Customer Reviews

The Survivor

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

 

 

I was 9 years old when this paperback first came out in 1976 and I'll never forget the cover. It was all black with a severed doll's head on it staring out with luminescent evil eyes. I was already a horror fan at that age, but I still hadn't put all my childhood fears away, and I remember putting the book face down several times because the eyes on the cover gave me the heebie jeebies. When I finally got around to reading it, it wasn't quite as scary as the cover, but it was a fun read from Britain's master James Herbert and genuinely creepy... A man finds himself the sole survivor of an airplane crash that kills hundreds. He is left with a confusion of memories and a survivor's guilt that pushes him to investigate the crash. What he finds is something reaching out from the grave and a shocking revelation... I've been a Herbert fan every since I read his amazing (and incredibly violent) THE DARK. This isn't up to the same calibur as that book but it's a quick, fun read and has a very creepy feel to it. Recommended for horror fans. (And if you can get a copy of the first paperback edition, you'll see what I mean about the cover!)

The first half of the book is very interesting but the ending is a big big disappointment. It seems that the ending did not match the build up of the first two thirds of the book. One expected a thrilling finale but to the extreme disappointment of this reader got a ... B-movie type finish. Herbert's Rats trilogy is easily a much more interesting read and to my opinion the best books he's written to date.

I usually don't read horror,but would highly recommend this book! It was hard to put down & I was suprised at the way it ended. A++

It's been a long time since I read this book. I remember that shortly after I bagan reading that I found myself locked in. I was hardly able to put the book down until I read it through. After reading other James Herbert books I know that Herbert has this writing style that just keeps bringing you to the edge time and again so that you're compelled to find out what happens next. A real joy ride for scare junkies.

As I said it's been a long time since I read it, but I remember that it does focus around a lone survivor who is somehow drawn to this mega evil force that continues to grow from the souls of the recent deceased. If I remember right the force finds ways to create more mass deaths to make it continue to grow bigger and stronger.

As for the disappointing ending that some have spoke of....I don't remember how it ended so I'm going to have to read it again myself....Hey! The journey is definatly worth the price of admission for this read though...

Having read most of Herbert's works, I found Survivor lacking some of the elements that have attracted me towards his writing over the years. In Survivor, once again, you have a middle age male heroin. However, in this novel, things are a little abnormal as instead of trying to save the world from a supernatural phenomenon, he is searching for some kind of inner truth in why he was a survivor of a deadly plane crash. For its time (1976), the concept of the novel was original and reflecting back, I enjoyed the premise. However, I found reading the novel quite taxing and I struggled to finish it. If you enjoy Herbert, try reading the Fog, Shrine, or the Rats trilogy. I enjoyed these novels much more than Survivor.

James Herbert's grasp on horror is excellent - the first half of this book is impossible to put down. The last chapters lose some of the initial chill, but not to the point of disappointment. I highly recommend it as reading to anyone interested in horror. One of my all time favorites and hard to find.

I travelled to England to find a copy of this book, which has been out of print for a while. But it's well worth it. The twist at the end is unexpected to say the least.

This was a disappointing horror novel by Herbert. Its about a demon on the loose after a plane crash. I didn't like the religious tint to the story and the demon wasn't scary either. Maybe one or two scenes were kinda scary in the whole book, thats it. Its a rather dull story actually. Try his other novels, such as "Creed" or "The Rats", those are much better.