Book Review: "The Fog" by James Herbert
5/5 - a perfect slow-burning hyper-horrific masterpiece...
There's little doubt that James Herbert is one of the greats of atmosphere and darkness. I liken him to Stephen King, but James Herbert seems to have more in the realms of folk horror. Both are great in their own way. The Fog starts quite incredibly as we are pulled into a world of strangeness, wild happenings and a quiet town that is upended by sinister things unfolding. James Herbert's creeping dread is horrifying as it is delicious to read. I won't lie to you, I absolutely ate this one up. Yes, it's another slow but bloody burn. Yes, I thought it was simply fantastic.
A town in Wiltshire is struck with disaster when the ground begins to open up after what seems like a horrific earthquake. One man, on his way to the town has his car drop down this hole. Children fall into it and the local shop is rattled horrifically. Screaming and helpless, the town is terrified. But that is where it all starts. A worker for the Department of the Environment is the man who was trapped in that car, named John Holman. The product of the fog seems to be though, a deadly and frightful fog. Holman is a totally changed man once he pulls himself up from the rubble, and not really for the better. Admitted by a doctor: Holman had gone insane.
The truth about the Fog is realised as it starts turning people into savage killers. It makes animals go insane as well. Priests commit horrifying acts (I mean, there's fiction in here too (I'm sorry it was too easy)), students attack teachers (again, where's the fiction?) and farmers get trampled to death (aah there it is). One of the key scenes is when the Fog is spreading, it drives a pilot of a 747 mad and he crashes his plane into London's BT Tower. After a horrifying suicide attempt, John Holman slowly regains his sanity, making him the deadliest weapon against the Fog.
Herbert's ability to make terrifying scenes work within the constant state of threat and tension definitely feels like a jump scare in book form. It is just incredible, the amount of slow-burning, slow-building that happens is probably my favourite thing about the whole book. We go back and forth from terrifying scenes to moments of intensity. We get emotional human parts such as when a woman cries over seeing Holman in the hospital after he'd gone insane. We also get the terror of the ground opening up, the plane crashing and the animals turning savage.
Another thing I thought was very clever here was the weaving of modern horror and folk horror. You all know that I love folk horror and the rural atmospheres where the book initially forms seems to be plagued by this weirdness whilst also trying its best to be a 'town' scene. At the start of the book, you would never guess that there is something horrifically wrong. Children come to buy sweets and then, everything erupts. The 'splatterpunk' of the modern horror is something extreme. The violence is untamed and the way in which we realise that a third of the people in that Wiltshire town died as a result of the ground opening up alone means that we have no idea how many more will die as a result of the Fog.
There's a big extended metaphor here for societal collapse, something I do feel that we are maybe partially living through at the moment. James Herbert was always great on commenting on society. But here we see people not recognising each other, insanity driving society into a deep despair and the way in which we become completely disconnected, savage and suicidal. Honestly, it just looks like a more extreme version of what happened to us.
All in all, I found this book to be fantastic. I was really looking forward to reading this for a while and I'm glad that I did. The perfect slow-burning tension was just what I needed. I haven't been feeling myself lately and when that happens, I tend to like reading a beautifully slow, intense, burning book with a storyline that completely and utterly horrifies me.
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Comments (2)
This sounds incredible. I’m already struggling to keep up with my book club list, but now I really want to add this one to the pile!
Ugh, slow burn, I'll pass. Lol. But that fog sure is creeepppyyyy! Loved your review!