Rats [Hardcover]

James Herbert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2003 | ISBN-10: 0333761189 | ISBN-13: 978-0333761182

For millions of years man and rats had been natural enemies. But now for the first time - suddenly, shockingly, horribly - the balance of power had shifted and the rats began to prey on the human population.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Macmillan (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0333761189
• ISBN-13: 978-0333761182
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,671,512 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great horror book - beginning of an even greater thrilogy, January 24, 2005

By 

sleeper30 "tom" (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rats (Paperback)

This is Herbert's first novel and what an achievement. You can read in one try. It's about mutant, giant rats attacking London. Very graphic and gory, full of non-stop action and great characters. This is one scary novel, although Domain (the third and last sequel) is the most scary of all of them.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bloody good read!, May 27, 2006

By 

Brian J. Oneill - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rats (Hardcover)

A friend of mine (and fellow Amazon reviewer) recommended this book to me. I'd read a few of Herbert's books before; 'The Fog', written shortly after this one, is another take on 'modern-day England' falling apart due to inexplicable events, while 'Once', 'Others', and '48' veered into fantasy and sci-fi territory. So this was a chance to get reacquainted with Herbert as the young, inspired horror writer.

'The Rats' holds up well after more than 30 years. It's interesting to contrast this book, coming in at just under 200 pages, with the more verbose(not to mention gory) thrillers of recent years. Had 'The Rats' been written today, it would almost certainly be at least three times longer, with tons of added 'sex and violence' for the taste of modern audiences.

But it's the simplicity of 'The Rats' that makes it a refreshing change for readers like me, who have come to find a lot of today's horror literature to be almost interchangeable.

Sure, an author like King, Koontz, or even Herbert of 30 years later, could have added a lot more to this story...and maybe it would have been just as good. But most likely, it would have been a 600 page 'epic', that ended up having about one-third of the book being worth reading.

Here, Herbert managed to make the whole story worth reading, with no extraneous material (with the possible exception of one character early on who gets a separate chapter that reads more like a stand-alone short story).

The final chapter contains a nice additional 'scary as hell' moment that prevents the story from the kind of anticlimactic letdown ending common of more recent horror novels. The next chapter in the trilogy is set up nicely...and I look forward to finding the other two volumes to see where else this idea can go!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The First Of The Excellent "Rat Trilogy". Well Done Jimmy!, January 25, 2006

By 

John Baranyai "Book Nerd And Ex High School G... - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rats (Paperback)

This book was first published in 1974 and I was delighted to discover that it has hardly dated(unlike me!). It is about a group of SuperSize rats who terrorize London.If you want a glimmer into the potential that James Herbert had back then as an author which took him to greater heights this book is for you.