The Surrogate By Nick Sharman

The Surrogate
By Nick Sharman
1980 Signet
Paperback, 249 pages

 

                My father was a bit of a douchebag. He’d belittle me, hit me; he told me I was a mistake. He admitted that he had been unfit to be a father. But he was a saint compared to Frank Tillson’s father!

                After a childhood of abuse and his mother’s death, Frank packed up, left home, and never looked back. Working as a radio show host, widowed, and raising an 8-year-old son alone, he gets summoned by his dying father to talk about who is going to get the old man’s considerable fortune. Frank tells him to fuck off. Plus, he tells him to fuck off on behalf of his son, Simon, who ol’ gramps wants to take over his empire. The old man dies with the situation unresolved.

                That is when all hell breaks loose.

                The old man’s reach from beyond the grave raises plenty of chills up the spine and as a horror villain, he is a memorable and formidable monster. With sheer residual hate, he can force his will on people, places, and things of all sorts, even a doll (which is always nice). Sharman creates a gloomy atmosphere, thick with malevolent evil and sludgy black shadows, and things are never quite as they seem.

                I’d read Sharman’s The Cats before and liked it, so I decided to grab this, his third novel, as well. Knowing there were killer-doll parts helped push it to the top of my pile. Sharman, real name Scott Grønmark, is a very good writer, with excellent descriptions and pacing. He uses similes liberally, but it doesn’t get annoying because he chooses the perfect words to paint his pictures. He uses similes like Ghastly Graham used spittle. This is one book that I would think about while at work, then rush home to dig back in. A real page-turner, I tell ya.

The Mountain King By George Ernsberger

The Mountain King
By George Ernsberger
1979 Berkeley
Paperback, 250 pages

 

                I read this book as a teen. In the years since, I couldn’t remember much about it, just that there were snakes, but I do remember that I liked it. I figure that since it has been over 40 years since I last read it, the time was ripe for a revisit.

 

                Four couples head out for a wilderness weekend to a remote cluster of homes (their own summer cottages) on the side of a mountain in the Catskills. Tranquil, beautiful, and restful. Except for pretty much everyone involved is a douchebag. One husband fantasizes about punching his wife in the face, many of them have had “a past” together, and assholism and cattiness runs rampant. It’s a good thing that during a massive storm, part of the mountain breaks loose and that sends hundreds of confused Timber Rattlesnakes down to make life hell for the humans.

 

                I have no complaints about the characters all being kind of unlikeable; that just means they are real. Ernsberger gives us an excellent portrayal of a group of damaged people. You know, like we all are. Of course, when the snakes are loose, I really root for them because snakes are better than humans. The Mountain King is a Timber who has been living on the mountain a long time. At roughly 7 feet, he is the king of the den. Ernsberger’s science is excellent and his passages from the King’s point of view are cogent, which is very impressive when writing for an animal who relies on instinct rather than thought.

 

                I liked the book a lot this second time around, though I’m willing to bet that I only read the juicy parts as a teen. The bickering and yammering between the humans wouldn’t have interested me and the human to snake death ratio is way one sided. Kind of like real life. Humans kill snakes way more often than vice-verse. Even though I’d like a lower snake mortality rate, this is a thrilling and well written adventure tale filled with claustrophobic situations and a feeling of dread and hopelessness.

 

                This appears to be Ernsberger’s only novel. He had been the vice president of Berkely Books prior to this book’s publication. The only other credits I can find are for two fantasy anthologies published by Avon in the late Sixties where he was the senior editor at the time.

The Son of the Werewolf by Guy N. Smith

The Son of the Werewolf

by Guy N. Smith
1978 New English Library
Paperback, 124 pages

                The end of The Return of the Werewolf lets you know that this one was forthcoming, and it does not disappoint. At 124 pages, there is no time to be anything but a fast-paced page turner to be devoured in an afternoon.

