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gandhi's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
5.0
heather93's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
beytwice's review against another edition
4.0
I loved the dystopian London setting of this, the ability to stay true to the grisly nature of WWII despite obviously deviating in factual accuracy. 48 has all the action of a Tarantino movie and sometimes even the complete absurdity of one, which works just fine for me! I loved (or hated, respectively) the characters, was enthralled by the horrific aspect of the Blood Death, and enjoyed the twists and turns through the ravaged city of London. All this said, there was something missing for me that I couldn't put my finger on: maybe that most of the tropes within I've seen before, like a British and far more grisly I Am Legend. But hey, if they're tropes that work... no need to fix it!
sfletcher26's review against another edition
3.0
A fast-paced, even breakneck, trip through a post-apocalyptic London. Not Herbert's best, but still a fun read.
jjarthur's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
tobin_elliott's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Still gamely making my way through Herbert's bibiography. This one was...different, yet similar to his others.
Wildly different in that Herbert does his own take on the post-apocalyptic genre. It seems like every big name horror author has to try their hand at an end-of-the-world scenario. Stephen King with The Stand, Robert R. McCammon with Swan Song, Graham Masterton with Plague, and now Herbert.
Of those four, I'd say this was the least successful, but it's actually, aside from a few sour notes, one of the more enjoyable Herbert novels recently.
It opens on an action scene that just goes on and on...maybe a bit too much, but it was fun, at least. Honestly, as others have said, this one rarely stops to catch its breath. So it's a plus, but it's also, at times, a minus.
Some of the other stuff is the standard boilerplate Herbert complaints:
- The virile male protagonist noticing the overly attractive female character at a most inappropriate moment
_ The virile male protagonist absolutely getting it on with said overly attractive female character, often because she pretty much throws herself at him.
- The third was non-standard but, while I get that Herbert was drumming up some conflict within the group with Nathaniel hating on the Nazi Wilhelm, the repetitious anger got to be a little over the top and uncomfortable.
Overall, the plot was a touch far-fetched (more than most of the post-apocalyptic novels I've experienced, anyway), and I had to really really lean into my suspension of disbelief at how the Blackshirts planned to save themselves.
But, overall, for all its issues, this was definitely one of the more fun, and more readable novels of his.
Wildly different in that Herbert does his own take on the post-apocalyptic genre. It seems like every big name horror author has to try their hand at an end-of-the-world scenario. Stephen King with The Stand, Robert R. McCammon with Swan Song, Graham Masterton with Plague, and now Herbert.
Of those four, I'd say this was the least successful, but it's actually, aside from a few sour notes, one of the more enjoyable Herbert novels recently.
It opens on an action scene that just goes on and on...maybe a bit too much, but it was fun, at least. Honestly, as others have said, this one rarely stops to catch its breath. So it's a plus, but it's also, at times, a minus.
Some of the other stuff is the standard boilerplate Herbert complaints:
- The virile male protagonist noticing the overly attractive female character at a most inappropriate moment
_ The virile male protagonist absolutely getting it on with said overly attractive female character, often because she pretty much throws herself at him.
- The third was non-standard but, while I get that Herbert was drumming up some conflict within the group with Nathaniel hating on the Nazi Wilhelm, the repetitious anger got to be a little over the top and uncomfortable.
Overall, the plot was a touch far-fetched (more than most of the post-apocalyptic novels I've experienced, anyway), and I had to really really lean into my suspension of disbelief at how the Blackshirts planned to save themselves.
But, overall, for all its issues, this was definitely one of the more fun, and more readable novels of his.
rosekk's review against another edition
3.0
It was fun. The idea behind it's a bit ridiculous, but I can get past that. The thing that knocked the book down a few notches in my estimation was the writing style. I've liked James Herbert's stories before and never noticed a significant flaw in his writing before, so I don't think it's a fault with him in general; something just went wrong in with this book. Either that, or I haven't noticed until now. It just gets heavy-handed in places, explaining things in a way that breaks immersion. For instance, early on there's some description of the setting as the narrator races through it. He makes a point of saying that he didn't notice what he's describing at the time of the events being described, but before, because now he's too busy to have noticed. There might have been away to make that observation fit, but the way it was done just reminded me that this exposition/description was too detailed for the chase scene we were in, which I probably wouldn't have questioned if he'd just given the description and never called attention to the incongruity. Also, I found the repetition of breasts being pressed up against the narrator odd, just because it happened in the weirdest moments; several times the main cast are running from sick Nazi mad men out for their blood, and there'd be a lull in action for the narrator to describe a pair of breasts being briefly pressed into him. I know the character is meant to have been lonely, but that doesn't account for why a persons attention would shift so dramatically. The whole book peppered with these odd, slightly jarring things which made it hard to enjoy the experience.
beanspuss's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
liamkeith's review
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
david_agranoff's review against another edition
3.0
5 star idea, 3 star execution for me. Some of that comes down to personal prose pet peeves. This novel is about england after WW2, in this laternate history Hitler's last gasp is to launch a bio-weapon at england. Full review coming