.

Of course the truth behind the actual events of that night become clear as the novel progresses, and Herbert manages to juggle all his characters deftly, introducing a psychic, Lili Peel, and a ghost-debunker, Gordon Pyke, both of whom have significant parts to play. The haunting is really well handled, with mysterious banging coming from a cupboard, and the cellar door refusing to stay closed. Even the appearance of the ghosts is terrifying and raises goosebumps on the skin – this is one book you won’t want to read on your own in a deserted house.

As always, Herbert has delivered a novel which chills and horrifies in equal turns. Fans of earlier works like The Dark and The Fog won’t be disappoined, as Herbert has some wincingly painful fates in store for some of the characters. The Secret of Crickley Hall is a spinechilling ghost story, laden with atmosphere and a creepy, effective read.

David Howe

Nobody True Book Review

NOBODY TRUE
James Herbert
Published by Macmillan
392pp £17.99 h/b

‘I wasn’t there when I died’ … so starts Nobody True, the latest horror/thriller from the pen of James Herbert. Once again Herbert has pulled the proverbial rabbit from the hat and has come up with a simply superb novel, which manages to be both intriguing and horrific, whilst still containing as much emotion and feeling as can be wrung from the subject.

Jim True runs an advertising agency, and feels that all is well with his life. He has a gorgeous wife and daughter, the company is doing well, and he and his partners are looking to expand the company. However Jim has a secret, and this is that he can travel outside his body at will. During one of these sessions, he returns to find that his body has been slaughtered by persons unknown.

Being an incorporeal spirit has its advantages though, and Jim starts to investigate his own death, finding a serial killer into the bargain, and ultimately being involved in a nailbiting chase to save his own family from the same fate. It’s superb stuff, well written and totally engaging. On the minus side, there are a couple of scenes where Jim listens in to the police investigating the case which come over as something of an info-dump. I guess there was no other way that the information could be imparted to Jim (who is the first person narrator of the book) but the scenes stand out from the rest of the book, which is uniformly excellent.

I loved the initial idea that a soul remained after the body is dead, but then the plot starts to twist and turn and Jim finds he can animate newly-dead corpses to carry out his plans. The serial killer is one of the most horrific and nasty characters I have yet seen in print, and the whole book is entertaining and thrilling in all the right ways.

There is a reason why James Herbert is Britain’s number one bestselling horror writer. Herbert consistently touches a mainstream theme in his writing which eludes other authors, and the deceptive simplicity of his plots allows for character development and motivation as well as simply a cracking good read.

This is another classic from Herbert, on a par with his recent novels Others and Once…. On the evidence of this, Herbert is on a roll and I’m looking forward immensely to see what he can chill us with next.

David Howe

Once Book Review

ONCE…
By James Herbert
Published by Macmillan
471pp £16.99 h/b

There is always something special about a James Herbert book … as a writer he is constantly reinventing himself, defying critics to place him in a niche as one type of author writing one type of fiction. As he says himself, he writes what he writes, and more often than not, the results are enjoyable, entertaining, and satisfying – exactly what one might expect from someone who hits the top of the best-seller lists with every book he writes.

In keeping with tradition, therefore, Once… is not a traditional ‘James Herbert’ novel, whatever that is. After the sad and mutated human horrors of his previous novel Others, Herbert has moved to happy and sexy faerie folk for the new tale. But don’t be lulled into a false sense of expectation. Once… may appear to be a faerie story for adults, but it is also horrific and erotic in a way that only James Herbert can manage.

Thom Kindred returns to his childhood home following an accident which left him easily tired and slightly lame. There he finds that things have not really changed, and the cottage he is staying in brings back many memories. However his childhood friend Hugo has a problem: Hugo’s father is sick and dying, nursed by the startlingly attractive Nell Quick. When Nell starts to take an interest in Thom, his suspicions are aroused, but soon Thom finds himself distracted. He sees creatures with wings and shedding light: faeries. He is captivated by one such human-sized creature, and soon Thom starts to discover that his past is not all that he believed, and that he has a strange affinity with these beautiful and alluring creatures.

Herbert paints a wonderful world of shifting light and dark, where characters’ motivations are often hidden, and those who seem benign turn out to be anything but. Thom experiences sex and lust with the faerie folk, and it’s difficult not to become involved in the erotic scenes that follow. However by turns the novel brings darkness and horror as an evil succubus is sent to obtain Thom’s semen, and Thom finds himself subject to terrifying attacks by wasps and spiders as he tries to understand the threads that bind him to the cottage.

