Using the rule of thumb that I teach the students in my Gothic Literature course that Horror at its best often gives away the deep cultural anxieties of the culture that produces it, Sepulchre is a short list of English anxieties of the late 1980s: American political bullying thuggishness (Ronald Raygun), Eastern European (Polish--remember Moonlighting with Jeremy Irons? The tale just seems to keep on expanding, with more and more puzzling questions being raised around every corner. Soon strange things start happening and they retreat to Kline's remote country mansion Neath where unnatural things creep into the locked down estate. An investigation that brings up numerous questions as to why so many rooms are locked and off bounds to their chief of security.

It gets a bit chaotic and absurd towards the end, but then absurdity is something Herbert does really well. God of Evil: Bel-Marduk, otherworldly visitor to ancient Sumer, demanded regular human sacrifice, venerated corruption, and advanced humanity with intent to enable us to wipe each other out. The characterization's flat, the plot's predictable, gore and violence are treated with all the care and subtlety of a toddler finger-painting in blood-red and shit-brown, the morals displayed are nonetheless narrow-minded and sexist and prudish, and we end with a nice happy shoot out and a destruction of the Big Bad. The bodyguards also get there reward for their evil doings and the twist of the IRA actually after Halloran for killing their comrades a nice twist. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.That stated, Herbert tends toward more 'conservative' horror and this could be read just as much a thriller with mystical aspects. And so, when Magma Corporation contacts Halloran’s employers ‘Achilles Shield’, requiring personal protection for their most valuable asset, Halloran is handed the job.

In fact, that paragraph is, I'd say, not only the only prose that is actually in any way noteworthy as prose in the novel but also the only moment of particularly effective writing in the entire thing. I became a follower of the British bogeyman of horror and read The Fog and it's unforgettable (for a young teen, remember) scenes of mayhem and perversion as well as The Lair, the sequel to The Rats.Still, such bad writing is not something this older me can readily forgive--I mean Bloch, Matheson, Lovecraft, Poe et al. But now, with Kliene having a premonition that he is soon to be in very real danger, Magma Corporation are seeking the very best security measures for their prized asset. Post the days of The Fog, The Rats, The Survivor I lost the feel for Herbert's work as it seemed to move away from the heights of his earlier work; The Sepulchre feels like a tentative move back to his roots with some well crafted character and story development to build the reality within which the horror can emerge and work well within. Cora is also mildly into BDSM which apparently gives other characters the right to use and abuse her.

The Serpent in the Garden is traced to Bel-Marduk, an incarnate deity who advanced the Sumerians; demanded Human Sacrifice, and was eventually dismembered and left to die by the high priests - his limbless body earned the name Serpent. So here I am, counter arguing, pointing out, raising awareness if you're not yet hip to the jive: characters should not be depicted as negative racial/cultural stereotypes, they should be presented as people first and foremost.Anyway, the story itself was ok - a security firm are hired to protect a 'mystic', who believes he is in danger, but doesn't know from what. Ruthless tough guy with a heart of gold, or at least I think that's what we're supposed to be inferring from the repeated mentions along the above lines.