Night of the Living Dead By John Russo

Night of the Living Dead
By John Russo
Based on the screenplay by George Romero and John Russo
1974 Warner
Paperback, 191 pages 

                                    

                          Warner Books 1974                                                                            Pocket Books 1981 

                I remember seeing this book listed in the back of Famous Monsters and The Monster Times and lusting after it but I never nabbed a copy until 1981 when I found the Pocket Books reprint at Gary Drug on Charles Street in Boston. Unfortunately, it had the less effective shiny silver cover, not the grabbing hands. I still have that book but I never read it. I recently found the original 1974 Warner book at a reasonable price and acquired it and finally read it. Now, I’m not going to go into the plot because everybody has seen the film dozens of times and know it by heart. I will, however,  mention a few things about the novelization that I liked and some that I was disappointed by.

 

First off, Russo gets to add plenty of things to flesh out some characters. Ben has two kids, for instance, making his quest for survival that much more tense. In the opening graveyard scene, the ghoul eats Johnny’s face. I like that. There is a lot more action from Sherriff McClellan and his posse, which is great because he is a highlight of the film. Sadly, Russo didn’t include any of George Kosana’s improvs from the film as they are some of my favorite lines (“Beat ‘em or burn ‘em, they go up pretty easy.” “Yeah, they’re dead, they’re… all messed up.”). He seemed to be working pretty much from the script and that produced some inferior results in some instances.

 

The main thing that bothered me was Ben’s dialog. In the script phase, they had no idea that they’d land  such an intelligent and refined actor as Duane Jones, so the Ben character is a bit rough around the edges, saying “I ain’t going to hurt you.” and “They ain’t that strong.“ which made me bristle a bit. It was hard picturing Duane Jones speaking like that. Also, Judy, who wasn’t in the original script, is glossed over, not even getting the lines she gets in the film.

 

It is a fun read, for sure, with plenty of gore (decapitations are a must in the book) and action but this has been a favorite film for most of my life and, like so many horror fans, I know almost every line and every camera set-up by heart. Is there really a need to read this? No, not really and in the end, it really just made me want revisit the movie again. So I did. It is perfection.

 

Incidentally, there are credits for the Warner cover. Cover design by Gene Light and cover photo by Paul Weller. (Must have been a photographer before forming The Jam! I kid, I kid!) There are 16 pages of photos from the film, as well.

The Wolfen By Whitley Strieber

The Wolfen
By Whitley Strieber
1979 Bantam Books
Paperback, 275 pages

                This is another one of those classic horror books that I’ve seen the movie of, but I never got around to reading. I took the bait recently when I found two different copies in thrift stores. I bought them both, if only to assure myself that I had to read it. Well, I did and I’m glad. It is pretty great.

 

                Two cops are found mutilated in a remote autobody yard in New York. The city’s finest homicide detectives are put on the case; George Wilson, an older, slovenly, misogynistic, racist curmudgeon who makes up for his lack of social skills with a keen detective’s eye, and Becky Neff, a young but proven cop. This odd couple has the unenvious job of trying to figure out who or what killed these two. The bodies look eaten. There are paw prints. Dogs? Could there have been wolves? Werewolves?

 

                The bodies keep piling up and the duo are starting to lean towards the latter, even though they know such things don’t exist. But something is out there, and they are as smart as man, stealthy and incredibly fast. Ferguson, a doctor at the Museum of Natural History is starting to believe them. He has extrapolated what they might look like from a plaster cast of a pawprint. The Medical Examiner is also on board. But how could it be?

 

                Strieber’s werewolf history works for me here. These canids have been around for a long time and yes, the werewolf legends probably derived from them. But they are so stealthy, and they cover their tracks so well that they have gone almost unnoticed for thousands of years. Passages of the book are told from the Wolfen’s point of view, so we understand a lot about their intelligence and the laws of the pack. I buy it implicitly. This species is so smart, they think of wolves as vacant and dumb. And they know that they have to find and remove the two detectives who could reveal their secret.

 

                Everybody has an opinion on older books and this one gets slammed for being misogynistic. Yes, Wilson certainly is. He’s an old-fashioned dope, but Neff is such a strong and capable character that to me, she erases any negativity that the reader might (incorrectly) surmise. In fact, not mentioned in any of the dozens of online reviews that I compared my own thoughts to, is that Wilson and Neff’s relationship changes and corresponds with that of the leaders of the Wolfen pack that is terrorizing New York. (Though Wilson’s revelation of his romantic love for his partner is unneeded.)

