Domain cover art

Domain

The Rats Series, Book 3

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Domain

By: James Herbert
Narrated by: David Rintoul
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About this listen

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
Fantasy Fiction Scary Classics
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Editor reviews

Imagine: the scrabble of little claws, the cold slither of hairless tails.… That is just part of the terror of James Herbert's third book in the chilling Rats Series. Domain imagines a horrible post-apocalyptic world in which humans must compete with rats to survive the nuclear holocaust. David Rintoul's performance is truly disturbing in the best ways! Rintoul is able to ratchet up the suspense in Herbert's novel until it almost feels as if the rats are right below you!

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)

What listeners say about Domain

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Gripping

Would you listen to Domain again? Why?

There would be no need to as every word is embossed on your brain,(excuse the pun)

What was one of the most memorable moments of Domain?

The killing of the "THING" and is offspring..

What about David Rintoul’s performance did you like?

He made you feel as though you were involved in the story.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The death of the doctor.

Any additional comments?

The story tells you what could happen when Man interfers with Nature.

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5 people found this helpful

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loved it.

listened to all the books in this series enjoyed everyone of them shame there isn't any more.

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Scary exciting

Excellent performance of a great book I first read when I was at school . Made me pull my feet up away from the edge of the bed just in case my toes were nibbled on ..

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love it

as a hole it a good book probs not as good as the other to but still good

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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A sequel that outshines the original

And this is where the story changes gear and returns to the grimy streets of London.

With The Rats and Lair, you always instinctively knew that humans with their technology were going to win out eventually. But in Domain, this advantage is removed by the onset of nuclear war. And now it is the turn of the remaining humans to be the hunted species. Doesn't sound immediately imaginative, but really it is more nuanced than it might seem.

Domain is an intriguing premise that exposes the human condition in the face of daily survival. But unlike the two earlier novels, you do not instinctively know where the story might be heading this time. Indeed, this eventuality is kept from you right up until the last chapter.

Some of the long exploratory post-detonation narrative I found particularly grim although does serve to brilliantly create a very menacing and believable atmosphere stitched into the doom of nihilistic futility. The protagonist is the regular action-hero of other Herbert novels, although unusually has an interesting back story which plays itself out nicely enough. The novel obliquely references the similarity between humans and rats at different times, both subject to the whims of base instinct when confronted by survival, and the rats themselves could be viewed as metaphors depicting the prevalence and extremes of irrational human behaviour. It is these themes that set Domain apart from the earlier books.

I liked it, and the ending was satisfying, but this time the story feels as though it is a smaller part of a far bigger whole. It is up to you to decide what happens next. Or perhaps nothing does?

Read and decide.

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A good end to the trilogy!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this book to a friend...and have! The Rats will never be beaten, and in my opinion Lair was a not as good as the Rats, but this could be simply because the story had lost its shock value on its audience. However, with the apocalyptic theme the shock value returns in this book and gives a hard hitting view of how the survivors cope with the aftermath and the attacking rats. The story lets the imagination run riot and there were certainly some moments that made me flinch and cringe! The attacks get a little repetitive towards the end, as well as some of the characters’ reactions. However this is still a good read. If you enjoyed The Rats you will undoubtedly enjoy Domain.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I didn't really have a favourite character, probably because there was no point getting attached to any of them as they were dropping like flies!

What does David Rintoul bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

David Rintoul was great at narrating this book and gave it oodles of passion and added intenseness. However, he was speaking a little too fast at some points when the action was going, although this probably would have been fine if it weren't for the fact I was listening to it in the car which has added motorway driving noise added. Also, there seemed to be a bit of an echo all the way through which sometimes made it hard to understand what was being said.

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A horror masterpiece

Thanks to some brilliant narration and even better writing this visceral and tense story of a London in ruins was hard to put down. At times feeling close to the characters and at others wishing to distance myself from their plight this was a brilliant story. Intense, graphic and at times beautifully raw story telling gives the reader a grim reality of life after the bombs... And it is not just the terror of the world gone mad... The survivors of the ultimate horrors contend with an all too familiar and deadly beast... The rats!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Gorefest!

Another Brill book by James Herbert, read extremely well by David Rintoul. Gloriously gory with characters that you really start to care about. The well written descriptions of the scenes and the emotive way the narrator reads, puts you right there in the story. The book is set in London, during the 1980s, in a time before the Internet or mobile phones, with nuclear bombs laying waste to civilisation. A group of people are trying to survive while a species of Rats start to come from underground..... I recommend this to all horror fans!

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BRILLIANT

Fantastic Third Book, ending one of the greatest horror trilogies, these books need to be made into mega movies, not like the early American one of The Rats made for TV film, or each book could be made into mini series.. Read it when l was a teenager, 40 years later still outstanding 👏

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classic

the master of Britain horror strikes again with this spine tingling rapid fire Rat fest. characters never blown out of proportion with a great combination of realities of War and its consequences coupled with the fiction of the giant rats

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