Cows By Matthew Stokoe

 Cows

By Matthew Stokoe

Made on Demand, 1997/ 2015

Paperback, 206 pages

 

                This is the notorious, gross-out, disgusting novel that has all the kids a’ twitter about how nasty it is. When online discussions about the “most extreme” horror novels pop up, Cows is sure to get a mention. Needless to say, I needed to take the plunge and shell out my hard earned dough.

 

                Steven is a fucked-up guy. His unloving mother (The Hagbeast) routinely abuses him, and he longs for the “real”, happy family life he sees on TV. He gets a job in a slaughterhouse, his first move towards independence, and it fucks him up even more. Soon, a group of rogue cows that have escaped the kill-line are talking to him and indoctrinating him into their underground society, hoping he can help with their cause.

 

Yeah, that’s right. Talking cows. On the surface, it’s just more wackiness in a book that has more shit, vomit, blood, jizz, and other bodily fluids than every other book ever written combined, but it’s all just allegory, and it does get a tad heavy handed at times. Not to say that it doesn’t work, though. The world (and our place in it) is a mess and Stokoe does a masterful job of showing just how bad it could be for some folks. Granted, I’m not going to shit down my mother’s throat to kill her, but I do feel a little alienated sometimes.

 

Is the book a gross-out? Oh, hell yes! Has Stokoe actually eaten shit? Because he goes into great detail about the texture, taste and viscosity of feces that will have your brow furrowing at the very least. His descriptions of the desolate world of Steven filled me with his hopelessness and, as a veggie, the slaughterhouse scenes reinforced my choice of a meatless lifestyle in a massive way. Yes, the book is a gross-out, but it is a hell of a lot more than that. It will make you think about things you’d rather not think about. I made me squirm, laugh, roll my eyes and think. It’s actually quite a deep book.

 

First published in 1998 by Creation Books, Cows is now self-published by Matthew Stokoe.

This review originally appeared in Midnight Magazine #9, March 2022.

 

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The Coming of the Rats by George H. Smith

 

The Coming of the Rats
By George H. Smith
1961 Priority Books
Paperback, 158 pages

Priority Books

    This one threw me for a loop. I thought I was in for a typical post-Nuke killer rat novel, but I got oh, so much more. And less!

 

    The first thing you notice is that the main character, Steve Seabrook, is a real douchebag. Self-centered and eternally horny, Steve is completely out for himself. His only real comrade is his dick. In fact, his drooling over his coworker’s curves is so overt as to be distracting. I wondered just what this book was up to, so I took a break and looked up the author. Smith was a soft-core erotica writer, responsible for such titles as Orgy Buyer and Country Club Lesbians while also trying his hand at science fiction. OK, so I wasn’t seeing things. With that settled I went back and enjoyed the book for what it was: soft-core sci-fi.

 

    Y’see, with bombs imminent, Steve had secured a cave deep in the valley where destruction and radiation would be minimal. He’d been stocking it with essentials, and he just needed an Eve to his Adam. He chose his stacked co-worker Bettirose, for better or worse. Meanwhile, he’s fucking his Mexican friend’s hot 18-year-old daughter, who will be a neighbor in the Valley after the bombs drop. After two thirds of the book is done, the bombs do drop and the post-apocalyptic fun begins, including the long-awaited rat scourge.

 

    Yes, this book is puerile and silly but it’s a ton of fun. The Priority Books edition I have is a study in cheapness, with smeary or faded inks on every page. The cover isn’t as lurid as the original Pike Books cover, which features a blonde maiden being stripped by rats, but the story is just as wonderfully stupid.

Pike Books #203

Check out Tony Shepard's look at the evolution of this story here... it's very interesting and gives you a look at the tale in its original form!

 

This review originally appeared in Midnight Magazine #8, July 2021.
 
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Only Child by Patricia Wallace

Only Child

By Patricia Wallace

1985 Zebra

Paperback, 332 pages

    This is another is Zebra’s never-ending line of scary brat books. I usually resist the urge to buy these, knowing they never truly satisfy me but for a few bucks at Savers, I figured what the fuck.