 

                The book blows the movie away. The movie could never touch on the inner working of the Wolfen mind, nor could it have survived with the police procedural layout of the book. The film (Michael Wadleigh, 1981) added in extraneous bullshit that takes the souls of the Wolfen away, and that’s one of the book’s most relevant aspects. Good movie, excellent book.

Kingdom of the Spiders By Bernhardt J. Hurwood

Kingdom of the Spiders
By Bernhardt J. Hurwood
Based on the screen story by Jeffrey M. Sneller and Stephen Lodge
1977 Ace Books
Paperback, 180 pages

                Since I adore nature-strikes-back books and movies, I figured I’d better just stick to the novel of this one since I’ve heard that real spiders get injured and squished in the movie. Thousands of Mexican Red-knees were brought to the production and they were not taken care of. I will not watch that. But I do want to read about spiders killing humans, so I grabbed the novelization. I got more- and less than I bargained for with this book. The writing is absolutely abysmal, which caused a few bristling moments but quite a few moments of mirth as well.

 

                Camp Verde, Arizona is readying itself for an upcoming County Fair and the living is easy. Except that a few farm animals have turned up dead. Local veterinarian Rack Hanson and entomologist (rather than arachnologist) Dianne Ashley are on the case and they discover they are dealing with spider bites that are five times more venomous than usual. As the spider population grows, the human population dwindles and the entire town is in danger of becoming tarantula meat. The spiders are hunting in packs (not typical behavior) and are intent on decimating the town. There’s really not much more to the story than this.

 

                OK, first off, Hurwood repeatedly says that the spiders stand there “waving their antennae”, a body part that spiders do not have. Then again, he calls them insects a few times, too, which is also incorrect. It’s hard to know if this gaffe came from the original script by Sneller and Lodge or if it is Hurwood’s non-research. Also, Rack (whose nickname is explained) is played by William Shatner in the film and it reads as though the part must have been written for him. There’s no way to read the character of this bullshit-macho, womanizing letch with a heart of gold in any voice other than Shatner’s. At least he has some sort of characterization; nobody else does.

 

                So, it turns out that I’ve read another Hurwood masterpiece, the cat-horror of Claws written under the pseudonym of D. Gunther Wilde. I enjoyed that one a lot more but this one has its moments, even though Hurwood’s descriptions of the spiders rarely get any more ambitious than “ugly”. The writing is very lazy, perhaps because the author’s scary stories are more suited to children’s books and he isn’t used to flexing his horror muscles. At any rate, this book is pretty crappy but it’s easy to blow through (then forget) in a day or two. There are 16 pages of photos from the movie in the book.

Pitfall By Ronald Kelly

Pitfall
By Ronald Kelly
1990 Zebra Books
Paperback, 320 pages

 

                Don’t be fooled by the lackluster cover. (Whut up, Zebra?) This is a top-shelf animal attack book full of characters that really need to be murdered in the most ghastly ways possible! When a dog-fighting ring is broken up, the lowlife scum that run it go to Mexico to purchase some “pit-devils”, ferocious little killing machines, to bring back to the USA and breed for fights. What could possibly go wrong?

 

                Sulphur Springs, Texas has a whole lot of shitheads for such a small town. Number one asshat is the sheriff who is a letch, a racist, and a potential pedophile. The main pit-devil keeper is a wife- beating drunk with no redeeming qualities. There are a handful of decent folks, however. Bowie Kane, a native American, gets a lot of heat from the small-minded citizens. But not from Lynn Sykes, mother of two, who feels bad for Bowie. Their platonic friendship is, of course, very misunderstood, especially by Lynn’s husband.

 

                Naturally, the pit-devils cannot be contained. What are they? Well, technically, they’re Tasmanian Devils, but Bowie suspects they are more than that, thanks to a fragment of undeciphered Indian parchment. Was this whole thing foretold? Forget anything you might know about Tasmanian Devils. These guys chew through leather, steel, skin and bone and are all but indestructible. The gore flows heavily and with so many shitty people to eat, it’s hard not to cheer for the devils. One thing they don’t eat: eyeballs. Leftover eyeballs sitting in bloody skulls are used a few times to good effect for corpse ID.

 

                This is Ronald Kelly’s second novel, and I give it a huge recommendation. His deep South leanings are on full display here, and you can practically taste the dusty land in and around Sulphur Springs. Unfortunately, there is a fair amount of animal violence in this, as you might expect. The devils are hard to kill but with enough firepower, they can be exploded into mush. Snake collecting and skinning is in there too. It is a sad fact in the real world.

 

                That said, my very favorite part of the book is the opening of Chapter 18, when Lynn’s young daughter Becky is off searching for her missing puppy… “Ruffles! Here, girl! Here, Ruffles!” I literally laughed out loud.

