James Herbert (1943-2013) is in no way stranger to the pages of this webzine. His works have already been featured and reviewed here and I am a great fan of his chiller horror novels as you can say if you read my previous features on his books. This time, Herbert brings us a mixture of horror and catastrophe novel about the end of the world and new start. Something is happening all over the world, tsunamis destroy coasts and thousands die, Loch Ness boils and hot water turns into wave which kills, storms kill thousands with hail size of a tennis ball on highways. Mother Nature decided to strike back for all of our sins against her. In midst of trying to save what is left to save are two special Romanian siblings, their adoptive mother, one meteorologist and evil cult from New Orleans who try to stop saving and end the world into infinite darkness. What to say? I read almost all of Herbert’s books. He was also known that he DIY arranged all of his front covers in a way he thought they should represent the novels he wrote. He died suddenly at the age of 69, not being ill or anything, so he could have written to us fans so much more.
Considering this novel, I must admit that it is not his top five. It is just too much confused in some places, too long and too light compared to let’s say Rats trilogy, Ash trilogy or Others and similar of my favorites. Also, ending seems to be a little to abrupt and all of those horrible things that happened throughout the story are just solved too easily. You could say that there is a happy end, but there is also no happy end to this story. If you are a fan like I am, you will like this one. If you are a first time Herbert reader I recommend some of the works I mentioned above in this paragraph.
John Saul (born 1942) is one of my favorite horror authors. His books are numerous and a bit similar to Stephen King works but with one big difference. There are many Saul’s novels that have no happy ending and are pretty bleak and depressive. Also, many of his novels deal with families, children and, how should I put it, ordinary people in ordinary situations that become horror due to some curse or other reason. This time story takes us to little Californian town by the ocean where lives family Conger who were once the richest and most influential family of that time. But, there is a curse on that family which involves suicide, accidental death, eerie family portrait and two daughters who roam at night through the woods and in the ancient cave. Then children start to disappear and something evil lurks around.
Book is divided into three parts, kind of intro, past and present represented in last two or three chapters. This is a slow one, with couple of gory scenes and kind of sad ending, not to spoil it right now. This is not Saul’s best work in my opinion from what I read until now, but it is a decent horror novel. No nudity, a little gore and mainly suspense and mistery. Okay one.
As promised, here is the review for new issue, number 13 of the best fanzine in this region right now. Fanzine is in Serbian language with contributors from all over ex Yugoslavia region. This one featured more or less interesting interview with Cock Sparrer, great interview with Napalm Death, this issue’s special is about one of the best Serbian hardcore bands Unison and how they recorded their album. What I love the most are tour stories and diaries, this issue contains tour diary of Parnepar(excellent!) and Sukob/Nailed In mini tour diary(more excellent!). Columns were always important for me in such fanzines so these columns in this issue are superb plus festival reports and gig reports that I also love to read. Fanzine ends as usual with music and fanzine reviews. Hats off to the crew and I eagerly await next issue.
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