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Bezig met laden... '48 (1996)door James Herbert
Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Eh, it was alright. Macho man with issues saves some people in an almost post-apocalypse type London in 1948, after Hitler ended the war by unleashing a genocidal disease. I thought at the start I'd love it (post-apocalypse! Places I recognise!) but ended up being about the characters, which is *usually* what I want in a book, but I didn't really care for these characters. Huge pile of cliches. The dog was alright but underused ;). The main narrator was awful. Must kill. Uh. Pretty woman. Must notice body shape whilst running for life. Must hate. Must punch. Etc, etc. Boys books. Hoke is running, running from real enemies and running from his past. This book basically is one long chase scene interspersed with some dialogue, I enjoyed the alternative history side of the book, not the best JH I have read however, The Fog is funnier and The Rats is scarier, but he kept the pace and interest up well enough for four stars *audio-boek* Een mooi verhaal, dat zich afspeelt in 1948 (vandaar de titel). Vlak voor het einde van de Tweede Wereldoorlog, laat Hitler raketten met een virus ('bloeddood'). Door dit virus verdikt het bloed van zijn slachtoffers, tot het uiteindelijk zo dik is dat de aders verstopt raken. Het resterende bloed zoekt een uitweg via allerlei lichaamsopeningen, en sommige slachtoffers sterven vrijwel direct, terwijl het voor anderen jaren duurden. Sommige mensen doen er langer over om te sterven, en zij leiden een naar leven. Dan zijn er ook nog mensen met AB-negatief, die immuun zijn voor deze ziekte. Hoke, een piloot uit Amerika, is een van de mensen met deze bloedgroep, en hij probeert van alles om uit de handen te blijven van de Britse Nazis die het op zijn bloed hebben voorzien. Het boek begint in het midden van het conflict. De hoofd- en secundaire personages komen in diverse moeilijkheden gedurende het verhaal. De personages zijn zeer geloofwaardig neergezet, en de interactie tussen hen voldoende om me in het verhaal te houden. Er was genoeg geweld en 'horror' in het verhaal zodat een echtefan voldoende aan zijn of haar trekken kan komen. Zelfs ben ik geen liefhebber van het horror genre, maar in dit boek paste het. A Herbert novel of the old school style. The narrative is fast paced, and the story simple. The reasons for the protagonist staying in London is almost a Maguffin (See Hitchcock films for more on this narrative element) but to be honest, the story is so swift you are carried along just as the characters are. Recommended to any Herbert fans.
'Break-neck pace! a story for those who like their plots exploding with excitement and fear, set against an apocalyptic backdrop. A perfect adrenalin-packed alternative to Booker Prize pretension.' Mad Max meets dystopian London bloodsuckers three years after the Allies lose WW II, in a what-if tale by the author of (among 18 others) the much richer, or at least completely different, Portent (1996). Hitler hits London with his V1 rockets but still finds himself losing the war. So he fires off V2 rockets, which hold a deadly virus that freezes human blood and causes fast death, although some rare victims die more slowly. Only that three percent of the population with AB negative blood survive the virus--so that gangs of slowly dying Blackshirts roam the city looking for AB-negs whose blood they hope to exchange for their own. One of those fighting the Blackshirts as they pursue him is Hoke, an American once with the RAF who now holes up in a vacated luxury hotel, the Savoy. Hoke has been cleaning the streets around the Savoy of dead bodies and hauling them to a stadium where he expects someday to have a mass cremation, his little gift to mankind. Meantime, he races about on his Matchless 350 motorcycle, locked into anger against the Germans because the virus killed his wife and child, while the Blackshirts are Nazi sympathizers sprung from England's worst prewar racists. So when an AB-neg German pilot and two women save Hoke from an attack by Blackshirts at the National Gallery, Hoke leads them to safety through Tube lines filled with dried corpses and houses them in his well-stocked digs at the Savoy. Eventually, the Blackshirts are led to the group by one of the women, an upper-class Nazi sympathizer, and once more the chase is on. All praise to Herbert for his haunting vision of Ghost City, the hotels and subways and buses filled with the long-dead and dried-out. But the plot goes forward like a tiresome movie crunchfest, action scene upon action scene, boom upon boom. Is opgenomen in
In 1945, Hitler unleashed the Blood Death on Britain as his final act of vengeance.Those who died at once were the lucky ones. The really unfortunate took years. The survivors - people like me, who had the blood group that kept us safe from the disease - were now targets for those who believed our blood could save them.I survived for three years. I lived alone, spending my days avoiding the fascist Blackshirts who wanted my blood for their dying leader. Then I met the others - and life got complicated all over again . . . Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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Wildly different in that Herbert does his own take on the post-apocalyptic genre. It seems like every big name horror author has to try their hand at an end-of-the-world scenario. Stephen King with The Stand, Robert R. McCammon with Swan Song, Graham Masterton with Plague, and now Herbert.
Of those four, I'd say this was the least successful, but it's actually, aside from a few sour notes, one of the more enjoyable Herbert novels recently.
It opens on an action scene that just goes on and on...maybe a bit too much, but it was fun, at least. Honestly, as others have said, this one rarely stops to catch its breath. So it's a plus, but it's also, at times, a minus.
Some of the other stuff is the standard boilerplate Herbert complaints:
- The virile male protagonist noticing the overly attractive female character at a most inappropriate moment
_ The virile male protagonist absolutely getting it on with said overly attractive female character, often because she pretty much throws herself at him.
- The third was non-standard but, while I get that Herbert was drumming up some conflict within the group with Nathaniel hating on the Nazi Wilhelm, the repetitious anger got to be a little over the top and uncomfortable.
Overall, the plot was a touch far-fetched (more than most of the post-apocalyptic novels I've experienced, anyway), and I had to really really lean into my suspension of disbelief at how the Blackshirts planned to save themselves.
But, overall, for all its issues, this was definitely one of the more fun, and more readable novels of his. ( )