 

                Pitfall was finally reprinted by Macabre Ink in 2023 with a much better cover and a bonus short story, “Last of the Chupacabra”. Since the Zebra original is getting a bit pricey, this is a good way to go.

Mania By Guy N. Smith

Mania
By Guy N. Smith
1988 Sphere Books
Paperback, 234 pages

 

                Another excellent book from the Great Scribbler with another excellent cover by Les Edwards. You just can’t go wrong with that potent combination.

 

                Suzannah Mitchell and her 14 year old daughter Rose are caught in a massive blizzard and have to abandon their car and seek shelter. They wind up at the Donnington Country House Hotel, formerly the Donnington Nursing Home, which was a looney bin, a head farm. The thing is, since the name change, the clientele has remained pretty much the same. Suzannah and Rose feel very uncomfortable the moment they step inside and with good reason. There are loonies living in and running the hotel. Luckily for the Mitchells, Owain Pugh, a young man who is also stranded in the storm, shows up seeking shelter as well.

 

                The cast of characters is the best part of this book. You get a drunk, a flasher/ religious zealot, a chronic masterbator, and a pregnant virgin, among other eccentric and potentially dangerous tenants. The pregnant girl is of the most interest as she is either carrying either the second coming of Christ or the Devil’s spawn. Evil things are afoot in the hotel. A shadow of a beastly hand crawls across the ceiling and warnings of Satan’s presence are proof of that evil. But is there real evil in the hotel or is it just the collective madness of the unfortunate people who call the hotel home, the power of suggestion? And that is the crux of this story to me; is it real or is it craziness?

 

                GNS is ever the romanticist. Once again, he has Suzannah and Owain developing feelings for each other in record time. It works here because it gives them some sort of motivation. You see, with all of the wonderfully wacky hotel inmates, the two leads are pretty dry characters. They hope to save Rose from being a pawn in the plans of the bad guys, like anyone would, but offer little color to the proceedings. The story works much better for this. Also, despite being fourteen, I was reading Rose as much younger.

 

                Top shelf GNS right here; fun, fast paced, ambiguous and nerve-wracking. As an added bonus, one character is a picky book collector and has received a shipment from Black Hill Books, Guy’s own real-life mail-order book business at the time, and mentions that “the bloke was bleating for his cheque”. I always appreciate a little in-joke to lighten the proceedings.

Labyrinth By Eric Mackenzie-Lamb

Labyrinth
By Eric Mackenzie-Lamb
1979 Hamlyn
Paperback, 239 pages

 

                You know that I love me some Hamlyn Horrors! I’ll grab any one that I can find at a reasonable price. This one was unknown to me when I stumbled across it and I couldn’t resist a nice swampy horror. I didn’t really get that with this book but it had a lot more to offer, for better or worse, than a hackneyed ol’ swamp monster.

 

                Tom Davison is taking his University students on a field trip into the Okefenokee. While on the trip, one of his male students, Kirby, is taking core samples and comes up with a couple of Confederate coins (the origin of which is in the prologue) while a female student, Helen Garson,  unsuccessfully throws herself at the teacher.  After the trip, Davison takes the coins to be appraised in Miami and hears about their history and their worth. Upon returning to the University, he learns that Helen had told her father, a rich local businessman, and the authorities that Davison had assaulted her. Good time to head back to the swamp. End of part one.

 

                In part two, we learn more about Helen’s father, how he got rich and the unsavory ways he runs his business. Conveniently, the coin appraiser also deals in illegal migrant workers which Mr. Garson has been hiring and the gig is up. Garson’s top man is also a ruthless killer.  After snuffing the old man while Helen watches, things get crazy. With a heavy heart full of regret, Helen heads out to find Davison in the swamp. Kirby and a friend head to the swamp to find Davison while the gay killer and his gay henchmen head in to find Helen. The swamp is going to be hoppin’.

 

                There is a lot of good stuff in this book. The killer is particularly ruthless and Davison’s reptile knowledge is scientifically accurate. We get lots of native fauna behaving correctly which is a welcome change from a lot of books of the era. And how can you not love a book that goes into great detail about rare coins? But making the bad guys all homosexuals seems like a pretty broad stroke of prejudice. It turns out that Mackenzie-Lamb’s real-life father (explorer and botanist Elke, formerly Ivan, Mackenzie) transitioned in 1971 so I guess the author was still working out some acceptance problems. Women don’t fare a lot better though what Helen lacks in brains, she makes up for with balls.

 

                This is Mackenzie-Lamb’s only novel and it is a fast paced thriller with good points and despite its flaws, I’d have to recommend it for Hamlyn fans. It’s more of an adventure/ crime narrative than a horror, but it should satisfy your bloodthirsty needs.

