Customer Reviews

Creed

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Remember the movie The Omen where David Warner's character, a photographer, starts to find strange images in the photographs he takes of people? Well Creed is one big book about that as paparazzo Joe Creed, a character of the Princess Diana chasing type, finds himself photographing an important figure doing something over a coffin after a funeral which results in various forces coming after him to get the negatives. Creed then begins to unravel a world where monsters and demons exist and are aided by the rich and famous who he makes his living from. It makes for an original piece of reading, although not exactly hollywood material, comes across as very frightening most of the time and for that does exactly what it says on the label. Well worth discovering Herbert through this book and his other good one, Fluke.

The hero of this book, Joe Creed, is a sleezebag paparazzo, which is the singular noun for paparazzi. He has few positive attributes. He would do anything to get a good photograph so that he can sell it to the newspapers. He has an ex-wife whom he hates. He even hates his young son. This unendearing character holds our attention because of his complete lack of scruples. What makes this book so satisfying is that, despite himself, he does the decent thing, and at the end of the book, he becomes it's hero. It even has the corps of the paparazzi charging to the rescue like the calvary, which has got to be one of the cleverest twists I have ever read. The book is genuinely frightening. If the end doesn't quite resolve itself satisfactory, then the rest of the book succeeds in carrying you effortlessly from one page to the next.

Herbert tackles a lot of genre's with Creed. He combines his usualy horror and thrillers styles with some black comedy (which is really funny) and overall I thought that it worked well.

Joe Creed, our anti-hero, is a paparazzo. We are told right from the start that he is selfish and basically not a good person, but he is our protagonist nonetheless.

When in a graveyard, spying on the grave of a recently burried actress, hoping to catch a crazed greiving relative or similar, Creed takes a picture of a creepy man performing sinister acts on the grave. This simple act leads him into spiriling horror as the man is one of a group of demons who have a joke to play on him...and it's not funny...it's deadly...

Lots of suspenceful, with both comical scenes and frightening scenes throw in for good measure. I gave this a 4 star rating because there were a few parts I thought dragged a bit (3 stars) but also parts of sheer brilliant that had me unable to put the book down (5 stars). Deffinatly worth a read if you are a James Herbert fan. Nobody has given this a negative review.

I thought this was fairly good, it had some funny parts and chilly horror bits as well. I liked the plot, about a paparazzi photographer who accidently takes a demon's picture at a funeral. Somewhat cheesy but fun horror story.

to be convincing as a horror novel, therefore it can be comedic at times even if this was sometimes unintentional by the author. On top of this there is not a single likable character in the book. The hero is really an anti-hero. Yet even though the book is far from a masterpiece I still enjoyed it. This is the 3rd James Herbert Book I've read. I loved "The Magic Cottage". However, I did not enjoy "'48" much. Creed rates somewhere in between the two.

However...an interesting and original idea, written in typical Herbert style. I enjoyed reading it but once I got to a certain point in the book, I sensed deja vu. There was definately a similarity with one of his other books, which I won't name so I don't give away any endings. However still a stimulating read with potential to scare. :)