World Horror Convention 2010 has announced that their very Special Guest of Honour is Britain’s most influential and successful horror writer of all time – James Herbert.
James Herbert created the modern mass-market horror genre with the publication of his first ground-breaking novel, The Rats, in 1974 (for the record, Stephen King’s Carrie was published a few months later). Since then he has reigned as Britain’s undisputed #1 author of chiller fiction, with more than 20 novels to his credit — which have sold more than fifty million copies world-wide. His books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages, including Russian and Chinese.
The Rats has never been out of print, and Jim’s list of best-selling titles includes The Fog, The Survivor, Fluke, The Spear, Lair, The Dark, The Jonah, Shrine, Domain, Moon, The Magic Cottage, Sepulchre, Haunted, Creed, Portent, The Ghosts Of Sleath, ’48, Others, Once, Nobody True and The Secret Of Crickley Hall.
The Rats (aka Deadly Eyes), The Survivor, Fluke and Haunted have all been made into movies, the latter starring Aidan Quinn, Kate Beckinsale and Sir John Gielgud.
In his 1992 Introduction to the bio-bibliography James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, Stephen King wondered “with real excitement” what James Herbert might be up to in the year 2010. Well, now we know — he’ll be at World Horror Convention in Brighton!
