A blackness leaves its lair and begins slowly to spread
It came like a malignant shadow with seductive promises of power. Somewhere in the night, a small girl smiled as her mother burned, asylum inmates slaughtered their attendants, and in slimy tunnels, once-human creatures gathered. Madness raged as the lights began to fade, and humanity was attacked by an ancient, unstoppable evil.
The Dark Horror Book Review
Are you afraid of the dark? The Dark is the first James Herbert book that I picked up to read. It is not, however, the only Herbert book in my book collection as I also have Moon on one of my bookshelves. There are others that I have heard of that are popular among the horror community: The Rats, The Fog, and Domain, to name a few often spoken of when discussing Herbert. But, the plot of The Dark intrigued me, and with the number of people proclaiming it to be the scariest book they read, then it was a no-brainer for me to pick this one up to give it a read. The plot, in a nutshell, is there is something evil in the dark, making people do crazy things. It’s a simple enough premise but, anything to do with the dark, is sure to entice your imagination, I assumed.
The Dark started promising enough to give me high hopes for what was to come in later chapters. But, as I progressed with each chapter, my initial impression of what started as a promising read started to dwindle. There were points where I lost sight of what was happening, as it seemed like many of the chapters were of various events happening around all of London. If I were to compare The Dark to a movie, it would be The Crazies, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and even Dawn of the Dead. What does this say about The Dark? Well, to me, it means that, although Herbert exhibited good writing, there was nothing new in terms of plot that I had not seen before. The aforementioned films, all came prior to the book being first published in 1980 so maybe they were inspirations?
Despite Herbert’s writing, the book became redundant and even started to drag. There was a lot of exposition, as well as too many action sequences to my liking. The action, to me, took away a lot of that atmosphere of horror that was to be inflicted by whatever was in the dark and explained with extraneous detail that just made it more of a chore just to get to the point. Not only did the book drag, but it became a bit of a bore despite the many action sequences.
Chapter 18 reeled me back in where one of the main characters proposes a theory on what may be happening. He goes on a lengthy “philosophical” diatribe about good and evil. My ears perked up at this, and I was excited for what I thought would be next, but, alas, the book immediately loses me again with more scenarios that demonstrate the chaos caused by the dark. By this point in the book, I’ve had my fair share of detailed action sequences but not enough information as to why. I felt little, to no connection, to any of the characters and could have cared less for what happened to any of them. While the many predicaments they faced were harrowing, not once did I feel the tension nor did I care.
The Dark was a major disappointment for me, despite Herbert’s excellent writing. I wanted to come out enjoying this book, but in the end, I thought it was just okay. I only hope that his other works are better.