The Rats was a fearsomely successful debut, so much so that even after several other novels Herbert felt compelled to go back and write a sequel, but Lair suffered from a 'seen it all before' law of diminishing returns - in true Hollywood sequel fashion the action may have been bigger but it certainly wasn't better.
Thankfully with Domain, Herbert's 3rd Rats novel, the author has come up with a new angle to work with - nuclear holocaust. The novel starts at a breathtaking pace and barely lets up - 5 nuclear bombs fall on London, and its an immediate battle for survival as the population struggles to get underground and away from the fallout. Totally unprepared, most of the inhabitants are killed, with London almost completely destroyed. The novel follows the fate of typical Herbert loner hero Culver, and government employee Dealey, who knows the location of a secret underground survival shelter but having been blinded in the nuclear blast needs Culver's help to get there. Meanwhile, the long dormant mutant rats seize their chance to emerge from hiding and start feeding on human flesh again...
The addition of the nuclear holocaust material massively expands the scope of this novel, as even without the rats the cast face diverse threats from disease, floods, fire, rabid dogs and lawless gangs who roam the wasteland of a devastated London. The destroyed capitol makes for some startling imagery, with Domain containing the best descriptive writing Herbert has yet produced. Herbert gradually brings together a varied cast, with the novel peaking in an extended mid-book action sequence when their temporary bolthole is flooded, then attacked by rats. Aside from the books obvious hero it's difficult to tell who will survive, as the band is slowly whittled down by adversity, with death at every turn. Non-stop tension and action coupled with some startling imagery makes Domain not only the best of the Rats trilogy (though Herbert would later revisit the setting of Domain for his graphic novel The City), but Herbert's best book up to that point.
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