Toy Cemetery By William W. Johnstone

Toy Cemetery
By William W. Johnstone
1987 Zebra
Paperback, 412 pages

 
    Old Scratch is running rampant in a small town in the South and it’s up to a rough and tumble Viet Nam vet to stop the madness! It sounds like every other William W. Johnstone book doesn’t it? But wait, there is much more. So much more that I really have no idea where to begin. This is top shelf Johnstone kitchen-sink madness.

    New York divorcé Jay Clute (the war veteran) has inherited his aunt’s fortune down in Victory, Missouri and he and his 10-year-old daughter Kelly take a trip down to his hometown to settle his affairs. As memories flood him, the two notice lots of strange things going on, not the least of which is little dolls running around. They stay in town, meet up with Jay’s old friends and Kelly meets some local kids. But there is an evil grip on the town that has everyone acting strangely and weird creatures skulk in the shadows.

    I’ll let Deva, Jay’s high school sweetheart, and her sarcastic retort to Jay’s suggestion that it must be an explainable phenomenon reveal some of the weirdness… “Grown men and women are thrust into near-incestuous relationships with their kids; creatures roam the night; toys come alive; and the personalities of nearly everyone in town have been altered. Explainable phenomenon. Sure, Jay.” All this and more and yes, Johnstone goes there with a lot of incest, rape and pedophilia in this one.

    Truthfully, this is so chock-full of strangeness that it gets confusing but it’s all good because the gore splats freely and despite the cringey mean-spiritedness of some parts, there is no shortage of intentional humor. My favorite character is old man Milton, Jay’s next-door neighbor who rocks in his rocker, cheerfully calling Jay and his crew assholes every time he sees them. There is an explanation for everything, and it slowly unfolds during the course of this overstuffed tome but don’t worry about logic; this is Johnstone at the peak of his batshit craziness. Just go along for the ride and try to picture the author tapping away at the typewriter, chopping out this stream-of-consciousness prose, wondering himself where it’s all going to end up.

    Johnstone will never be mistaken for a great writer, but his work is fun as hell and this one is as over the top as it gets. And even though good ol’ God is mentioned a number of times, he doesn’t play a huge role in this novel. Thank Him for that!

Siege on Dome 17 By Nick Young

Siege on Dome 17
By Nick Young
2024 White Mountain Pub.
Paperback, 239 pages

    This is Young’s debut novel and it’s fair to say that he’s off to a fairly auspicious start. The many characters’ (some are super unsavory) actions all have an effect on each other in one way or another and the story is multi-faceted, but that’s not to say that Young doesn’t know what we’re here for. Gore and bodily fluids flow and splash aplenty. Blood, plasma, claret, urine, vomit, pus, jizz and entrails leave bodies in every chapter… and there are 41 chapters!

    Ten years have passed since the bombs dropped and the world is a dead, radiated desert and the surviving humans live in steel domes. Dome 17 may well be the last dome with anyone alive. Some remaining humans have become mutants, covered with boils and pus-filled sacs who become crazier over time. Taft is the man in charge of killing the mutants once they lose their humanity. A shitty job indeed. Three housing blocks are in Dome 17 and the A-block is all mutants. The survivors are running out of everything and things are breaking down, including the dome’s retracting roof. It’s turning into a war between the humans and the A-block and things are about to get even worse.

    Giant insects are getting into the dome and the car-sized ants and huge wasps don’t care who they’re killing and eating. One vengeful mutant is feeding victims to a massive spider. The humans have to find a way to curb the insects and the mutants and save their asses, but the rag-tag team of heroes seem like a very unlikely crew to handle the siege. Descriptive violence ensues and the viscera is knee-deep in no time. As with the 80’s pulp horrors that this book is inspired by, inappropriate sex is also graphically depicted.

    Young has a ton of fun with his killings, with guts sliding out of impaled bodies and the above-mentioned fluids spraying far and wide. The characters include a pedo/ child-murdering reverend, a mourning mom, a German co-worker of Taft’s that I pictured looking like Ted V. Mikels, a useless, dog-killing Dome Mayor, a mutant with revenge on his mind, the mayor’s very capable wife who become Taft’s main squeeze, and a plethora of folks, both good and bad, who are trying to survive. They are all worthwhile characters that help push the story along.

    As with most small press books, it could have used another pass by an editor. A character named Arthur become Albert after a few pages and there are some typos throughout but overall, in that respect, this book is in better shape than 90% of the self-published/ small press books that I encounter. Young sent me a review copy with a barf-bag that he thoughtfully included as a bookmark. I didn’t have to use it but I can see where some might! The splatter is heavy, the gore is plentiful and the sick bastards that live in this book just might make you puke! On a side note, I wonder if Young’s idea for the domes came from Skydome in Toronto.

                                              It's a barf-bag! It's a bookmark! It's a barf-bag bookmark!!