I really enjoyed this novel. Like many of Herbert’s books it’s an undemanding read, yet draws you in and captivates you. The plot is straightforward, and the characters are interesting … all told an excellent read. But Herbert always goes one step further, and the packaging of the book is also superb. It’s currently available in two hardback editions: one with a black cover and one with a white cover. Moreover both editions feature a number of superb colour plates by artist Steve Stone, as well as numerous elves and faeries drawn by Bill Gregory and Herbert himself. It all amounts to a lovely package from a master storyteller.

David Howe

'48 AudioBook Review

‘48
by James Herbert, read by Kerry Shale
Published by HarperCollins Audiobooks
£7.99 twin cassette pack

‘48 was the big new novel from James Herbert in 1996, and was an apocalyptic tale of an alternate history in which Hitler managed to wipe out most life in Europe using the blood plague which left only a few unaffected survivors scavenging a living.

The novel followed the exploits of Hoke, an American, in his attempts to outwit a group of fanatical blackshirts who have determined to use his blood as a cure for their fatal condition.

The novel is fast moving and exciting and Herbert wrings every ounce of tension out of the page. Unfortunately, in the abridged audiobook, Kerry Shale totally fails to capture any of this tension. He sounds as though he is simply reading a book, rather than telling a story, and his attempts to deliver the different voices (including those of two women) are pitiful and distracting.

This is a mere shadow of the novel, a poor half-way house that really does the book no favours. Some books are meant to be read, and ‘48 is one of them.

David Howe

James Herbert Interview (Once)

JAMES HERBERT: ONCE…

What’s that you say? James Herbert, master of all things horrific and terrifying, is writing a story about faeries? Well … yes. But anyone who knows Herbert’s work should immediately realise that this sort of change in style is what typifies his writing: no two books are the same, and yet all deliver an impressively honed package of thrills, suspense and horror.

It was a dark and stormy evening I met with Herbert to discuss his latest book. The clouds boiled ominously overhead, and the air was heavy with the expectation of later rain. An ideal atmosphere to chat to the man who since The Rats in 1974 has produced a steady stream of top notch horror tales, making him one of the most popular and consistent best-selling novelists in the UK.

‘It’s very hard to shock any more,’ he states, ‘because we’ve done it. We’ve done it all. So many of the horror movies these days rely on gross-out for their thrills. When you work with words as I do, in a way it’s easier because you’re relying on the readers’ imaginations, but in film you can’t really scare the hell out of people any more which is a shame. But it’s why I go more for suspense and good stories. My publisher asked if they could call my books “chillers”, and I really don’t mind what they call them – I just write what I write.’

And what Herbert has written in Once… is a faerie story.

‘For years I’ve wanted to do a book about faeries,’ Herbert reveals. ‘My favourite film of all time is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Disney cartoon, because it fulfills all my needs. It’s a romance, it’s humourous, it’s also very dark – there’s a lot of horror there, and it’s also composed of brilliant artwork. Everything I like and appreciate is in that film, and as a result I’ve always wanted to do a book about faeries. Arthur Rackham did some drawings of faeries which were very sensual, they wore gossamer gowns, were heartachingly pretty and so on. There’s also a witchcraft aspect that lends itself to horror … But I could never get a hook on it. Then, a couple of years ago, I read a very serious tome on faeries and elves and this explained that there are actually three kinds of faeries. There are the very tiny ones, little sprites or “Tinkerbells”, and then there are the taller ones: the elves, goblins, the gnomes, and finally there are almost human-sized faeries, about five foot tall. It just clicked into place in my mind: a beautiful faerie, female, sylph-like, slanted eyes, curly golden hair, who falls in love with a human being. And that was it, I was off. I didn’t have to think of a plot or anything, the whole thing just fell into place. It was magic.

‘I researched the subject and decided I needed a magical castle, an isolated cottage somewhere, and if you look in the book, there’s a small piece of artwork of the cottage in the book at the start of each chapter. That was taken from photographs of a little place I discovered and stayed in up in Shropshire. A red sandstone walled, really magic little cottage. I found this place through a company that specialises in strange and obscure holiday venues, and they sent me a brochure of different places and this was among them: a kind of tiny faerie castle. People have been asking me exactly where this place is, but I can’t tell them as it would be unfair, but it does exist.

‘With the faerie idea and the location, I really got hooked and the result was Once….’

