The Fog
Paperback, 275 pages
I’ve voiced my opinion that James Herbert tends to over-write
in the pages of Midnight before, so
I’ll just leave that here and shut up.
The Fog is
Herbert’s first follow-up to his masterful The
Rats and the first half of the book is pure, batshit crazy Herbert
greatness. A fissure erupts in the middle of a small town, sucking half of the
buildings and inhabitants into it. If that’s not bad enough, the rift also
releases a yellowish fog, a mist that when it comes in contact with a person, it
makes them insane. Suicide, murder, rape and all sorts of nasty behavior is
lovingly depicted, and the fog grows bigger with every mind it destroys. Naturally,
it’s headed toward London.
The set-up to this story is superb and the descriptions of
the fog’s effects are gruesome and horrific. I’d have been happy with another
100 pages of just that. I don’t need an explanation or any science; just give
me the mayhem. But we do get the reason behind the fog and the main character
(a survivor of the fissure), and his crew of bigwigs try to solve the dilemma.
Herbert is a good enough writer where he won’t leave you high and dry while
they seek answers. There are exciting and dangerous treks through the fog while
the crazy Londoners who are out of control lurk around every corner.
Herbert revisited some of this idea in his later book The Dark, though that had a supernatural
bent. This one gets a little bogged down in the second half, but is still a
highly recommended classic. I have the attention span of a tsetse fly and that
might be why I started to lose interest while I awaited the finale, but for
those of you with more brain in the pan than I, it might be (or become) a
favorite.