The Camp By Guy N. Smith

The Camp
By Guy N. Smith
1989 Sphere
Paperback, 288 pages

    Just what did Guy N. Smith have against vacationers? He set loose his crabs on them, he sicced a manitou doll on them and this time out, things get even weirder! Thank goodness he held some kind of grudge against people on holiday. We got a lot of great stories out of it.

    This time out, we’re at Paradise Holiday Camp. It has everything. Chalets, amusement parks, bars, restaurants, and a covert project where certain campers are being tested on a new mind-altering drug. The project gets mixed results; one couple thinks they’re in the new ice age (in the middle of a hot summer), one woman thinks she is a prostitute while her abusive boyfriend doesn’t even know her, and one older woman thinks she’s pregnant. Jeff Beebee fares better. Ann, the woman who is to dose his food with the drug, kind of falls for him and she is reluctant to administer it.

    We have a little soap opera here, too. Ann is the (older) drug scientist’s mistress, and Jeff’s girlfriend has just dumped him at the Camp. We also have a little classism as the more affluent guests stay in better digs than the riffraff (you know, like me). GNS throws a lot of different characters into the mix, and they are all well-rounded, even if only through their hallucinations. There is some shocking violence and plenty of frustrating moments where you just want to yell and let people know what’s happening to them.

    The book chugs along at a good pace but slags a bit going into the last 50 or 60 pages. It is almost as if as he was in the homestretch, Guy thought up a better ending and tried to tie everything up before getting to it. If that’s the case, then I’m glad it happened because the ending is a fiery, violent burst of mayhem. It is hard to not recommend any GNS book and The Camp is another winner. Les Edwards’ cover captures the angst and horror admirably, too.

Polish edition, Phantom Press 1991

art by Radoslaw Dylis

    Originally published in GNS2: A Guy N. Smith Fanzine by Chris Elphick

The Totem By David Morrell

The Totem
By David Morrell
1979, Fawcett Crest
Paperback, 255 pages

                                               

    Boy, I really wanted to like this book more than I did, but you just can’t win them all. It’s got everything I usually like; possible monsters, possible rabies scare and possible good story-telling. But overall, this became a slog to get through for me.

    One big problem? The main character’s surname is Slaughter. The author even comments how it’s a silly name, unbefitting the character, but it still managed to bug me. Anyhoo, Nathan Slaughter left the police force in Detroit for a quieter life in a small town in Wisconsin. When the job of Sheriff became available he took it, figuring he’d be living an easy life. Until bodies started stacking up.

    The bodies show signs of rabies and eyewitnesses describe some sort of monster with antlers. The bodies, however, don’t stay dead. They get up and start a reign of terror. This is no ordinary rabies. When a rabid young boy becomes an instrument of terror, biting his mother, the town is on high alert.

    I do like when Morrell is telling the tale from the monster's point of view, whichever infected being it might be at that time. Called only “it”, it’s nice to see what is going through the head of the victims of this plague. Some pathos is worked up for the kid who turns. The main characters, Slaughter, the doctor who is trying to sort out a lot of shit with very little information, and Slaughter’s old pal, the drunken reporter, are all right, if at times a little predictable. It’s just that by the half-way point, I became a little agitated and bored with the book. I mean, it’s OK, but I just didn’t get absorbed.

    Morrell, the man who invented John Rambo, had his original manuscript cut down before publication, so maybe some tidbits of story got the axe but I don’t think I could have made it through the book if it was any longer. The longer, original version was published in 1994, bumping it up to over 400 pages. No thanks. Admittedly, I grabbed this Fawcett edition for the groovy cover, which is far less spoilery than the images on other editions.

The Lurkers By Guy N. Smith

The Lurkers
By Guy N. Smith
1982 Hamlyn
Paperback, 158 pages
                                            

    The Master covers familiar territory with this one, with a family of outsiders facing the hatred and wrath of the small-town locals, but he throws enough variations into the short page-count to keep the story fresh and exciting.

    Peter Fogg was a working class nothing who wrote a book in his spare time. It got published and turned out to be a big hit. He got greedy and moved his wife Janie and his son Gavin to a secluded rental house deep in the Welsh Highlands to write another book. Janie hated it; she could sense something evil in the woods around the house. Gavin hated it because being English, he was the target of his Welsh schoolmates’ ire. And there was that old stone circle up on the hill, visible from the house.

    Smith sets up the story and lets the dread seep in slowly, from the townsfolk making no bones about how unwelcome the Foggs are to the slaughter of their pet cat and rabbit, whose remains are found at the stone circle. Are the townsfolk responsible or are the ghostly druids back, making sacrifices in the name of Old Scratch? Janie has had enough and takes Gavin back to civilization, leaving Peter on his own against whatever evil forces are at work. There is something out there.

    Guy N. Smith’s daughter has said that the house in this book was based on their own home. It sounds like a lovely place, except for the brewing evil! Fogg’s stand against whatever is out there is a suspenseful stake out in the middle of a crippling blizzard and Smith really ramps up the feeling of isolation. Many twists unravel and this satisfying book can be plowed through in a sitting or two. A highly recommended non-crab book from a legendary writer.

