With the existence of the disease now public knowledge, a meeting is held in which a researcher, Stephen Howard, comes up with the idea of using a virus to infect the rats.

Based on the fact that rats communicate with each other using ultrasound, a plan is formulated to use ultrasonic machines to lure them into poison gas chambers.

Foskins is dismissed as Health Minister and reveals to Harris that he has been investigating the rats' origins; they were illegally smuggled into the country by a zoologist named William Bartlett Schiller from an island near New Guinea, close to the site of nuclear tests.

Pursuing the disgraced Foskins past waves of entranced rats, Harris finds Schiller's abandoned house and goes into the cellar.

Linking the film to childhood memories he had of rats in London's East End, Herbert stated in later interviews that he wrote the book primarily as a pastime: "It seemed like a good idea at the time, I was as naive as that.

It was deemed to be far too graphic in its portrayals of death and mutilation, and the social commentary regarding the neglect of London's suburbs was said to be too extreme.

[1] Ramsey Campbell lauded the novel, saying "The Rats announces at once that he (Herbert) won't be confined by the conventions of English macabre fiction."

Campbell also defended Herbert's use of violence and indigence as both integral to The Rats' plot, and a break from the clichés of the horror fiction of that time period.

Fellow author Peter James stated "I think Jim reinvented the horror genre and brought it into the modern world.

A 1985 adventure game for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum based on the book was published by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd and produced by GXT (Five Ways Software).