Herbert’s previous novel, Others, was a far more gritty read, involving shockingly deformed humans – adults and children – and a conspiracy to hide them away from public view. ‘That was a hard subject for a book,’ says Herbert. ‘it really turned my stomach, and it was tough to research and then write about these poor forgotten and deformed people. This new novel is in many ways a reaction to that: to write about faeries, love and sex rather than gross deformity and death. It was a huge relief to do something like this: this is not a light, frothy book, I hasten to add, but it’s a far more enjoyable subject.’

One of the keynotes of Once… is its blatant eroticism. The pages are heavily imbued with a promise of heady sex, and for once Herbert does not shy away from the challenge that this presents.

‘This book goes a whole lot more into the erotic angle than I’ve ever done before. It’s a really sexy, erotic book. Because of this I wanted to state on the jacket that this is not a book for kids, it’s an adult story. I wanted to impress that on people: that there is horror in it, but it’s also very erotic.

‘There was one point in the book where the hero has to meet the most horrific thing he can think of, and I went into the publishers to talk about the project, and they asked me what this thing was going to be. “I don’t know,” I said, “I haven’t got to it yet.” But thankfully when I did get there, the answer to this question had come to me … but it was touch and go for a time.

‘I also had a lot of fun writing it, and there are elements and references in there simply because they amused me. For example, the last words before the epilogue in the book, said by one of the characters, are “Expect me”, and if you remember the film The Wizard of Oz, well Margaret Hamilton, the actress who played the Wicked Witch of the West in that, when she was signing autographs for kids, would write “Expect me” after her name … which is really sinister, and so I’ve used that as the last words in the book. There are lots of things like that: the faerie who falls in love with the human is herself becoming more human, and I mention that she’s not the first faerie to do this, that there’s an Icelandic singer who everyone thinks is slightly mad, but this is only because she can’t come to terms with becoming more human … I have a lot of little chuckles with myself in the book.’

As usual with Herbert’s books, he took a personal interest in all aspects of the design and look of the finished item. ‘I want people to enjoy my books as a nice item – they’re not cheap to buy and I want people to feel they have their money’s worth. I want them to keep them. With Once… I put my heart and soul into the book, in the text and then in the design. We’re doing the book in two jackets: there’s one which is all black with embossed black designs on, and another which is all white with silver highlights on. It’s going to be interesting to see which one sells best. We’re also doing a very limited edition of the book, with a wood bark cover, embossed with a flower design. It’s being made somewhere in the Philippines. The paper is going to be old antique yellowish paper … it should be wonderful.’

In addition, there are small hardback editions available from airports – these don’t have dust jackets, but are particularly nice editions of the book, and again come with a black or a white cover.

‘I did a rough for the cover, and an artist called Bill Gregory, who has been working on my books for years, did most of the black and white illustrations. However we could not find anyone to do the little elves that appear in it. Everyone we approached came up with greetings card-type elves with big eyes, so I ended up drawing them myself. There’s a cheeky one at the end that I’m quite fond of.

‘I wanted the book to look like an old fashioned children’s book with illustrations, but strictly for adults. There are a series of colour plates as you read through which are meant to come as a surprise. I wanted them to make the book look like a children’s story, and as far as I know, this is not done that often in adult books these days. I was pleased that the publisher went with the idea as it’s quite expensive to do, but it’s a real bonus, and it makes the book that much more special.’

Having written about faeries, and having researched the subject, I wondered if Herbert had come to believe in them himself. ‘As with all my writing, I speculate. While working on the book I met a lot of people who do believe, including one of the artists we were talking to, a talented chap called Brian Froud. He was suddenly called away to work with Disney on a film, so had to pull out of this project.

‘I don’t necessarily believe in them, but what if … who knows, who knows?’ He smiles wryly. ‘I’ve just bought some more land around my house, and part of it is a small wood. In the spring, I went down there walking and the ground was completely covered with bluebells. The birds were singing, there was no traffic noise, just peace and light and colour … it was so magical, and you could easily imagine faeries or other strange beings living there. Of course my pragmatic side, from my London East End background, won’t allow me to believe in them implicitly, but it would be nice if it was true.’

As usual, Herbert is not resting on his laurels. ‘I’ve got ideas for the next three or four novels,’ he says. ‘There’s a very interesting one coming next, it’s got a great title, and I’ll probably be writing it in the first person. I won’t say it’s a brand new idea, but it’s certainly new to me, and I don’t think anyone’s tackled it as I’m going to.’ Other than that, Herbert won’t be drawn on other details.

