Domain

The Rats Series, Book 3

By: James Herbert

Narrated by: David Rintoul

Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

Book Three in Herbert’s classic ‘rats’ series. The final countdown. 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 irradiated forebears, are waiting. They know that Man is weakened, become frail. Man has become their prey.

James Herbert was one of Britain’s greatest popular novelists and our #1 best-selling writer of chiller fiction. Widely imitated and hugely influential, he wrote 23 novels which have collectively sold over 54 million copies worldwide and been translated into 34 languages.

Born in London in the forties, James Herbert was art director of an advertising agency before turning to writing fiction in 1975. His first novel, The Rats, was an instant bestseller and is now recognised as a classic of popular contemporary fiction.

Herbert went on to publish a new top ten best-seller every year until 1988. He wrote six more bestselling novels in the 1990s and three more since: Once, Nobody True and The Secret of Crickley Hall.

Herbert died in March 2013 at the age of 69.

©1984 James Herbert (P)2013 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

“Herbert was by no means literary, but his work had a raw urgency. His best novels, The Rats and The Fog, had the effect of Mike Tyson in his championship days: no finesse, all crude power. Those books were best sellers because many readers (including me) were too horrified to put them down.” (Stephen King)
"There are few things I would like to do less than lie under a cloudy night sky while someone read aloud the more vivid passages of Moon. In the thriller genre, do recommendations come any higher?" (Andrew Postman, The New York Times Book Review)
"Herbert goes out in a blaze of glory" ( Daily Mail)

A fitting end to a great trilogy!

"Domain" is the third and final installment of "The Rats" trilogy. It is primarily about London dealing with the fall out of Nuclear destruction and the survivors of the attack. But of course when the meek inherit the earth, in this case we're talking about the rats, who are anything but meek. They are violence, hunger and fury rolled into one.
This is 1970's style horror story telling at its best.
Read excitedly by David Rintoul.

When Fall Out Has Teeth

An amazingly gripping part of the story that kept me listening. From the human to human struggles to survive are so good and the suspense of who is going next or when will the rodents strike I just found myself hooked even though I figured there might have been an exteme evolution this time. I was not let down.

Not enough rats

I hate to be a wet blanket, and I hope Herbert derived income and pride and a sense of doing something important with this book.
But despite being nearly as long as both of the previous books combined, it probably has less than half of the rat content of either of those books on their own.

I wouldn't want to discourage anyone who liked other books by this author, but I do have to say, as somebody who never thought they wanted to read a horror novel about rats, or its sequel, that by the time I got to the last in the trilogy, I was really counting on tons of rats.
And there ARE tons of rats, but still...
There's so much in the book that isn't rats, that by the time the book is SERIOUSLY about rats, I barely cared anymore!
Maybe that was the point, to close this series by winding down the readers' interest in the nuclear rats of this nuclear rat fictional universe.
All I know is that the next time I want to read a book that's REALLY about RATS, I'll stick with The Rats or Lair!!!

Not what I exerted for the final chapter.

I really enjoyed the first two books but this Domain took a big left turn. It was alright and David Rantoul did a great job as usual. I would still recommend it so you can finish the story of the rats.

The final 'Rats' book - with no Rats

I wasn't exactly sure what book l reading with this one. Supposedly, this book is part of the Rats trilogy but it didn't begin that way. The book begins with a nuclear attack on London, with not a rat to be found. From that point on the story focuses on a group of survivors in the new post nuclear world. There are a few rat attacks but they are few and far between. I didn't have a problem with the two storylines as individual efforts but the story seemed forced when they were combined. James Herbert would separating the them into two different books.