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Post by dem bones on Jun 26, 2008 8:50:11 GMT
Guy N. Smith - Crab's Moon (New English Library, April 1984) An armoured underwater army, they lay off-shore, watching, waiting. Then, moon-driven, coldly mad in their need to destroy, to kill, to eat, they edged forward.
The quiet night sounds: gentle waves lapping and hissing on the shingle, the warm on-shore breeze ruffling through the grassy dunes, lights, laughter and music from the unsuspecting holiday camp, the diesel thump, thump of a last, late fishing boat.
Tensed, shuddering and eager in their hunger, they lurched out of the water. In their hundreds, huge and evil, they crawled, lumbered up the beach, feeling their way towards their prey. The new night sounds. the clicking of giant claws, the scraping of 'giant bodies across the rocks, screams of terror, screams of agony suddenly stilled, the crunch of bones, the sickening sucking and munching as they gorged on human flesh.
The crabs had invaded once more ....In the summer of 1976 the giant crabs first attacked mankind on the Welsh coast. Part of that story was told in Night Of The Crabs : the remainder is told in this book -GNS With Barmouth under threat of invasion by the Radio One Roadshow, would-be Lothario Keith Baxter decides he'd rather take his chances on Shell Island than risk exposure to the likes of Dave Lee Travis and his "verbal garbage" for "morons". Having persuaded frustrated Irey Wall to accompany him for the afternoon with a view to a shag in the sand dunes, the muscle bound hunk gets down to some serious showing off by taking a skinny dip in the sea. He's soon very much skinnier for the experience, too, as .... the giant crabs are back! This is a proper Nel - I'm only on Chapter 4 but Guy's already worked in a couple of crafty plugs for Night Of The Crabs (and Jaws: don't tell me he wrote that too!) which augers well for the rest of the book. We've just lost the obligatory young lovers swimming off the island and now our crustacean chums are battling it out with the army on Shell. Meanwhile, money mad entrepreneur Miles Manning has taken some lucky Blue Ocean Holiday Camp punters out in his luxury yacht for the evening to enjoy some smoochy Engelbert Humperdink records. Something hits the bottom with the force of a torpedo .... TBC .....
Thanks ade!
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Post by killercrab on Jun 26, 2008 13:38:14 GMT
Way to go! Two Smith reviews on the board in as many days. I've just finished my fifth GNS in a row ... and stalled. Must share my thoughts on my latest as soon as I feel inspired. Been reading DC's House Of Mystery the last couple of days ( as a change of pace) and the question remains can I go for a record sixth Smith...
Clickey click ...
KC
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Post by dem bones on Jun 26, 2008 15:05:27 GMT
I'm gutted, actually. I was halfway through Locusts but had to leave it be for days and then couldn't get back into it (we'd reached the violent vignette section, too!) so I figured I'd start on a crabby classic as they're usually very easy on the brain. Miles Manning is giving it his all as the man who won't shut down his holiday camp when there are plenty good punters to fleece. My one disappointment is that Irey's irritating children have flukily avoided becoming crab food twice now although we live in hope. Fair belts along, this one, don't it?
New characters/ crab-fodder arriving at pace. Jean Ruddington the nympho Greencoat; Pete the evil-reeking hippy from a commune of English-hating, holiday home torchers; interfering Gordon Smallwood who rescues the rotten Wall brats; and Prof. Cliff Davenport, the crabs' nemesis from Night Of ..., whose niece and her fiance are missing, rightly presumed eaten, off the coast of Shell island.
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Post by killercrab on Jun 26, 2008 17:32:40 GMT
I was halfway through Locusts but had to leave it be for days and then couldn't get back into it >>
It's not just you either who stalled - I failed to finish LOCUSTS and perversely it's a really well written book too - like proper literature sort of. I'm convinced that I like Smith when he's dredging lower down in the pond. I might have struggled with The Wood - but it's on target for bottom feeding. Funnily enough I think Wolfcurse kind of aims higher too - but the pronographic detail made it worth perservering with.
