Product Description

The long-dreaded nuclear conflict. The city torn apart, shattered, its people destroyed or mutilated beyond hope. For just a few, survival is possible only beneath the wrecked streets - if there is time to avoid the slow-descending poisonous ashes. But below, the rats, demonic offspring of their irradiated forebears, are waiting. They know that Man is weakened, become frail. Has become their prey....

Remember with fear

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37502 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Customer Reviews

The Rats � Part 3
The Rats was a fearsomely successful debut, so much so that even after several other novels Herbert felt compelled to go back and write a sequel, but Lair suffered from a 'seen it all before' law of diminishing returns - in true Hollywood sequel fashion the action may have been bigger but it certainly wasn't better.

Thankfully with Domain, Herbert's 3rd Rats novel, the author has come up with a new angle to work with - nuclear holocaust. The novel starts at a breathtaking pace and barely lets up - 5 nuclear bombs fall on London, and its an immediate battle for survival as the population struggles to get underground and away from the fallout. Totally unprepared, most of the inhabitants are killed, with London almost completely destroyed. The novel follows the fate of typical Herbert loner hero Culver, and government employee Dealey, who knows the location of a secret underground survival shelter but having been blinded in the nuclear blast needs Culver's help to get there. Meanwhile, the long dormant mutant rats seize their chance to emerge from hiding and start feeding on human flesh again...

The addition of the nuclear holocaust material massively expands the scope of this novel, as even without the rats the cast face diverse threats from disease, floods, fire, rabid dogs and lawless gangs who roam the wasteland of a devastated London. The destroyed capitol makes for some startling imagery, with Domain containing the best descriptive writing Herbert has yet produced. Herbert gradually brings together a varied cast, with the novel peaking in an extended mid-book action sequence when their temporary bolthole is flooded, then attacked by rats. Aside from the books obvious hero it's difficult to tell who will survive, as the band is slowly whittled down by adversity, with death at every turn. Non-stop tension and action coupled with some startling imagery makes Domain not only the best of the Rats trilogy (though Herbert would later revisit the setting of Domain for his graphic novel The City), but Herbert's best book up to that point.

Unputdownable
This book was great, and when i started reading it i couldnt put it down!! the scariest thing about this story is that it could actually happen. Herbert has a brilliant imagination and has taken one of lifes most hated and feared animals (through fault of our history) and made it a worthy opponent. When it comes down to it, its rats versus humans, and the rast have hit the humans when they are at their weakest. Survival of the fittest.

The black rats return
This is the third book in Herberts Rats trilogy (The Rats being first and Lair second) and this time a new twist is added to the story: a nuclear holocaust.

The first few chapters are very gripping and brilliant as the book starts out wit London being hit and destroyed by 5 nuclear bombs. Few lucky survivors manage to stay alive by getting to shelters of the London Underground before they are distroyed the the bombs and their devistating aftermath.

Once the bombs are over and all has settles, some people return to the streets or come out of hiding, only to succumb to the horrific effects of radiation poisoning as after the bombs highly radioactive nuclear ashes fall and the streets wont be safe for at least four weeks.

Culver is protected by a partically falling building from the damage by the bombs and manages to get into a governemnt shelter - along with a blind government agent who he happened to be with at the time - in the little time they have before they radioactive ashes fall to earth.

However, our survivours are not as lucky as they think as they find themselves being brutally attacked and killed by killer black rats, who have lived underground since the events of Lair, but now that their home has bee invaded they are back with a vengeance. Now nowhere is safe Culver and the other survivours as they cannot go above ground for the radiation and are trapped with the Rats underground.

I really loved this book and didnt want it to end. Even though it's almost 500 pages it is a quick read as it's so addictove you find it very difficult to put down.

Reccomended to fans of the rats books, James Herbert, or horror in general.