Once... [Audio CD]

James Herbert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 2005

Remember the fairy stories you were told as a child? The tales of tiny, magical, winged beings and elves, wicked witches and goblins, and demons ...What if one day you found out they were true? What if, when you became an adult, you discovered they were all based on fact? What if you met the fantasy and it was all so very real? That's what happened to Thom Kindred. The wonders were revealed to him. But so were the horrors, for not far behind the Good, there always lurks the Bad. And the Bad had designs on Thom. The Bad would show him real evil. He would see the hellhagges and the demons. He would be touched by perverted passion, and corruption. And he would encounter his own worst nightmare. The Bad would seek to destroy him. And only the magic of the little beings would be able to help him.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Horror master James Herbert serves up a blend of faerie, supernatural chills, eroticism, and identity quest in Once...--a fairy tale with a darker side.

Thom Kindred suffers a stroke and returns to his childhood home to heal. Castle Bracken seems like a pastoral paradise, but almost immediately, Thom begins to experience strange things, both beautiful and frightening. Soon, he finds himself the inexplicable target of hostile magic, even as he begins to recover his childhood ability to perceive the creatures of faerie that inhabit the land. As he struggles to heal, Thom finds himself at the center of a cataclysmic struggle between good and evil that demands all his physical and spiritual strength to survive.

Herbert's fans may find this story, with its bare-bones plot and extended descriptions of the faerie world, slower-moving and more predictable than his more energetic works Others and The Fog). Explicit sex and scenes of Herbert's trademark disturbing horror (including every arachnophobe's nightmare) make this a fairy tale strictly for adults. --Roz Genessee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Pastoral fantasy and graphic grue congeal immiscibly in this peculiar fairy tale from British horror laureate Herbert (Others). Set on the grounds of Castle Bracken, a verdant woodland estate with a shady history, it follows the trials of Thom Kindred, who returns there to recover from a stroke. Thom's mother worked for Sir Russell Bleeth, the estate's owner, and the grounds hold fond memories of years spent with his mum before she inexplicably abandoned him. No sooner is Thom comfy in the natural surroundings than he is subjected to seemingly unnatural experiences: displays of multicolored lights in the foliage, an encounter with an ethereal young maiden in the woods and increasingly persistent advances by a Wiccan nursemaid. In time, Thom discovers that the estate is a refuge for the faerie folk, whose blood he shares, and that he'll play a pivotal role in saving them from an occult menace that's already infiltrated Castle Bracken. Herbert does nothing original with this familiar fantasy theme of the individual who discovers his faerie heritage. Rather, he dwells at tedious length on the society of the faeriefolkis, indulging in twee descriptions of their world and endowing some with proper names that are titles of his previous books spelled backwards. Prolonged erotic interludes, spliced in to alert readers that this is a fairy tale for adults, do little to relieve the monotony. Only in the final moments, when Thom battles a series of viscerally horrific assaults, does the book show a glimmer of the vitality and drive characteristic of Herbert's best fiction.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Isis Audio; Unabridged edition (January 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753114798
• ISBN-13: 978-0753114797
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,104,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gothic mansions, mysterious inheritances, and... sexy witches?, April 22, 2006

By 

Joseph P. Menta, Jr. (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Once... (Mass Market Paperback)

As if a story that combines gothic mystery and fantasy elements like elves, witches, pixies, and fairies wasn't unusual enough, how about a story that combines gothic mystery, fantasy elements, and extremely graphic sex (involving the pixies, witches, and fairies, no less)? If you think you would like, or can at least tolerate, all three of those elements, you'll probably have a good enough time reading this engaging little story about a human man discovering the fantasy world all around him.

A few things in the book went on a bit too long, including an attack by a jarful of ever-multiplying spiders (it was a clever and scary sequence, but several pages longer than it needed to be) and some of the erotic scenes (though if a scene has to go on a bit too long, it might as well be a sex scene). Overall, however, the interesting mix of genres and the alternating moods of the narrative (the story is in turn mysterious, playful, scary, sexy, fantastic, and suspenseful) makes "Once..." a diverting reading experience.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Adult fantasy long on description but short on imagination., April 3, 2006

By 

Jim Reed "Jim Reed" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Once... (Mass Market Paperback)

Clive Barker does a great job of making creative fantasy for adults but James Herbert's predictable sludge paced tale will put many adults asleep.After a stroke Thom returns to the manor he grew up in as a child only to discover masturbating fairies in the woods and a hairy succubus who really really wants his sperm.Herbert manages to describe everything from the tiniest leaf to what everyone is wearing but pays no attention to plot or pacing.The most memorable aspect of this book is the handful of admitedly erotic graphic sex scenes where Herbert uses descriptions to good effect...if this were a movie you would be pressing the fast forward button.Besides that it's disappointing and flat.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It's a modern fairy tale....just not a very good one, August 12, 2004

By 

Jason S Robinson (Ft. Worth) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Once... (Mass Market Paperback)

I think James Herbert is a talented author. I have most of his books and I usually can't put his books down. I have to say though, I was dissapointed in "Once".

First of all, I didn't like the main character Thom. Basically the ENTIRE book he either whines how what he is seeing can't be true or he is amazed that he gets "aroused" (he recently had a stroke). The character is never really fleshed out and the reader really feels no interest in him. The other characters are even more bland. The "plot" of the book and the twist at the end were ridiculously easy to figure out and there was no feeling of suspense and I never found myself wondering or even caring what was going to happen next.

As far as the writing goes, Herbert does a good job describing things and making you almost able to visualize the Castle and it's forest but again since the plot was so bland, I really didn't care what the Castle looked like. The sex scenes are so so, not to frequent but really not contributing to the story. Most fantasy/sci-fi doesn't have many sex scenes and this might be a reason why as it does take away from the action and the story if not written well and the way Herbert writes the scenes in this novel they were more annoying than erotic.

All in all I don't recommend this book and think you might like The Magic Cottage or one of his other novels instead. It was a good premise, a fairy tale for adults and it's too bad he couldn't make it work.