The Crabs books should only supply one thing - big crustaceans eating folks and fighting tanks - anything else is a waste of my time. I rather enjoyed Crabs Moon because it involved that questionable institution - the holiday camp - we've probably all endured a trypical summer stalag haven't we?
Good book - british and bloody...
ade
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Post by dem bones on Jun 27, 2008 6:58:11 GMT
I was really enjoying Locusts, ade, but I left it alone for too long and got a bit lost! The funny thing is, where the 'Richard Lewis' novels read as though they may have been ever-so-slightly "unspired" by GNS, Locusts put me in mind of Lewis circa Parasite!
Back with Crabs Moon and I'm up to p. 113 now, cleaning up after last night's famous battle of Barmouth where the crabs took on - and routed - the army. My one slight concern is that Guy seems to have forgotten the Radio 1 Roadshow are in the vicinity, surely an ideal target for the pissed off crustacean's if ever there was. I've just been reading about the Radio 1 Race Day (featuring the Dave Lee Travis Dragster Demonstration and the BBC Disc Jockey Popstacle Race) at Mallory Park, Leicester in July 1978, an event the much missed John Peel likened to "something out of Dante." At the western end of the circuit was an island surrounded by a large lake and only connected to the mainland by a narrow bridge. As helicopters carrying various Bay City Rollers landed on the island, the loved-up teenybopper hordes launched themselves shrieking into the slimy water and attempted to wade across. The frog-suited BBC sub-aqua team manfully rescued several and returned them to dry land so they could immediately plunge back in and try again. And then:
Hurtling back and forth on the pellucid waters of the lake was a speedboat, and in the speedboat was Tony Blackburn waving to the crowd. The speedboat was piloted by a Womble. "Look at this and marvel", I murmured to Johnie Walker. "You will never see anything like this again." - John Peel & Sheila Ravenscroft Margrave Of The Marshes, (Bantam, 2005)
All that's missing is " .... Suddenly the boat lurched, a crazy jerk accompanied by a scraping that you felt from below .... Click Click Clickety Click ..."
What in the name of Kylie's arse am I waffling on about?
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jun 27, 2008 8:00:21 GMT
The Crabs books should only supply one thing - big crustaceans eating folks and fighting tanks - anything else is a waste of my time. I rather enjoyed Crabs Moon because it involved that questionable institution - the holiday camp - we've probably all endured a trypical summer stalag haven't we? Good book - british and bloody... ade Steady on Ade! Isn't GNS making some point about the Crabs not differentiating between the rich (cruise ship) and the not so well off (holiday camp) in here?
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Post by killercrab on Jun 27, 2008 13:03:50 GMT
Having endured watery green pea soup at a wet Butlins , Filey in 1970 something - I know whereof I criticise Marshy! Good point about the Crabs lack of class distinction though. Is there a social commentary to be found within Smithland I wonder? Bank managers certainly get the short end of the stick. KC
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Post by killercrab on Jun 27, 2008 13:08:24 GMT
What in the name of Kylie's arse am I waffling on about? >> I have no idea -- but keep it up. Might be my faulty memory but Smith rarely product places - like I keep saying ( because I like my present argument - heh) - Smithland is an alternate reality of sorts - right down to the everyone shouting in exclamation marks! Brian Blessed would fit right in. ade
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Post by dem bones on Jun 27, 2008 13:16:50 GMT
"Suddenly, everything had become an anti-climax ....."
He's not kidding. Crab's Moon has a damp squib of an ending to rival even that of The Walking Dead, with the long anticipated assault on the Blue Ocean Holiday Camp fizzling out before everyone can be massacred. For shame! Mind you, as with the aforementioned sequel to The Sucking Pit, it's great fun getting there and an outrageous, largely non-crab related gory death hits the spot just when the action is getting too by numbers.
