Others Book

A book that starts in Hell has got to be expertly paced, and no-one ever accused James Herbert, the British King of Horror, of lacking any of those skills. Hardly has a damned soul agreed to an angelic offer he cannot refuse than Nicholas Dismas is limping down the mean streets of contemporary Brighton, searching for a child who may not even exist. Nicholas has only one eye and is short, lame and hunchbacked; he finds himself living daily with the hatred a society obsessed with normality dishes out to those who cannot conform. This is a book about exploitation and prejudice, which touches some raw nerves; it makes you think as well as making you shudder. Dismas, who feels sorry for himself, but not too much of the time, is one of the more three-dimensional characters in Herbert's work, and his love for the tiny and beautiful Constance is genuinely touching, while not entirely avoiding sentimentality. There is horror of a classic visceral kind here--one of Dismas's colleagues dies in a peculiarly vile fashion--and a nursing home turns out to contain a real heart of darkness, but the real horror is the shabby ways in which people treat each other. --Roz KaveneyRead More