‘I did promise my wife I’d take a year off, but that didn’t happen as usual,’ he says, deftly changing the subject. ‘And the other week in Brighton I walked into W H Smith’s and bought all these jumbo pads and Pentels and stocked up for the next book. I’ll be having a couple of week’s break and then work starts again.’

In the meantime, curl up with a peculiarly James Herbert take on faeries and hot erotic sex. You’ll never look at an orchid in the same way again.

James Herbert Interview (Others)

THE OTHER SIDE
HERBERT’S HORRORS REVEALED

I’m standing in an upstairs foyer in James Herbert’s home waiting for the man himself to appear. The door behind me clicks open and there he is, beaming widely. It’s hard not to like Jim, as he likes to be called. His good humour is infectious, and his love of writing is unmistakable. As we go through to his large study, which also doubles as a business meeting room, I note the familiar cover paintings to some of his earlier novels hanging on the walls, and also a bookcase containing two shelves of black ring binders, each neatly labelled with the titles of his books, every one of them a best-seller. These contain the original manuscripts for the novels, still hand-written by Jim before being typed by his wife Eileen. Soon these binders will be joined by another, this time bearing the title of his latest novel Others.

Jim leans forward, a conspiratorial glint in his eye. “You know, I didn’t enjoy writing Others, and maybe it’s all the better for it. It’s so dark and because of the subject matter it was so unappealing. I rarely drink during the week, especially when I’m working, but I had to go and pour myself a couple of stiff vodkas while working on the book because it was really getting to me.”

Others is the story of a group of severely deformed children who are being kept out of public sight in a private institution, and the book follows the investigations of the physically deformed private eye Nick Dismas as he is led towards an epiphany of his own, apparently through supernatural means. Jim is dead serious when he discusses the background to this latest work. “These children are based on real case histories – I could show you pictures but they’d turn your stomach – but I did let my imagination run wild at the end. There is a serious aspect to all this that I wanted to bring out into the open. What happens to kids who are born really malformed. Where are they?

Maybe the scepticism on my face is showing: “I’m being totally serious. I have no proof, no firm evidence of the existence of these institutions, but I know they’re out there. The basis for Others came about ages ago when an elderly lady told me that thirty years previously, she had been working overnight in a children’s hospital. She worked there during the daytime and she also had a night job with them. It was her first night in the hospital and she decided to explore a little. She found herself on the top floor, outside a ward that had a sign saying ‘Keep Out – Positively No Admittance’ on the door. This lady, being the curious type, pushed open the door and saw all these cots lining the room, and all these beds had deformed children in. Babies with heads so large they couldn’t even lift them off the pillows. Kids with no arms that were totally malformed. She was shocked. Very shocked. But she was also a nurse and she loved kids, so she went back the following night with some sweets and treats and she kept going back and eventually when she walked in, these poor little abandoned babies were reaching and calling out to her.

“These were children either who had been abandoned at birth or who had been taken away from their mothers because they had been rejected by them. In some cases they were so deformed and grotesque that the doctors didn’t even show the mother, they just took them away and left them to die. Now the point is that they don’t all die. I’ve got evidence that even 100 years ago, these disfigured people could survive into their middle ages – the travelling freak shows are just one example of that. Now today, with all our medical technology, we’re bound to be able to save these kids. So where are they? Why don’t we see them? Where are they locked away?”

Jim shakes his head sadly. “Think of what else is going on,” he whispers. “Think of the science of genetics, there’s such a great interest in that, and these kids would provide a great source to experiment on, to see where the genes have gone wrong. I’m convinced they’re out there somewhere but they’re being kept under cover, under wraps, and I don’t think that’s right. They should be treated as people, with respect.”

Jim sighs and it is apparent that the background and writing of Others is still very much on his mind. ‘I upset myself writing it because I was getting into the minds of these people. As a writer you live the lives of your characters. You are the characters. Now I’ve got stooped shoulders anyway, but while I was writing Dismas, I was hunching over my pad of paper more and more as I really empathised with his character. I realised that the reader has to relate to a hero who is a crippled, one eyed hunchback so how do you do it? I thought the best way was to go from the first person. So you’re inside the mind of the guy and you’re looking out – you’re not looking at – you feel his emotions, what it is actually like to be treated as an outcast, as an Other.”

Jim’s great strength is a very clear and believable view of events, allowing his characters and settings to come alive for the readers. His forthright style was one of the things that set his first novel, The Rats, apart back in 1974, and this came about simply because Jim had no expectations that his novel was going to be published.