Feast By Graham Masterton

Feast
By Graham Masterton
1988 Pinnacle Books
Paperback, 448 pages

                Graham Masterton’s cannibal classic has a lot of fans and a lot of detractors. I consider myself a fan, though with some reservations. Masterton is, of course, an excellent writer and storyteller and keeps the narrative flowing forward at a decent tempo. There are portions of the book, however, that slow down a bit and feel like padding, especially in the middle. Some pacing problems and repetition (and dozens of annoying typos in the Pinnacle edition) get in the way of this being a perfectly enjoyable experience. And I say that with the main character being kind of a dickhead. He wasn’t a problem for me.

 

                Charlie McLean (the dickhead) is a traveling restaurant critic going through small town Connecticut with his estranged son, 15 year old Martin, trying to spend some “get to know you” time together. Charlie learns of a secret dining club called Le Reposoir and desperately wants to get into it. All of his attempts are squashed and eventually, he gives up. Until his son goes missing and he learns that Martin has joined a cult, the Célèstines (at Le Reposoir), one that believes that the way to Jesus and spirituality is self-cannibalism. The cult is well-protected legally, as the “victims” are willing participants and there is little that Charlie can do. His attempts to “rescue” Martin get him nothing but trouble. With Journalist/ instant love interest Robyn in tow, he heads to New Orleans to the Célèstines headquarters to try a different way to gain access to his son.

 

                For me, the book got a little overlong while still in Connecticut and as the story became a road trip, but once they reached the Big Easy, things really started to pick up. Charlie’s effort to join the cult by practicing their ways is an unforgettable scene that even had me squirming and the sights and sounds of the New Orleans complex are horrifying yet shown with a spirituality and calmness that makes it feel twice as bad. You see, the Célèstines think that with Martin’s offering, they will bring about the Second Coming and nothing will stop them from making this come to pass, especially not Charlie’s harassment.

 

                So we have a great story by an excellent author but perhaps the scope is too big, dragging things down a bit. There are also a lot of convenient characters in on the whole plot to capture Martin that in retrospect were very much in the right place at the right time. Still, my suspension of disbelief is very strong so I just went with the flow. While the book could have lost 100 pages and should have had an actual proof-reader, I still enjoyed this and will hold it in high regard. Bob Larkin’s step-back cover art is a thing of rare beauty and that alone is worth the high price tag that Feast often commands. That the story is good, all quibbles aside, is icing on the cake.

    In 1989, Sphere released the title as Ritual with a less exciting (but still cool) step-back cover.

The Black Death By Gwyneth Cravens and John S. Marr

The Black Death
By Gwyneth Cravens and John S. Marr
1977 Ballantine Books
Paperback, 354 pages

 

                The Bubonic Plague hits Manhattan! It’s hard to look at older books like this now that we’ve had the Covid pandemic, but this one is well written and is delivered in a fast-moving text for most of its telling, revealing little by little until there is a real shit show happening. A warning: there are some pretty racist assholes in the story and a silly, sexist subplot.

 

                Sarah Dobbs returns from a vacation on the West Coast feeling ill and as she rests in her parents’ luxury home in Manhattan, she gets worse. While hospitalized, it takes a while to figure out what she is (soon was) suffering from but once they discover the contagion, it is a race to find everybody that she might have come in contact with. This part of the book is exciting, and it takes up most of the first third of the narrative. Thinking it was contained, they hear about a hooker that had contacted it and spread it all over, even the nice part of town.

 

                Spanish Harlem is hit hard with the epidemic and here is where class and racism comes into play. Once the government knows it is the plague, they are quick to blame the poor for the disease. Surely this was planted on US soil by Cuba! The president’s top aide, who has delusions of grandeur and a shady past, is planting that seed into the president’s noggin. At about 200 pages in, a lot of meetings and arguments between politicians, bureaucrats, and specialists begin and it starts to bog down the book. Then our hero contracts the bug…

 

                David Hart is a Department of Health official. It is he who identifies the problem and as a hero, he is admirable, trying to save as many lives as possible. I thought that his horniness when he gazed upon his lovely co-worker Dolores was a little bit jarring and out of place, but the romance gives his character motive later on. He does catch the bug after saving thousands and when he wakes up, miraculously cured, the setting is a post-apocalyptic nightmare of gangs, corpses, rats and fear. And, quite honestly, silliness. But it’s exciting silliness.

 

                The authors are very thorough when describing what an invading disease does to the human body as well as what certain drugs do to the invading disease. It gets very scientific at times but never to the detriment of the story. A ton of research went into this thriller, and it all gets you thinking. When all is said and done, the book says as much about what scumbags all politicians are as it does about trying to live through a catastrophic time. Not so much has changed, really.

