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.

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…

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!

Killer Crabs: the Return by Guy N. Smith

 

Killer Crabs: the Return

By Guy N. Smith

2012 Black Hill Books
Paperback, 149 pages

 

    Twenty something years after Guy N. Smith concluded his original Crabs sextet with Crabs: the Human Sacrifice (1988), the killer crustaceans are back, click-click-clickety-clicking their way back into our hearts and stomachs. El maestro Smith knew what his fans wanted and gave us more mayhem and it’s just what the doctor ordered. Released as an E-book as well as a paperback, it is a very slim volume that can (and should) be read in one sitting. At 149 pages of large, double-spaced print, and the usual crab craziness, the book just flies by.

 

    Brock Logan, the son of a crab victim, has been waiting decades for their reemergence to avenge his father’s death and to get a crab for his trophy room. But we don’t really care about Brock. Fans of Smith’s crab books can rest easy; the crabs mean business. “A crustacean banquet had begun.” This time it’s just one big one, a male who is raising and training his offspring, teaching them the joy of devouring human flesh. Parenting done right!

 

    No, this book doesn’t break any new ground; it is just a valentine from Smith to his crab-happy fans, of which I am a huge one. It wasn’t his last foray into crab calamity, thank goodness. Rest in peace, Guy, and thank you for giving us the crabs.

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

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