Parasite By Richard Lewis

 

Parasite
By Richard Lewis
1980 Hamlyn
Paperback, 187 pages

 

Richard Lewis knows how to handle a nature-strikes-back premise and he proves himself capable once again with another new pandemic horror out to threaten Britain. The parasite in question is a tiny freshwater worm that spreads bilharzia, also known as schistosomiasis. It’s real. Look it up. It is unpleasant. Of course, Lewis’s parasite has mutated a bit to make the disease even more unpleasant. This parasite can cause madness, gooey death and 80s pulp-horror mayhem.

 

The reader knows what is going on before the characters in the book do and it’s enjoyable to follow them as they uncover the unimaginable. That said, there tends to be a few too many meetings among the doctors, scientists, and politicians for my taste. It doesn’t ruin the book, like it does in Edward Jarvis’s Maggots, but it does slow down the narrative at times. Still, Lewis keeps things moving along and throws us some gruesome parasite action just when we need it.

 

There is a well written romance between our main character George Carson and his associate Jill Turner. Plus, George’s kid, born of his late wife, catches the parasite which brings a new level of pathos to the story. Of course, in true Lewis fashion (SPOILER), he throws in a late-story rape to show that humans are always the true horror in the world. (END SPOILER). It just seems like overkill, but hey… it fucks with you, and I guess that is the point.

 

So, while this isn’t the perfect Richard Lewis book (that would be Devil’s Coach-Horse aka The Black Horde), it is still prime 80s Hamlyn Horror and is well worth adding to one’s nature-strikes-back collection. I just wish there had been less meetings in it.

Return of the Werewolf By Guy N. Smith

 

Return of the Werewolf
By Guy N. Smith
1977 New English Library
Paperback, 112 pages

 

                This slim tome is the sequel to the Master’s (also slim) debut horror novel Werewolf by Moonlight, which was originally published by NEL in 1974. In between the two books, he wrote some classics like The Sucking Pit and the first Crabs novel. He’d also penned a couple of Walt Disney movie novelizations. Go figure!

 

                This one picks up a year after Werewolf by Moonlight ends, with the body of the wolfman being stolen from its grave. (I’ll try to not spoil either book.) And, of course, it’s not too long before the grisly murders start up again on Black Hill. Some eyewitnesses swear they saw a werewolf, too. The story plays out as a Whodunit, with possible suspects and red herrings on every page.

 

                The cast from the first book is back (or dead and disinterred) and if you haven’t read the first book yet, Smith makes it easy to know who’s who and what they were up to in the previous novel. Of course, you will spoil the mystery of the first book by reading this one first, but who cares? This sequel is a lot less gory and has less sexual situations than its predecessor, but it is still a satisfying page turner. It’s too short to be any other way! Cover art by Bill Francis Phillips.

 

                The fur was flying again a year later when Smith unleashed Son of the Werewolf (1978), completing the trilogy. All three books have been collected into Werewolf Omnibus (Sinister House, 2019), along with a short story. It’s also on Kindle for you freaks. Unfortunately, not included in the Omnibus is Smith’s other werewolf novel, Night of the Werewolf. Originally published in 1976 in Germany (only) as "Der Ruf des Werwolfs", it was first translated and serialized in the Smith-centric zine Graveyard Rendezvous and later collected as a full novel by Black Hill Books in 2011. It would have been a nice addition.

                                              The German only Der Ruf des Werwolfs

Clickers By J.F. Gonzalez and Mark Williams

Clickers
By J.F. Gonzalez and Mark Williams
2011 Deadite Press
Paperback, 271 pages

 

                Originally published as an eBook in 1999, this novel has gone through a few incarnations before Deadite Press released this author-approved edition. It still looks like it could still use a little editing and it is a bit overlong, but the book definitely satisfies anyone looking for a gory Creature Feature. I’m not a big fan of Dave Kendall’s cover art, though.

 

                A horror author heads to a coastal town in Maine to work on his next book. He meets a slew of underdeveloped characters (and, really… who cares? We’re here for the mayhem) and before too long, the beaches erupt with large crabs who also happen to have venomous scorpion tails. What transpires is pure a Guy N. Smith and H.P. Lovecraft mash-up. The gore gets ladled on heavy, and nobody is safe.

 

                Mercifully, Guy N. Smith does get name dropped in the text. It’s only fair because Smith’s trademark “click-click-clickety-click” is lifted for these crabby imitations. I mean… the main character (a fairly unlikeable writer named Rick) dubs them Clickers. It’s the title of the damn book! Original or not, the book delivers what it promised; a gore-filled B-movie of a story. My favorite passage, after an old woman is stung by the crab-scorpion; “Her body expanded and blew up like a hot water balloon, inflating to almost double her size before the skin split and reddish, meaty goo splashed all over the crabs, drenching them in Old Woman Sauce.” The fact that “Old Woman Sauce” is capitalized makes me very happy.

 

                No, it’s not a really well written book but it tells the story admirably and despite going on a bit long, it’s just what the doctor ordered when you need mindless, gory sludge. Gonzalez wrote three more entries in the Clickers canon, all of them with fellow horror author Brian Keene. Gonzalez passed away in 2014. Mark Williams died in 1998, a year before Clickers saw print.

 

                I never even mentioned the Lovecrafty stuff! Dig in! There’s more than just stinging crabs on the menu!

Claw By Jack Younger

 

Claw
By Jack Younger
1976 Manor Books
Paperback, 219 pages

 

                Forget all of those one-star reviews you see online… this book is great! It’s cats killing humans, eating them alive. What’s not to love?

 

                Taking place in Marblehead, Massachusetts (just a hop skip and a jump from where I now sit), the coastal community is racking up a slew of hideous deaths. It is quickly discovered that the cause of these mutilations is… cats! Nobody is safe. Your cat, the one that sits next to you as you read Midnight? Lethal… it will eat you. Eventually, a small group of survivors hole themselves up in a restaurant, hoping that help will be forthcoming. Too bad a violent storm has shut down all power and washed out the bridge into town.

 

                Yeah, this is dumb as shit but it’s also a ton of fun. “A kitten stepped forward playfully to paw a hideous thing that had once been part of a man’s head.” “The furry mass engulfed him.” There were dozens of lines I had to read aloud to my wife, my own dumb cat lying next to me all the time. I laughed out loud a lot. Manor Books rarely disappoint. Part of it is because they had the worst editors ever and typos and misspellings abound. Just part of the fun.

 

                Admittedly, the book slows down half way through, when the plight of Marblehead gets out to the mainland and cops, military and news people try to get in on the action. There’s also a long scene with two cops and an old man they find crawling in the storm that has absolutely nothing to do with the narrative. And, while in real life I would find cat slaughter abominable, it’s pretty funny in this book. Silliness abounds. And watch for the most ridiculous, unromantic dialog leading up to an inappropriate sex scene ever!

 

                Jack Younger is none other than the original Creepy editor Russ Jones. He wrote a handful of novels and comic stories under that name. His comic book background surely informed much of the action and gratuitous gore in this book. The over-the-top badness of this book makes me want to dig deeper into his horror novel work. He is also a very accomplished artist but there’s no word on whether or not he is responsible for the (minimalist) cover art for this book.