Bedlam By Harry Adam Knight

Bedlam
By Harry Adam Knight
1992 Gollancz
Paperback, 215 pages

 

                When thinking of John Brosnan’s (with Leroy Kettle sometimes) books written as Harry Adam Knight, I tend to look at the Big Three; The Fungus (1985), Slimer (1983) and Carnosaur (1984). This one was unknown to me for a while until I stumbled upon it on a certain auction site. I grabbed it and I’m glad I did. While it isn’t a nature-runs-amok tale like the others, there is plenty of gruesome goodness on tap.

 

                Marc Gilmour is a serial killer known as The Bone Man. He is very clever, very cruel and completely twisted. The police in London finally catch him and put him away forever. He winds up in Dr. Stephanie Lyell’s care. She and her crew have a drug they want to try on him to try to make him... saner? To test its safeness, she even tries it on herself, noting nothing out of the ordinary in her physiology. But the people in the building that she lives in all have the same dream as she does, sometimes with catastrophic results!

 

                After she dreams of her sister burning in a fire (which happened during her teens), a guy catches fire and leaps to his death. No fire in his apartment, though. This brings Detective Seargent Terry Hamilton into her life, for better or worse, and they try to unravel the mysteries that keep piling up. Hamilton had a run-in with the Bone Man in his past; Gilmour was responsible for his wife and kid’s deaths. He can’t believe that anyone would try to reform that psycho.

 

                That is the set-up and, of course, once he starts getting his drugs, The Bone Man can pretty much take over the entire town. Except for Lyell and Hamilton, who are now both taking the drug. Still, he makes their world a surreal, alternate reality filled with confusion and terror, playing their greatest fears against them. Hamilton’s dead wife is back, as well as Lyell’s burnt neighbor who assaults her in a particularly disgusting scene. There’s also a rain of living fetuses that will please the gore-hounds. Yes, this is different from the other HAK books, but it has a lot of merit of its own. I really enjoyed it (>splat<) and highly recommend it if you can find it.  The Gollancz paperback has a nice cover by Tom Stimpson.

 

                Added bonus, “Knight” mentions a textbook written by Professor Simon Ian Childer, another of Brosnan’s pseudonyms!

The Lake By R. Karl Largent

The Lake
By R. Karl Largent
1993 Leisure
Paperback, 365 pages

 

                I normally do not like books written in first person narrative. Especially in horror books. I mean, you know right away that the storyteller survives. And if that main character is a bit of a smarmy, self-important twat, then it makes it even harder to dig in. I got over it and let the story evolve but I never really liked Elliot Wages.

                Mr. Wages is an author spending the summer in a small vacation town where he somehow becomes the most popular resident. He dates the town’s most beautiful woman, and he has the respect of most of the population. Despite a less than average summer season, the town of Jericho is bracing for the upcoming Jubilee, when tourists will flock to the town’s lake for fun and frivolity. BUT (yes, there is always a big but), there have been a couple of missing or mutilated kids, an oversized, mutant gar, a mysterious fog, and a permeating odor… should the Jubilee actually take place? Holy Jaws, Batman!

                OK, despite the wonderful cover, The Lake is not a Creature Feature story. Yes, there are a few outsized, aggressive gar, but the real danger is that fog. It seems that a factory on the lake is releasing some deadly shit into the water and it’s mixing with some other shit and making a flesh melting fog. OK, I’m still interested.

                At 365 pages, this book is far thicker than I usually like to delve in to and somewhere around the half-way mark, it became quite a slog. But I soldiered on and by the last quarter of the book, I’ll be goddamned… it got pretty damn exciting. After learning that it wasn’t going to be about bloodthirsty gar, I was a bit disappointed, but it really turned out to be a pretty good thriller. Not a horror novel by any stretch, but a tight, suspenseful nail-biter. Largent has a number of actual horror novels under his belt, so I’m looking forward to checking some of them out.

                As long as they’re not written in first person…

The Deadly Deep By Jon Messmann

The Deadly Deep
By Jon Messmann
1976 Signet
Paperback, 222 pages

                If you have read any of my reviews, you know that I love when nature strikes back, and animals start killing humans. This one, despite being fairly early in the nature-runs-amok cycle, was not on my radar until recently. I finally discovered it, picked it up and was rewarded with a pretty fun book. Not perfect by any means, but pretty darn good.

