Customer Reviews

Lair

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

 

 

I just finished re-reading this book having read about 10 years ago and was quite dissapointed, i love Domain, the whole idea behind it and the characters, but Lair is like a spin off of it. The characters arent fleshed out well, theres the usual tough guy with problems and the vunerable female who (as usual) get together. Then theres the rats themselves; they seem to manage to kill everyone within minutes but the hero always manages to escape mostly unscathed. Its a little too straight forward and predictable, not herberts best.

Lair, the second book in The Rats trilogy, is possibly even better and more brutal than The Rats.

The Black Rats are back and this time attacking the area around Epping Forest just outside of London.

After a series of gruesome attacks, Pender, our protagonist, who works at Ratkill (self-explanitory) is sent to investigate and discovers that the Black Rat is back. Of couse, the local authorities dont belive him and he is left to try and fight against by the rats by himself - along with the obligatory love interest - as more and more people are attacked and killed.

Very suspenceful and gorey. I read most of it in one go because it is very difficult to put down. Great sequel to The Rats.

I am not sure if this is a sequel to one of Herbert's other books. probably the one titled Rats if it is I guess as no where on Lair's cover or anywhere else in the book does it mention it is a sequel. However the book constantly refers to a previous invasion by the same large black rats in London and pretty much assumes the reader has been there and lived that. Lair does give away the ending to the London saga and the key developments so if it is referring to the novel Rats it does spoil that book's plot for anyone such as myself who has not read it. If Lair is not a sequel then it is very poorly written.

In Lair, Pender from Ratkill Laboratories, a Surrey based organisation which has rapidly expanded with Government funding following the London plague is sent to Epping Forrest outside of London where there has been evidence of rats. Of course even though an Education Ranger has seen them with her own eyes and there is a heap of other circumstantial evidence indicating the big black rats are back, politics and corruption get in the way of Pender and the rangers evacuating the park and surrounding areas while the rats would have been exterminated. While the park administrator and others who set to lose their power if there are black rats in the Epping Forrest continue to live in denial people are being ripped apart and devoured by the black rodents.

Written in 1979 this tale may have sufficed in its time but with today's reader having read substantially higher quality novels in this genre over the past four decades the clear lack of plot substance and quality of characters gives this book a very average rating.

This is the second and the weakest of the Rats trilogy. Domain being the best (absolutely incredible novel) and Rats being a very good beginning to this nightmare.

good condition. follow up to the rats. leaves you fearful of rodents and the possibility of an intelligent rodent

Rat hunting sequel.

The sequel isn't as good as first Rats book, and the setting is somewhat different.

A man whose family was slaughtered by the mutant vermin joins an outfit that is tasked with destruction of said little monsters.

So on a different scale, and not much of a link at all to the earlier book, apart from the beasts themselves.

2.5 out of 5

I read this several years ago, but never read the other two in the series that some other reviewer spoke of. I don't think I'd want to because even though I've never had a foundness of rats I got extremely leary of them after reading this book.

It's been a long time so I don't recall the entire story, but it centers on some mutant rats. They were from some island that had nuclear testing. They somehow got in the feight of some ship and either made it to America of Britian. Once there they bred with the common local rats and produced highbred rats that were under the control of a lead rat with intelligence. They'd form packs and attack humans. I think this was an effort to wipe out humans so that the rat would becpme the top of the food chain. What made this even scarier was that these highbred rats would grow to the size of a house cat. The idea of a pack of house cat sized rats taking after a person was pretty damn troubling because James Herbert has a style of bringing the reader from one set of sespence to another until you almost start to feel worn out by just reading....

If you like a good scare, then this is plenty scary. As for his other books about rats that are in this genre.... I read this in the late 1980's and I still have no desire to take that trip again on either of the other two. Especially if others consider this the weakest of the series...