“There was nothing holding me back,” he explained, “and I wasn’t self-conscious about what I was writing. Obviously I’ve got a very vivid imagination so what was in my mind went down on the page. It was simply a natural way for me to write.”

The Rats was followed by The Fog, a novel of murder and mayhem as a deadly cloud of gas causes people to go insane with horrific results. These early novels gained Jim the reputation as a writer of brutal horror, and the publishers created a whole new genre of books flagged as ‘nasty’.

“That label really bugs me. It came from the publishers who wanted to find some way of marketing The Rats. After they had read it, they invented this new category and then promoted the book as that. As soon as I found out I made them stop, but unfortunately it’s a label that has stuck over the years. Yes, there have been some very nasty elements in my stories, there are to this day, but they’re never quite as bad as people imagine.

“I never consciously place my books in any genre,” he explains. “They’re just what I do. I just write them. I think the public knows that they’ll get something a little different from me each time.”

Jim does, however, admit that every one of his books has contained some commentary on real life. “I’ve always dropped little messages into my books. Ever since I started, really. I guess they’re just more overt now. Particularly with books like Portent, which featured a not-so-subtle warning of global ecological disaster if we don’t start treating our planet with respect. I think I’ve picked up a reputation for mayhem and chaos from some of my earlier books, so imagine the whole world going at once. It’s quite amazing. The thing that gets me to this day about the environment, it’s become a very boring subject. We’re all fed up with being preached at, it’s like a diatribe, and yet we’ve all really got to do something about it. I’m not heavily into ecology or anything like that, but what I do is plant trees - I’ve planted about fifty in my garden. So I’m not a great fanatic about it but it’s something we should all be concerned with. So I thought if I could do something in my small way as a popular writer, maybe people will pay some attention to what’s going on around them. Not to preach, but to make them think about it.

“What surprised me was that rather than picking up on the whole global destruction issue, some reviewers and pundits chose instead to label me as being a racist, and to describe the book as being racist.

“In Portent, I was writing about a voodoo sect based in New Orleans and a mugger in London and the psychic connection between the two. Voodoo sects tend to be comprised of black people, and the police claim that 85 per cent of muggers in London are blacks – officially that is. Friends in the Police tell me that it’s actually closer to 95 per cent, but that they’d be accused of all sorts if they released the correct figure. So for me to therefore make the villains of ethnic origin was totally in keeping with the themes I was working with. One chap even claimed that I had said I wasn’t racist because I employed a black maid … I’ve never employed a maid in my life! I don’t know where he got that from, but some journalists will make up stuff just to get a better story out of it – they should be novelists if they want to deal in fiction!

“I hate all this political correctness anyway. ‘Hate’ is too mild a term, actually. I detest it. You’ll probably notice in Others that I’m very much against this aspect of our society. I think it’s so patronising. If someone’s disabled, then they’re disabled, there’s no way of twisting the words to say they’re anything other than they are. And I think it’s disrespectful to try and say it in softer terms. These folk just face up to the hand that life has dealt them, and get on with their lives. I wanted to get that message across, that they’re people. It’s no big deal, they’re just people. And people can be good or evil: that’s the overall theme. Good versus evil. Always has been.”

Of all Jim’s novels, Others is perhaps the one which will incite the strongest backlash from moral campaigners and Jim has resigned himself to this. “There’s not been anything as yet, but there will be. Most of the people who have interviewed me about Others bring up Glen Hoddle and his recent highly publicised comments about re-incarnation. What ever happened to free speech in this country?

“Now I don’t necessarily believe in reincarnation - I believe in redemption because I’m a Catholic. In Others Dismas is a special case. He got what the Catholics call a plenary indulgence where all your sins are swept away if you perform certain acts. So I’m not saying that everyone is reincarnated, and that if they’ve been bad in a previous life, they come back as a cripple, or disabled. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that in this individual and special case, it happens to be so, and Dismas returns as a disabled person, not as a punishment, but because as a result there is this special connection with the Others.

“I’ve been researching the paranormal and the supernatural for over 20 years. I’ve really gone into it, and what I’ve discovered, and what I know so, so well is that nobody knows anything. No matter what they say, nobody knows. Not on this Earth. So all you can do is speculate. Which is what I’ve done in every book I’ve written.”

Being able to speculate is what has kept Jim at the top of his profession for over twenty five years. Others is his nineteenth novel, and yet he claims with a smile that writing has not become any easier.

