The Web By Richard Lewis

The Web
By Richard Lewis
1981 Hamlyn
Paperback, 204 pages

 

                When Alan Radnor turns into Richard Lewis, he writes books for me! As Lewis, he wrote a half dozen creepy-crawlies-versus-humans novels and all of them are loads of fun. This one is a sequel to his successful debut critter novel Spiders (1978). Many of his books don’t stick in your head for a long time, but they deliver the goods and are a hoot while you’re digging in.

 

                Of course, James Herbert’s The Rats (1974) started the whole Britain-under-attack genre, but we must also credit the same author’s The Fog (1975) for the folks-going-murderously-insane storyline that also frequently turns up in these books. The spiders that return in Lewis’s sequel are a little different. Sure, some of them devour their victims down to the bone, leaving just a husk, but a mutated form of spider can envenomate their victim and that, my dear, will cause violent insanity. They also enjoy wrapping up humans in tight webs to be devoured later. Evolution, that’s what it is.

 

                Much of the book is just a bunch of brief vignettes, characters set up only to be slaughtered. One fun passage is with the spinster schoolteacher whose routine is broken up after being bitten by one of the new spiders. She goes bonkers on her class of cheeky, young students and starts killing and beating them, as well as anyone who tries to stop her. I love it when bratty kids aren’t spared! Another fun set piece is a prison attack where the trapped convicts are sitting ducks for the arachnid army.

 

                It doesn’t matter if you haven’t read Lewis’s first spider novel; when the action from the first book is referenced, it is notated for your convenience. Since we have new mutations here, consider it an all-new story and enjoy the onslaught. Derivative? Yes. Any new ideas? Nope. Do I recommend it? Hell yes! Fun, gory, stupid, 80s pulp… just the way I like it.

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.

Night Killers By Richard Lewis

 

Night Killers
By Richard Lewis
1983 Hamlyn
Paperback, 208 pages

                I love Richard Lewis. He never lets me down. He jumped on the nature-strikes-back bandwagon in the late 1970s and knocked out a bunch of excellent horror novels. He wrote TV and movie tie-ins under his real name Alan Radnor, but his horror books as Richard Lewis vault him deep into my heart, right there alongside Guy N. Smith.

 

                Night Killers is a gruesome novel about cockroaches that develop a taste for human flesh. The origin of their dietary change opens the book in very gruesome fashion, with a serial killer’s poor disposal of a victim’s body. This whole opening is a grueling, gory, and exciting scene and eventually leads us to another excellent horror set piece. It’s not until 30 pages in that we meet our main characters. Like most of the great eco-horror novels, Lewis sets ‘em up and knocks ‘em down… the deaths are gruesome and harrowing. Much to my delight, there is a scene with a toddler… no, he wouldn’t go there… Yes. Yes, he did. I am a big fan of “nothing is sacred” horror.

 

                Taking place in a seedy section of London, Sally is in charge of Unity House, a hostel for alcoholics and vagrants; a place for them to stay and be safe. Her boyfriend David, a reporter (I know, an oft used trope) might have stumbled on a big story here in the East End. Main characters or not, Lewis puts them through the paces, and you never know if they’re going to make it to the end or not. The book never lets up with grisly roach killings and claustrophobic situations of hopelessness. Except for a gratuitous rape scene (really, hadn’t she been through enough already?), I have no complaints at all about the savagery Lewis ladles on.

 

                While I enjoyed every moment of this book while reading it, perhaps it is telling that when I sat down to write this review a few weeks later, I didn’t remember it very well. I had to skim through and reread it a bit to remind myself what it was that I liked so much about it. Even though it evidently didn’t stick with me, I loved it as I read it and gleefully recommend it.

Midnight Magazine

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