 

                Some disturbances have been happening along the Atlantic Coast of the US, like a whale smashing a fishing boat to bits, and lobsters attacking the men trapping them. Aran Holder, a science writer, thinks he may have a hot new lead on something to write about and, after his girlfriend is nipped by sea bass, he contacts his old pal at the Fish and Wildlife Service. Sure enough, shit has been going down and Holder is not only going to write about this phenomenon, but he’s also going to help investigate it.

 

                Yes, there are plenty of meetings as scientists and the military try to sort things out, but Messman keeps things rolling along with fresh attacks as the epidemic spreads around the world. Cephalopods, fish of all sizes and even crabs get into the action. (This book came out the same year as Guy N. Smith’s essential Night of the Crabs so 1976 was definitely a banner year for crustaceans.) Sealife even get together to form a tsunami to wipe out Miami Beach. Well done!

 

                When it isn’t an action set piece breaking up the meetings, it’s a sex scene. While the women in the book are intelligent and key to the plot, they also have boobs and Messman loves big boobs. So do I, as a matter of fact. So, there’s sex, animals killing humans, and a military zealot being humiliated; what’s not to love? Well, Holder is kind of a dick for a main character. He even cheats on his girlfriend that he realizes he’s fallen in love with… to “comfort” a woman he’s working with. Also, the ending was a bit of a fizzle.

 

                Overall, I can recommend this one, especially to fans of animal attack stories. It is more intellectual than many of its kin (Messmann is no dummy) and the book is well-written. The science is even almost plausible, I guess. So, dig in, grab a boob or two and read about lobsters snipping the Gorton’s fisherman to ribbons. I have no idea who painted the somewhat confusing cover, but it’s a dandy.

Night Mask By William W. Johnstone

Night Mask
By William W. Johnstone
1994 Zebra
Paperback, 350 pages

                There have been a few homicides of late in La Barca, California and the victims’ faces are missing! That’s right, their faces have been flayed off and taken. This revolting turn of events has a somewhat familiar ring to it, so detectives Leo Franks and Lani Prejean start a cross-country investigation to get to the bottom of it. And how does it tie in to La Barca’s easy listening radio station?

 

                Johnstone really puts the pedal to the metal in this one, delivering mind-melting gore and over the top cruelty, but always keeping his sense of humor intact. The body count is staggering, and the two detectives do everything they can, legal or not, to get to the bottom of it. It become clear pretty early on that “The Ripper” is likely more than one person.

 

                Of course, most of Johnstone’s usual right-wing bullshit is on display here, in fact, he spouts off more than usual. Guns are good, heavy metal is evil, the gay community are freaks, and only God can really be trusted. Whereas that usually adds to the camp charm of a Johnstone book, it gets to be a little too much in Night Mask. Don’t get me wrong; denouncing heavy metal as the work of Satan is never not fun but the gay bashing gets quite irksome.

 

                The scope of the book gets a little too big after a while, as well, and the cozy little killer-thriller starts to get a little long in the tooth. The kill-pits and the disenchanted (heavy-metal) teen followers of The Ripper gets silly. He had a nice little, gory potboiler going but went and made it too big to truly satisfy. Still, I enjoyed this book a lot. Huge print, lots of breaks, gallons of blood, mounds of rotting corpses, and a compelling story (to a point) had me blowing through this one in just a couple of days. There are more twists and turns than needed but dig in, check your brain at the door, load your gun and genuflect… you’re in for a fun ride.

 

               

Nightmare By Lewis Mallory

Nightmare
By Lewis Mallory
1984 Hamlyn
Paperback, 157 pages

 

                This one isn’t terrible, but it feels kind of like a contractual obligation book. The story, such as it is, just meanders along until its somewhat predictable conclusion. There is no passion in the storytelling. Maybe Mallory mailed it in or maybe this is just how he writes: it is the first novel of his that I have read. The book moves quickly enough and there are some excellent set-pieces but many of the settings and characters are paper-thin. But then, I don’t ask for much, so I read on.

 

                The book is about Gideon, a young brat who wants to be left alone, wants things his way, and has the power to make it happen. After torching his parents’ house with them in it, he winds up in a hospital ward, locked away from his sister. She is the only person he has any kind of need for and having survived the fire, she is the key to getting him out. But it won’t be easy as he is fucking weird, and everybody sees it. He remains silent when doctors (or anyone) ask him anything.

               

                Gideon has the power to take a person’s most intimate fear and turn it on them. Policeman Cooper is attacked by spiders, Nurse Simpson has a run-in with a pack of dogs, his sister’s boyfriend Phil was besieged by rats… or was it all in their heads? At any rate, their fear killed them, and nobody knew it was Gideon’s fault except Phil, who survived the rodent rage. Can he make Gideon’s sister see the light before he destroys her, too?

