Customer Reviews

Sepulchre

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

 

 

In Sepulchre, there is a house that holds a dreadful secret. "The Keeper", the psychic and the secret serve a force which threatens mankind itself. Judging from the reviews, readers tend to either love James Herbert or hate him. Personally, I believe he never ever gets the praise he richly deserves. I'm a big Stephen King fan, but when Herbert is on form (as he surely is in this book) he is close to unbeatable. If you've never read a James Herbert novel, make this one your first. It's fast paced and intricate, avoiding the descriptive overkill that sometimes blocks the smooth flow of King or Koontz. He has the amazing ability to make characters absolutely terrifying and utterly deplorable and if you like your horror sick and scary but with a vengeful ending this book is a must. It's yet another amazing example of Herbert's highly original mind.

James Herbert has done many good things to mankind, but with SEPULCHRE he shocks and beats the outside world 'n beyond like never before! Sepulchre is a pure, fast-paced and extremely suspense-loaded mixture of thriller, horror and the supernatural. The Haunted-Edinbrook-alike Neath and its surroundings will eternally be imprinted in our minds as one of the most ominous, scary and mystique places in all-time horror fiction. The story - shortly, as the cover says, a conflict between the Bad and the Bad - is so ingenious that the shocking and horrifying scenes come to you more unexpectedly than ever, mainly because in such a literary jewel you wouldn't believe these shocks to happen. I think of this story everyday since I read it some six years ago, and it has really had a releaving effect on me. Sepulchre is simply the best book ever written, of any genre.

I absolutely loved this one! I picked it up and literally didn't put it down, its that good. The characters were terrific and the end is THE best ending in history (or at least out of the books I've read).

What a puzzle this book was. I felt it has such potential, but just lost my interest when it went nowhere. I don't know what people thought was so wonderful about the ending (other reviews), I thought it was ho-hum. The story, or plot, should have been interesting, but it wasn't.
The best thing about the book was the Polish driver's history, and the mystery about the protagonist's true nature.

Truely a masterpiece. He gets inside all the characters' heads as well as yours! You won't be able to get the shocking images out of your head for weeks after reading this book.

Not my usual read- first James Herbert I've read- a fairly fast-moving thriller which gives the author a chance to explore the seedier side of human nature. Shades of a depraved Oscar Wilde and Voldemorte from Harry Potter with a mild bit of anti-semitism, misguided mysticism and IRA thrown in for good measure. Odd sentences abound but I think written for masculine appeal- depraved sex and violence!

When you consider how good Herbert can be: Haunted, The Magic Cottage, Moon - this book is a real disappointment. The story begins quite well but starts to drag halfway through, so that by the time you reach the denouement, you are beyond caring. Part of the problem lies with the characterisation, which is wooden and lifeless. The characters are archetypes, never individuals, and so you care neither one way nor the other about them... Herbert's descriptive powers seem to have deserted him. The house of Neath never vividly comes to life. It is like a set on an empty film lot. Yet, the house is central to the story. The horror, despite its gaudiness (which is a lamentable feature of most of Herbert's works), never really horrifies, which for a horror book, is pretty damning. When Herbert writes well, he writes very well: When he writes badly, he writes books like Sepulchre.

I reckon this book is James' weakest. It lacks suspense, the characters are poorly developed and the whole idea of this book is kind of ridiculous. I seem to get the impression that the author hastily wrote this book to make a quick buck.