Anyone who is at all familiar with genre writing knows the works of James Herbert. The British author who wrote 23 novels including The Rats, Haunted, and The Fog, died yesterday at 69 years of age.
Four of his works were made into films -- most notably his book The Rats that depicts London infested with flesh-eating, mutant rodents. The novel sold out its first 1974 printing in three weeks and was loosely adapted into the movie Deadly Eyes directed by Robert Clouse.
Herbert inspired countless horror writers, including Neil Gaiman, who remembers the author:
“Jim’s [sales] numbers were extraordinary and he was very grumpy that nobody noticed. He’d point out that he had outsold Stephen King in the UK. He was a bestselling author which I think also meant that he felt he wasn’t getting the attention that he deserved. He wanted the things he wasn’t getting. He wanted critical acclaim and I don’t think he felt he ever got it even when some of his novels did get serious critical attention.
He was always incredibly encouraging. When Terry Pratchett and I wrote our first novel together, Good Omens, my first novel, he gave me a blurb for it, said something about how incredibly funny and wonderful it was. A few years later, on a panel, he was recorded as saying that, long after he had given the blurb, he picked up the book and read it, and was delighted to find out that it was actually as good as the blurb he had given it, which I think shows something rather sweet about Jim. That he would have had the confidence in me, and assumed that the book would be funny and later discovered that it was. And he had the humility to tell the world.”
Watch a clip from Deadly Eyes, where rats attack a movie theater. It includes some seriously awesome rat puppetry.
via The Telegraph and Reuters