    Originally published in GNS2: A Guy N. Smith Fanzine by Chris Elphick

Roadkill Girls By John Monsees

Roadkill Girls
By John Monsees
2025 Grindhouse Horror
Paperback and Kindle, 132 pages

                                             

    It’s not every day that I get a review copy of a book but I’m honored to have received the first book from Grindhouse Horror. I know John Monsees primarily as an illustrator but his move into writing is a lucky thing for lovers of pulp horror. He gets it, he’s good at it, he understands what readers want, and he delivers it in a big way.

    Jinx. Spider. Viper. Roxy. Four women on motorcycles, fleeing from the police after a bungled robbery leaves a dead body. The desert roads offer them no respite so they go way offroad, lose the pigs and find themselves at a diner in the middle of nowhere. But the people running the diner are cannibals! They soon learn that their problems are just beginning. There is something else there. Something monstrous. Something underground. Something that wants to eat them.

    That’s right, things pile up for our anti-heroes quickly. We want the kitchen sink and Monsees gives it to us. The characters are beautifully developed; Jinx is the small gang’s leader, an ex-con and the one with the most level head, though she’s feeling she is in over that level head. Spider is an ex-military tech specialist, also a convict, and has the ability to work gadgets to the gang’s advantage. Viper is nuts, no worries about her own life or death and is responsible for the murder that put them into hot water. Roxy is just a kid; 18 years old and running away from an abusive home, joining the others and feeling like she has her first real family. I developed a lot of feelings for these badass women in the short running time of this book.

    Of course, we’re here for the pulp sleaze and Monsees lays the gore on thick with slicing, dicing and biting, from both a drug-addled Viper and the massive underground worms that are the ultimate challenge for the gang. The worms are part Tremors (Ron Underwood, 1990) and also they reminded me of the annelids in Peter Tremayne’s hard to find book The Morgow Rises (Sphere, 1982). They’re tough to kill but easy to be killed by. But Monsees offers far more than a gorefest. As mentioned, the main characters aren’t just fodder. When anything happens to them, we care.

    There are also plenty of brilliant, Raymond Chadler-esque passages that made me stop reading and go back to reread and admire the line. This novel wasn’t just banged out; it was lovingly created. Not everything is perfect (two Harleys and two Kawasakis become four Harleys later on and they evidently got a fill-up at the diner, but I didn’t read it) but this is a highly recommended debut. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t mention the cover. It is tweaked Artificial Intelligence and I promised myself that I’d never promote something (book, movie or record) using AI, but it’s not an egregious use of it (like that shitty, shiny, cartoony garbage) and Monsees only takes the illustration gig away from himself, so I’ll turn the other cheek here. This review copy also includes a sneak peek at Monsees’ next release, a “shameless love letter to Guy N. Smith” and yes, it will be crabs. I am beyond excited for that one!
    
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Inhuman By John Russo

Inhuman
By John Russo
1986 Pocket Books
Paperback, 221 pages

                                                 

    John Russo is no stranger to horror fans. The co-author of Night of the Living Dead should need no introduction. His novels have been inconsistent, in my opinion, but Inhuman is very good, despite horrid online reviews. In fact, it is one of my favorite non-Dead ones so far.

    There's a lot going on in the first hundred pages. An old, dying woman predicts "Great big snakes are a-comin'. To Kill us!" Her religious family don't know what to make of that. Meanwhile, a pair of married psychiatrists are preparing their remote and beautifully maintained Manor House for a marriage encounter for five troubled couples. Meanwhile, again, a bank in New York has a hostage situation, with an SLA offshoot group of fanatics, the Green Brigade, killing off the innocents until their leader and his comrades are freed from prison. They demand a plane to Cuba and get it.

    OK, set-up complete, the fun begins. Of course, an over-zealous FBI agent does not want the plane, full of terrorists and hostages, to make it to Cuba. His plan is to get to such a high altitude as to knock out the passengers, with only the pilots having access to oxygen. They try to implement that plan, but a grenade makes it irrelevant. The pilots do their best to land safely and preserve the lives of the hostages. The landing is more or less successful and most of the passengers survive. But… the lack of oxygen when they were up there has had some nasty side-effects.

    Sure, the resultant story is heavily influenced by Night of the Living Dead, with the remote plantation house being under siege by the brain-damaged and heavily armed terrorists. Russo even says, with a wink, that the basement is the safest place and should be a last resort. While none of the characters are particularly likeable, the suspense is still thick, and the “automatons” are relentless.

    No, Lisa Falkenstern’s brilliant cover has nothing to do with the novel. The brain-damaged folks have a “reptile instinct” in that they want to hunt and kill and won’t stop until they do. Not sure I’ve met many reptiles who act like that, but then I’m higher on the food chain, I guess.

    Good book, great cover. Add it to your collection.