 

                Margaret Gunn, pregnant after an assault from the baddie from the previous book, gives birth to Hugh, an ugly baby whose third finger on each hand was longer than the rest. A sure sign of a werewolf. He is an outcast, hated in school and in the town and he likes it that way. And then he committed a murder and was jailed. It was while incarcerated that he discovered his own secret, his lycanthropy.

 

                After his release, the book follows ugly Hugh as he leaves his home and goes out on a blood-drenched road trip. GNS gives us what we all love in his books; blood, guts and some “oh no he wouldn’t” sexual situations. Gordon Hall returns from the previous books and tells us some legends that come in handy for the denouement of the book. He also gives us some words to live by… “You can never be sure of anything where werewolves are concerned”. Indeed not.

 

                This book ends the trilogy that started with Werewolf by Moonlight. All three books have been collected into Werewolf Omnibus (Sinister House, 2019), along with a short story. As the original New English Library books have become pretty expensive, the Omnibus seems like a pretty good way to go if you want to read these. And you should read these.

Spore 7 By Clancy Carlile

Spore 7
By Clancy Carlile
1979 Avon Books
Paperback, 280 pages

                This one had been on my shelf for a long time. Every once in a while, I’d pick it up, think it looked great, then start a different book. I finally gave this one the green light and it turned out to be a pretty satisfying experience. Not perfect, but good.

                It starts right off and hits the ground running. A disease is running rampant in Mendocino, California. People are losing their shit, going feral and becoming slime mutants. What caused this to happen? Germ warfare? Outer space meteor shit? Something far more sinister? All of these theories are pursued, and a case could be made for any of them. But while everyone tries to understand and solve the problem, the disease is running rampant, spreading like wildfire, and time is of the essence.

                The military move in and block off the area but as always, things aren’t that easy. If it sounds to you that a lot of meetings with scientists, doctors, generals, and the president take place, you’re not wrong, but it never drags the story down too much (I’m looking at you, Edward Jarvis’ Maggots). Carlile manages to keep the reader interested and emotionally invested as the mystery is unraveled.

                One point to nit-pick… the main character, a middle-aged doctor, is romantically linked with a 19-year-old girl. At no point in the story does her being almost underaged come into play; she could just as easily have been 25. To me, her being just 19 speaks more to the author’s wish-fulfillment than anything else.

                That aside, Carlile delivers a page turner with an ending that plays like an intense 80s action flick. Some might find it preposterous, but I found it fun and exciting. This is the only novel by Carlile that would interest me. He is best known for the book, then screenplay, to Honkytonk Man, the 1982 Clint Eastwood film.

Scorpion: Second Generation By Michael R. Linaker

Scorpion: Second Generation
By Michael R. Linaker
1982 New English Library
Paperback, 158 pages

 

                New English Library unleashed Linaker’s Scorpion in 1980 and evidently, it sold well enough to warrant this sequel. Well, I thank my lucky stars for that! This book is by-the-numbers nature-strikes-back hokum and for that, I love it. Fast, no bullshit, gore, sex, and nastiness… what more could I ask for?

 

                A few years after the initial scorpion menace, another Cornish resort town is seeing a rise in death and dismemberment, not to mention some nasty envenomation. Sounds like our old pals the scorpions weren’t completely wiped out after all. And they have evolved: this second generation are bigger and meaner than their boob-munching counterparts from the first novel. They are also dying from an infectious disease that can be passed to humans. Cornwall is, once again, fucked.

 

                This is the Guy N. Smith crab novel you never read. Linaker merely swaps in scorpions for crabs and scuffling, scratching sounds for click-click-clickety and there you have it. This is a quick, gore-splashed mutant scorpion book that does exactly what you would want it to. Linaker probably knocked it out in a couple of days and, if you have the time, you can probably enjoy it in an afternoon.

