‘The Swarm’ – Arthur Herzog (Pan)

Family attacked by Bees – Two Killed.

This was the beginning, barely noticed. Only a few scientists felt the first stirrings of terror. But then the death toll began to mount – And terror erupted into national panic when great swarms of savage bees, deadly killers, blotted out the sun as they spread across America.

Now, with the Empire State Building black with bees, a crack team of scientists race desperately against time to fight an enemy they only partly comprehend…

I’ve got a couple of other books on the go, that should take priority, but ever since I found ‘The Swarm’ hiding in a pile of old books, I’ve been really intrigued by the title and just wanted to get into it. Of course, there’s the fact that the near universally reviled film ‘The Swarm’ was based upon this book; I’ve never seen the film (might have to do something about that now) but the prospect of seeing what the fuss was all about definitely appealed to me. Not just that, I’m really scared of bees and wasps so I thought that reading about killer bees would be a great way to get the chills without having to worry about coming face to face with an actual bee, killer or otherwise. As it turned out, I got a little bit of one but hardly any of the other. Keep reading and you’ll see which was which…

If you like your fiction packed full of research and opportunities to learn and broaden your horizons, ‘The Swarm’ is a book that I can see you getting a lot out of. I’m more about ‘fiction as escape’, these days, but even I found myself learning more about bees (and just insects in general), often without meaning to. The concept of a ‘bee invasion’ (bee-pocalypse?) is dealt with at great depth, even to the point of Herzog including footnotes referencing where he got the information from. I also liked the idea of insects using man made chemicals to adapt their own defences against other insects and animals. It was a shame that this wasn’t examined any deeper. What you get then is a book where the concept comes across as very plausible because Herzog really takes the time to make it so. Where this approach does date the book though is that wherever a computer is involved, Herzog seems to feel the need to detail every single line command and key punch made by the scientists. I can see this being a really huge deal in the mid-seventies, when the book was written, but it just comes across as a little unnecessary now. It’s not really the books fault, just something worth noting.

What does this all mean for the story though…? From where I was sat, there isn’t an awful lot of room to tell the story (in a book that’s only two hundred and eighteen pages long) when the preference seems to be for the book to explain why and how this could happen in real life. What we get instead is a lot of recounting of events interspersed with scientists trying to figure out what to do next. And that’s fine if that’s what you’re after, it’s just not particularly engaging and I found myself skimming a fair few pages as a result.

Funnily enough, I really want to see the film now (just so I can say I have, I suppose) but while the book does it’s job, it’s not a book  that I can ever see myself reading again. There’s literally no need to once you’ve got why the concept could be a real one, the book has done its job and that’s that. Oh well, some books and some people aren’t a good fit and that’s all there is to it ;o)