Book Review: 48 by James Herbert

48 by James Herbert

Hardcover, 336 pages

Published November 1996 by HarperCollins

I discovered this novel while doing research for the Man in the High Castle episode of The Dickheads podcast. I saw this on a list of WW II alternate history novels. The concept won me right away. What if Hitler in a last desperate act took down England by launching a biological attack. This novel is about the survivors.

Herbert did his research but much of what takes up the novel is a survival tale. I like those but what interested me in the concept was the twisting of history. There is surprisingly less counterfactual history than I expected. Much of the action takes place following an American pilot and an German ex-POW who have to work together to survive in the wasteland of a mostly devastated Britain. The only survivors are the ones with a rare blood type and the Black shirt British fascists are trying to capture them.

I know James Herbert is considered one of the greatest authors of 20th century British horror. For me every time I read one of his books I have the same experience. I read the back cover and think to myself "Wow what a concept." I never enjoy the novels as much as I think I will. One problem I have with the style of writing Herbert uses. It maybe personal for me but Herbert goes pages and pages without any dialogue. All action that to me needed to be broken up with short lines of dialogue, or even just a short sentence. The long blocks of texts becomes hard on the eyes. Maybe it is just me.

To this day I think Domain Herbert's post nuclear war novel about the people who survive a nuke attack on London by going in the Tube tunnels and end up in a battle with radiation poisoned super rats is the bleakest concept for a novel ever. Not sure the resulting novel is as good. I love the concept of this novel, but I only liked the execution.

I also tend not to prefer first person narrative, and here is an example where there were lots of rich characters that in a multiple POV book would have made for interesting character dynamics. Our Point of view character is interesting enough but to sustain all the inner dialogue I thought we missed out because of the format. The action seems to be more fitting for a film and takes up much of the word count. The back story of the Blackshirts - the British fascists is an example of stuff that could have been more deeply explored but hey it was not bad. Solidly three out of five stars. It could could have been more.