“I get writer’s block every morning. I get it after lunch … It goes with the territory. I just keep on doing what I’m doing. Each book a little bit different and hopefully better. Making the book jackets look good and making sure the readers get a good product. I’ve never had any aims about the direction I’m heading in. I just do it as I go along.”

Jim picks up a hardback copy of Others that is resting on his desk – it’s the first copy off the presses – and flicks through it.

“I know I can be better and every book I’ve done I’ve been disappointed with in some respects. But that’s me. I say in this book that there’s no such thing as perfection, but you can try and get it as right as possible. I guess that’s what I’m aiming for, to try and get one book just totally right. And that’s good for me, it keeps me going.

“As for the future, as I was starting work on Others, I had a kind of creative brainstorm. In the space of two weeks all these ideas just kept springing into my head and I’ve now got work for the next ten years! I’d like to start tomorrow on all of them, but I’ve chosen one that’s going to let me have some fun. As I say, Others was hard work for me, but the next one … I think it’s going to be quite erotic, and lots of fun. I’m really looking forward to working on it. Can’t wait.”



FILM PROJECTS

The first of James Herbert’s books to be adapted as films were The Survivor in 1980 with Robert Powell and Jenny Agutter and The Rats in 1982/3 (called Deadly Eyes in America), starring Sam Groom and Scatman Crothers and directed by Robert Clouse. “I had nothing to do with those two films,” states Jim. “I heard after the event that The Rats had been sold to Golden Harvest who did all those Bruce Lee Kung-Fu films. I sent a note to David Hemmings when I heard he was directing The Survivor to offer my assistance if he wanted it – I didn’t get a reply. I’ve seen them. They’re terrible … absolute rubbish. I can only say don’t blame me.”

Following this was a film of Fluke in 1995 and also a higher profile film of Haunted in the same year. The latter actually started life as a BBC television production. “Typical BBC,” sighs Jim. “Everyone said they loved it, even the typists, and then Jonathan Powell, who had been in charge of drama, was promoted. A new guy, Mark Shivas, came in and apparently he didn’t like ghost stories and so nothing further happened. Nothing. Not a telephone call or a letter and in the end my agent had to phone them up and ask if they were going to do it or not. And they said not. This actually did me a great favour because I then sold it to Lewis Gilbert. Lewis is a lovely man – in fact that was part of the problem. He’s so nice it’s very hard to argue with him. I actually stood in my office here, and said, ‘Lewis, I’m telling you from my heart, what you’re doing is wrong. I’m telling you. Twenty years experience writing horror … what you’re doing is wrong.’ His response: ‘Oh darling, it doesn’t matter. What we’re doing is not set in concrete, we can change it.’ Of course they didn’t change it because they were doing exactly what he wanted to do.

“Despite my reservations it turned out to be a good quality film – it just wasn’t my story any more. It starred Aiden Quinn, Kate Beckinsale and Anna Massey with Anthony Andrews and Sir John Gielgud – a great cast. It was at the premiere that I got to meet Princess Diana. I remember she said to me, ‘So you’re responsible for all this, are you?’ and I said, ‘Well yes. I hope you don’t mind some horror.’ ‘I’m used to it…’ she replied …

“The film of Fluke on the other hand I’m quite pleased with. Years ago, an Italian film student called Carlo Carlei came to see me in London and said that he wanted to be a director and that my book Fluke had changed his life, and that it was the film he wanted to make. He explained that it might take a long time as he’d have to do others before until he had the budget. So he paid me year after year after year for the rights to the novel and finally he made a film in Italy that Hollywood liked and so they gave him the money to do Fluke. The script was OK and it turned out to be a great little film. That starred Eric Stoltz just before he did Pulp Fiction.”

Other film options have been taken out on Jim’s books, but none have yet to see fruition. There was interest in Shrine from a film producer but this ran into financial problems, there was interest in The Magic Cottage from America but this currently in limbo, The Fog was optioned in the early eighties, but that has now expired, John Hough was interested in The Dark but this too fell apart. Creed also had many admirers, amongst them British comedian Lenny Henry. “Lenny rang me up out of the blue and arranged to do a big sales pitch to me to get the rights to do the movie. Now Lenny is very funny but he’s also very, very intelligent and he’s extremely nice, you just couldn’t wish to meet a nicer guy. I’d made up my mind within five minutes that I was going to let him have it, because I liked the idea of Lenny playing Joe Creed. It was a twist to it, it was unexpected.”

As of writing, however, the film has not yet materialised. “I’d love to have a decent film,” Jim muses. “That would be one ambition, to have a really good movie made of one of my books.”