 

    A small plane crashes in Southern California and the only survivor is a young girl who seems almost too perfect to be true. The townspeople all fawn over her because of her plight and her blondeness. It seems that she has amnesia about everything except her first name: Hannah. She’s taken in by the local priest and shit starts going down around town… fires, disappearances and medical maladies begin to stack up. Could it be… young Hannah who is behind these horrors?

 

    Only Child doesn’t pull any punches and as soon as you see the cover, you pretty much know what you’re in for, but it’s not a bad book at all. Wallace makes it super easy to read, with frequent breaks between scenes, a good sense of humor, and enough zest to keep the pages turning. She doesn’t over-write at all, which is a godsend in a book like this. Easy peasy. She churned out a dozen of these books for Zebra and they’re all very readable even if they’re not great. While this one isn’t particularly memorable, it’s an OK way to spend a few nights, reading about other peoples’ creepy children.

This review originally appeared in Midnight Magazine #8, July 2021.

 

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Blight by Mark Sonders

 

Blight
by Mark Sonders
1981 Ace Books
Paperback, 259 pages

 

    Blight is a no-bullshit book about killer moths. On page one, bulldozers clear some formerly protected woods that were the feeding area for rare moths and by page 5, the pissed-off insects are already attacking the human interlopers. Mark Sonders comes off like an excited 15-year-old kid with a good horror idea that he banged out with the glee of a teenager taking revenge on the world. The pace is relentless (until towards the end), and the science is bonkers; just how this type of book should be.

    The residents of Stole Estates are rich and doomed. Their hoity toity community was built on the cleared land that once belonged to the moths. The moths are hungry. And, for good measure, they sting as well. They come in such abundance that they clog everything, including human orifices. Moths are out to fuck you up. One very enjoyable thing in this book? Kids get killed, too.

    There is some priceless prose on hand, too. One victim, a famous entertainer, incredulous that she is being attacked by a usually benign insect makes the author ask, “Didn’t they know who she was? Didn’t they have any idea they weren’t supposed to eat people? What was she, a sweater?” Brilliant! And this line, which is either pure genius or total idiocy: “The last body looked like it had exploded, sending its vital organs and innermost secrets out to an uncaring world.” Just wow.

    As pulpy good as this, it does start to bog down towards the end while one character is making a long, introspective escape attempt, but I can forgive that as well as the abrupt non-ending. The sheer jubilance and excitement the book is written with (as well as the fairly large print) made this one an easy book to plow through in no time. Evidently, Mark Sonders is a penname for computer-game designer and part-time sci-fi author Michael Berlyn. Sadly, this is his only horror novel. I wish he wrote twenty more.

This review originally appeared in Midnight Magazine #7 (Jan. 2021)

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The Dark by James Herbert

 

The Dark

By James Herbert

1980 Signet

Paperback, 314 pages

 

    I first read Herbert’s The Rats as a teen way back when and I fell in love with it. For a while, I grabbed every book of his that came out. The problem is, apart from the subsequent rat novels (Lair in 1979 and Domain in 1984), much of Herbert’s work doesn’t fully satisfy me. I find that he is prone to overwriting; a problem for someone like me with the attention span of a two-year-old.

    I only recently got around to The Dark; a novel considered to be a masterpiece of horror fiction. And it is very good. It is filled with gruesome set-pieces and enough gore to satisfy even a jaded gorehound like me. The Dark is essentially the collected evil of humans, an energy force that feeds on a person’s own insecurities and bad thoughts. Obviously, this can lead to psychosis, murder, suicide and just downright nasty behavior. There are some truly cruel ideas in this book. That is a good thing. This is a horror novel. Look for the main character’s mental-hospital-resident wife fucking with his head while under The Dark’s influence. Brutal.

    True to form, however, Herbert overdid it just a bit. The climactic ending starts with 100 pages left in the book and I started struggling; I just wanted to see how it ended. This caused me to put the book down and go to sleep a few times while in the stretch run. But overall, I give The Dark a thumbs up. In my worthless opinion, it is probably his best non-rodent book.

This review originally appeared in Midnight Magazine #7 (Jan. 2021)

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