 

                Linaker was (is?) an extremely prolific author who specialized in actions thrillers, notably a slew of Mack Bolan titles, as well as a number of Westerns. I’m not sure how or why he came to NEL’s attention for a few horror novels but thank goodness he did! This book is a perfect antidote to a shitty workday. Just picture your boss getting his bones snapped and his skin split by a four-foot scorpion, his innards slipping out onto the floor. Hell to the yes!

The Mad Death By Nigel Slater

The Mad Death
By Nigel Slater
1983 Granada
Paperback, 256 pages

Rabies in Britain? Not again! Remember David Anne’s Rabid (reviewed in Midnight Magazine #4)? Remember Jack Ramsey’s The Rage? Yes, it had been done before (both aforementioned books were published in 1977) but like a moth to a flame, I keep coming back for more.

 

This one starts with a cat, then a fox, then...a possible epidemic. Our hero, Viv Tait, is a veterinarian with a bad attitude. It seems that he likes animals a lot more than humans. In the scene where we meet him, he is wearing a “Gerbils Role OK” T-shirt. He is short tempered, straight talking with no filter, and dour. He is an asshole. I immediately related to him. Against his will, he is made the head honcho in the war against rabies, entrusted to save Britain from the encroaching epidemic. His assistant is a smart and crafty woman named Penny, who he considers more worthy than her name, so he calls her Tuppence, a moniker that sticks for the rest of the novel. They have a complicated relationship that is aggravating and rewarding at the same time.

 

Despite the cover and its back cover blurbs (“When you go down to the woods, pray that the Mad Death is more than a snarl away”), this is much more of a thriller than a horror story. The gory details and the infected humans are few, but the dire circumstances and the well-formed characters keep the pages turning. After a lull in the middle, I was back at it, frenziedly reading to get to the end, which admittedly was weak. Intentionally. Because, as we have all learned from our own pandemic, nothing ever really changes in this world.

 

This was adapted for a BBC TV mini-series that aired the same year the book was released. As it started filming in 1981, one wonders if the book, its source material, was held back to coincide with the now well-remembered TV show airing. At any rate, the Granada book has lovely cover illustration by John Knights (credited on the back cover!) done in a medium I cannot readily identify.

Gwen, in Green By Hugh Zachary

 

Gwen, in Green

By Hugh Zachary
1974 Fawcett
Paperback, 191 pages

                An eco-horror book with loads of forbidden sex? Sign me up right now!

 

                Gwen and George are a prosperous young married couple that get a lovely piece of island real estate in North Carolina for a song. There is a growing nuclear power plant across the water from them, but their land was safe and secluded, an idyllic spot for them to build their forever home. Had Gwen, who’d had a lot of hang-ups, mostly sexual thanks to her promiscuous mother, finally found a place to feel safe and loved?

 

                Between her husband clearing out brush and small trees to make a better view of the pond and the nearby plant clearing for new construction, the flora in the area was taking a beating. Gwen was having a problem with that. In fact, Gwen was becoming more in tune with the plant life in the area than the humans. She put up a front for George and her shrink but things were changing rapidly in her world. Gwen could hear… and feel the thousands of trees falling, the plants being massacred, and she started thinking that it was about time for a little payback…

 

                This is a remarkable book. I felt completely in tune with Gwen right from the start. Zachary takes you inside her head with unexpected sensitivity and clarity and as she changes, you follow as her story becomes a sad, twisted dreamworld. Shockingly, to relieve the pain of the plant life massacre, she starts fucking strangers, first the meter man, then teenage boys from the nearby town. Yeah, the pedophilia is pretty gross, but Gwen needed many eager pain-relievers. Workmen are also disappearing…

 

                The book is sometimes beautiful, sometimes repulsive, but it always casts an eye towards nature, who couldn’t speak for itself until Gwen came to them. Valancourt Books has reissued the book as part of their Paperbacks from Hell series and thankfully have kept the original cover art, painted by George Ziel. The painting is a haunting masterpiece, just like the book.