Tag Archives: bookreviews

(book) James Herbert – Portent

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.