 

                As mentioned above, there are some good set-pieces, such as when Gideon drives his hospital roommate over the edge, and he cuts his own throat with a broken window. The animal attacks are fun: they are the reason I bought the book in the first place. So, while overall the writing seems kind of lazy, it’s still a quick, short novel that delivers the goods as long as you’re not looking for anything too deep. As per usual, Hamlyn gave this a corker of a cover!

Feeding Ground By John Monsees

Feeding Ground
By John Monsees
2025 Grindhouse Horror
Paperback, 232 pages

 

                How to review a book that is dedicated to me and my friend Eric Wright, the guy who got me started on reviewing paperbacks? Easy! I’ll just review it. Mr. Monsees is a friend, but I can be objective. But he does write directly to my tastes so he always gets glowing reviews! He, along with Hunter Shea, absolutely get it! And yes, the author acknowledges that this book is an unofficial Guy N. Smith crab book and he really gets the flavor down perfectly.

 

                The seaside town of Saltwick in North Yorkshire, England is in deep shit. The fish processing plant has contaminated the water with industrial runoff and it has made the local crabs bigger, more aggressive and smarter. After an attack in that very plant and a few missing vacationers, surely they’ll call off the town’s annual festival! No, the mayor wants to cover it up, in true Larry Vaughn style and that puts every townsperson and visitor in even deeper shit. Giant razor-sharp claws shred, dissect and inspect the many humans who go down in a pool of red. These crabs not only destroy humans, but they’re also studying them, learning how to take over the world to become the top species. In all honesty, seeing what’s going on in the US these days (March 2025), I should think they’d do a better job.

 

                A lesser author would have saved up the festival massacre for the climax but Monsees throws us to the crabs in the middle of the book, stranding our main characters (and plenty of crab fodder) in unsafe buildings and stores and eventually, the labyrinthine tunnels under the city where they’re still very much prone to attack. The crabs had been rebuilding these tunnels for decades. Scientist Emma Carlisle, drunken fisherman Jack, factory worker Danny and others are the  town’s last chance. But good luck, because the crabs are using tactical intelligence, cutting off escape routes, rounding humans up into kill zones. See? I told you they were smart.

 

                This book delivers everything you would want and hope for, and more. Obviously, we come for the gore and Monsees never disappoints in that respect. Entrails spill, blood sprays and limbs are severed. The gore is deliciously rendered with prose that would make Ramsey Campbell proud. Monsees, an American, serves up a British flavor that rings true to my eyes (admittedly, also American). Top shelf writing all around, though I must confess that I thought the word “systematically” got a little overused when describing the crabs’ intelligent actions, but I guess there’s no better word for it. In truth, I felt that the last third of the book lapsed a little into information overload and some repetition. Not that the climax isn’t thrilling but for a few chapters working towards the end, things felt a little bogged down.

 

                But that’s just a small bit of nitpicking. This book is to be relished right up alongside the GNS crab literature and I plan on filing it in the crustacean section of my library with those classics. If you haven’t yet checked out John Monsees’ writing, do yourself a favor and dig in. I can guarantee a good read.

Throwback By Guy N. Smith

Throwback
By Guy N. Smith
1985 New English Library
Paperback, 256 pages

                            

                                NEL 1985                                                                                                             Arrow 1990

                This is something a little different from the Master, an epidemic/ horror/ romance story with complete unpredictability. At 256 pages, it is a little chunkier than many of my favorite books of his, but the scope of this story is worthy of the extra ink. Think of it as GNS’s The Stand without all of the extra padding and useless characters of King’s (admittedly pretty good) book. A tidy epic.

 

                The book opens with our main character Jackie Quinn in the midst of physically and mentally reverting back to early man. Germ warfare has fallen on Britain (from who we don’t know) and it is turning everyone into throwbacks from primitive times. Thick brows, extra-hairy bodies and, of course, animal lust. A country filled with cavemen. Jackie’s plight is so well-rendered that I must admit that I was feeling a bit ill following her transformation. It felt like what happens in my own mind sometimes, without the bodily changes.

 

                A handful of people have been spared the horrible germs. Jackie’s husband Jon was in his bomb shelter with his mistress, and they remain normal. Unlike radiation, the germs eventually dissipate and there is no fallout so the normies are eventually safe to leave. But things aren’t quite so rosy out there. Animals have reverted to pre-human form as well and the farmyard is full of beasts. And what will the throwbacks do when they encounter the unscathed?

