It's Hard to Dance with the Devil on Your Back

The Ghosts of Sleath
by James Herbert

"I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back
They buried my body & they thought I'd gone
But I am the Dance & I still go on!"

Genre; Sci-Fi/Drama/Horror
Publisher; HarperCollins/London/1994
Pages; 409

Plot; David Ash is the most cynical "ghost hunter" you will meet, making him one of the more successful researchers at the Psychical Research Institute. In his experience, most hauntings are nothing more than the whims of a depressed person or the selfish actions of someone playing games.

However, as cynical as he may be and as false as most cases are that he researches, Ash cannot deny that he himself has been haunted. A ghost from his past which almost sent him into an emotional and mental breakdown.

It is this ghostly past, on his back, that he carries with him when he is sent to investigate the odd goings-on in the small rural town of Sleath.

From the outside Sleath is perfect; beautiful surrounds, comely cottages, pristine gardens, the type of town you would expect to see on a postcard. From the inside Sleath is a town of fearful people, with a sordid past.

More and more hauntings are going on in this small town and Ash, the cynic, with the help of the town Reverend, Edmund Lockwood, and his daughter Grace, must search out the cause of all these events.

Can he stop it all before it is too late?

My Thoughts; This is the second James Herbert book that I have read and he is quickly becoming my favourite author. So much so, that when I was half way through this book I logged on to EBay and bought myself a stack more of his books to add to my collection!

Typically, I am not a fan of science fiction or horror, but James Herbert makes it seem so real, and he writes so beautifully that you cannot put his books down once you have picked them up.

What I really adore about Herbert novels is that the hero of the tale is not perfect. In this book, David Ash, is far from perfect. He smokes, he drinks, he is unfit, you can imagine that his shirt would be slightly crumpled and his hair would be a mess, and yet you cannot help but like him.

There really is a remarkable cast of characters in this story. It is interesting to watch the world of these villagers. Everyone is being haunted, experiencing terrible things, and yet as they pass each other in the street, or sit next to one another in the pub, these events are not spoken of. They pass each other with a smile, yet the eyes are darkened from nights of haunted dreams.

In this book, Herbert has an incredible skill for making you contradict your own feelings towards these people. You feel sorry for them because what they are going through is so awful and so unimaginable, yet at the same time, you can't show sympathy for people who do nothing to help themselves. People who are turning a blind eye, and even worse, tormenting anyone who does speak out about it.

As I have said, the book is beautifully written. Herbert is an expert when it comes to description. He paints the picture in such detail that you can almost feel the ghostly fog prickle your skin, but he doesn't make the detail tedious. There is a fine line between a book being overly detailed, to the point where you skip over the monotonous chunks of descriptive waste, and a book which is detailed enough to entice your senses without bombarding them. Herbert is the second of the two.

If you like a good scare, this is a really exceptional read. I also recommend this book to those readers who don't usually include sci-fi and horror in their genre list, because this book may just be the one to convert them.

For my other James Herbert review, '48, Click Here.

Happy Reading!

Escaping The Black Death

'48 by James Herbert

Genre; Fiction/Action/Adventure
Publisher; BCA/Great Britain/1996
Pages; 330

Plot; At the end of World War II, as he admits defeat, Hitler sends one last gift to London, a bomb which disperses a poisonous gas which instantly kills most people in an excruciating and torturous way called the Blood Death. The people who are left can be broken into two categories; those who will instead suffer a slow death and those with a rare blood type who are immune to the gas.
This story follows Hoke, an American who had been a fighter pilot during the war, and now spends his days hiding from the Black Shirts who are an army of slow dying gas victims who are seeking out the immune to do total blood transfusions in a vein (and totally unsuccessful) attempt to save themselves.

My Thoughts; I have read romance and chick novels galore, but no book has made the tears stream down my cheeks as much as '48. I could not put the book down!
When my heart wasn't racing as the hero was chased through the London underground I was crying at the depictions of the lives lost, not only because of the disturbing way their remains had been left behind, but because of the eerily beautiful way Hoke travels through their streets and homes and can almost feel their presence.

What I really appreciated about this book was the characters and the way they balanced one another, the two leading ladies for example; Cissie was brought up in the lower middle class as the daughter of a publican, making her a surprisingly strong and bold woman behind her blonde, voluptuous exterior. This is in stark contrast to Muriel, the tall, thin and almost fragile brunette brought up in high society as the daughter of a aristocrat. Another such contrast can be made between two of the leading male Characters; Hoke and Wilhelm. Hoke is the quick to the trigger American, who may work better on his own but is a natural leader when put into dire situations while Wilhelm is the quiet and calculating German. He is happy to stand at the back of the pack but in times of trouble he is likely to come up with the more (theoretically) successful resolution.

One thing that I did find lacking was a more in depth look into the "villain" of the story, Hubble. In terms of depicting Hubble in the dimmest of lights, Herbert has been successful, as the mere mention of the man made my skin crawl, but I would have liked to know more about the man. Who he was before the Black Death, did he have a family, how did he come to lead the Black Shirts... I felt further explanation of Hubble and his character would have been beneficial to understanding the man's plight.

As a whole this story was heart stopping and as I read I came to love the characters, even those I initially felt I wouldn't. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone faint hearted or weak stomached as there are some scenes where I myself almost had to take a walk outside, but if you can get past the gruesome settings this is a really enjoyable, heart stopping adventure to take.