 

                There is plenty going on here, with tribes of prehistoric people trying to survive, a sadistic Nazi-esque doctor trying to find a cure but reveling in torture and annihilation, primitive “me man, you property” sex, and an army that has no clue what to do. With the narrative being told from both the sick and the unaffected point of view, the frustration level gets cranked up to ten. Did I say romance? Yes, it’s there, just a little different than what you might be used to.

 

                This isn’t my favorite GNS book, but it whizzes by and tells a story of great scope in an efficient page count. It is easy to recommend to fans of the Great Scribbler and the Terry Oakes cover on the NEL edition is pretty sweet. It should be noted that when Arrow reprinted the book, they commissioned a new, different (but still great) cover from Oakes.

Satan’s Seductress By Brian McNaughton

Satan’s Seductress
By Brian McNaughton
1981 Star Books
Paperback, 254 pages

                This is the direct follow-up to McNaughton’s Satan’s Mistress, which was a follow-up (in name only) to his previous Satan’s Love Child. This book picks up four years after the killing and satanic craziness that happened in Mistress and some of the characters from that book return. Should you read Satan’s Mistress before this one? Yes, you probably should.

 

                Amy Miniter had a small role in the previous book, but she managed to survive the massacre that happened in Mount Tabor, Connecticut and she’s back. Away for four years, she returned to settle her mother’s affairs, so she moved into a new apartment complex. The complex, not so surprisingly, was built on top of the town dump where the witch Mirdath was buried. Strange things are afoot in the apartments and the shy, frail and neurotic Amy is targeted to house Mirdath’s resurrected spirit. Tatty journalist Martin Paige (really, it must be McNaughton himself!) is in town looking to write a book on the massacre and puts himself into Amy’s life whether she wants him or not.

 

                Cult leader Howard Ashcroft returns from the previous book as does Amy’s old high-school teacher Mr. Bamberger, both seeking to reincarnate the witch. Amy’s downstairs neighbors provide plenty of sex and violence as the apartment complex goes loony. Todd is an Ashcroft follower and has a mean streak a mile wide anyway. Just ask his girlfriend Toni. What the cult really wants is the Necronomicon and Martin has found it, but can he hold onto it as the world fills with unreality, danger and time-loops?

 

                This book isn’t nearly as action-packed as its predecessor, but it matches it in the surrealism department. Events happen, but then things change back to “normal”, and then back until the reader and the characters are unsure what is real anymore. That is not a knock on the story telling, it is all part of the fun. McNaughton blends suspense, hallucinations, humor and desperation in sure even strokes. Gorehounds will enjoy Toni’s death and subsequent appearances in the story.

 

                This book was rereleased in 2000 by Wildside Press with McNaughton’s original, intended text and title as Worse Things Waiting. As I suggest with Satan’s Mistress, why not go with the more fun and loopier version as Satan’s Seductress? And rather than the big Satan face used on the 1980 Carlyle cover, hold out for the nude art by Gino D'Achille on the Star Books release. His covers are stunning.

The Charnel Caves By Guy N. Smith

The Charnel Caves
By Guy N. Smith
2019 The Sinister Horror Company
Paperback, 134 pages

 

                This is the master’s final foray into Crustacean Mayhem and like Killer Crabs: The Return, this short book is a valentine to the many killer crab enthusiasts, like me. It is an easy read for an afternoon when you feel the need for the clickety-clicking of crab claws and the destruction they can cause to soft, human skin.

 

                Our hero from the past, Cliff Davenport, still has horrible nightmares from his encounters with the massive crabs from forty years earlier. The cure? Head back to Barmouth, Wales, where the horror began for him. He figures seeing it as a peaceful resort town would wipe out his hideous memories. Albeit reluctantly, his wife agrees. What could possibly go wrong?

 

                Well, the giant jellyfish that killed a vacationer in the area aside, Davenport finds time for a restful walk along the cliffs. He finds a flooded cave with scratch marks around it… could it be? Yes, yes it could! He makes his reports to the authorities and his vacation becomes another tussle with giant crabs. Exploring the cave turns into a nightmare for divers and a breeding pair of giant crabs are seen in there raising their young and readying for another attack on humanity.

 

                With generous chapter breaks and blank pages, this one is really only about 70 pages of reading, but every word is a treasure to cherish. It is Guy N. Smith, the Great Scribbler, the Master, the man who gave us crabs. This is sheer joy. He even throws in a Russian spy submarine as a subplot just for the chance to deliver the line, “President Putin and his office will never accept that this was an attack by giant crustaceans…” We lost a lot when we lost GNS the year after this was published. He did manage to get two more novels out in that last year. Unstoppable in life.

 

                He left such a wonderful legacy. Especially those darn crabs. You have to wonder if he was going to move forward with the Killer Jellyfish that makes an appearance in this one. Things that could have been…