The Blue Ocean complex has now been cordoned off by the army. Gordon the Greencoat is desperately worried about colleague and potential next shag Jean the nympho, who was in Barmouth having a shag when the crabs struck and hasn't been heard of since. There's nothing for it but to join trouble-making loudmouth Charlie and his gang of disgruntled campers in tonight's attempted breakout. Also tagging along in the shadows is teenage sex-pest and mental retard Benjie Thompson who obviously won't be making a nuisance of himself. Big Charlies plan is that the party scamper across the beach because that's the last place the soldier johnnies will be looking out for them. It's a crazy stunt to pull, but it might just work!
Yes, nearly there now. If we just take a short cut across these odd-looking rocks .... oops!
Meanwhile, in the one of the least PC chapters I've read in weeks, Edna and Lucy are on the pull at the Oyster disco. Normally it's Edna who scores on account of her being "not wholly unattractive if a guy wasn't too particular; a 'fill-in' for the evening if there wasn't anything better on offer", but tonight it's her greasy haired, pimple-faced lardy mate who cops off with the fast-working charm offensive that is Johnny. Lucy explains that she can't take him back to her chalet on account of Edna might walk in, but Johnny has it all planned: they can shag over there, "in that field where they keep the donkeys." I'm sure you've worked out for yourself what happens when they get down to business ...
And then, the last night with the moon on the wane. Killer Crab and all his smaller (i.e., cow-size) accomplices launch themselves on the camp where the surviving characters are holed up, some almost welcoming the end, others, like slimy moneybags Miles, planning their own escape and sod everyone else. The tension mounts; who lives? who dies? will GNS lob in any any more plugs for The Night Of The Crabs?
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Post by dreadlocksmile on Jun 20, 2009 14:19:02 GMT
Dreadlocksmile Review:First published back in 1984, Guy N Smith's pulp horror novel `Crabs' Moon' was the fifth instalment into the Crabs series. Only one final full length crabs novel followed; the 1988 crabs finale `Crabs: The Human Sacrifice'. Although this is the fifth crabs novel to be released, it finds itself slotted in alongside `Night of the Crabs' in the storylines sequential order. Indeed, on the inside title page, underneath the books title, it declares this with the subtitle `Night of the Crabs 2'. If that wasn't enough to whet the appetite of any good crabs fan, then I don't know what will. Just before the novel kicks off, Smith has inserted a quick passage to explain exactly where this instalment falls within the chronology of the crabs series. Smith's statement is as follows: "In the summer of 1976 the giant crabs first attacked Mankind on the Welsh coast. Part of that was told in Night of the Crabs; the remainder is told in this book - GNS". So there we have it, `Crabs' Moon' has its place already in the story of the crabs, the scene is already set and the crabs are ready for the inevitable blood shed. The novel starts off with a return to Shell Island. Whilst Irey Wall's husband shoots off on a fishing trip with his mates, Irey is sent off to the Blue Ocean Holiday Camp with their two children. Irey soon meets up with musclehead Keith Baxtor, who decides to take Irey on a secluded picnic, with the obvious intention of seducing the poor lady. Baxtor's raunchy plans don't get very far, when out from the sea pop our gigantic crustacean friends. With a newfound hunger for human flesh, the crabs begin their invasion of Shell Island. At this point Smith inserts the first part of Chapter One from `Night of the Crabs' into the novel. This excerpt is taken word for word from the book and forms the entirety of the third chapter to `Crabs' Moon'. Although this seems like a slightly bizarre approach to writing a new crabs novel, it is somewhat necessary in order for the reader to clearly follow where this instalment fits in with the other crabs novels, as well as allowing it to stand as a complete story within itself. Anyway, back to the plot. The crabs have now unleashed all hell on the community of Shell Island, including those staying within the Blue Ocean Holiday Camp. One of whom is the holiday camp rep (referred to as a `Greencoat') Gordon Smallwood and his girlfriend Jean Ruddington who is also a Greencoat. Jean doesn't hang around long once the first gigantic crab homes into view, and subsequently scarpers off to look after her sister. Gordon now finds himself almost singlehandedly attempting to protect the holiday makers from the advancing crustacean army. Bournmouth have their own war with the crabs on their hands (Night of the Crabs) and so with a few brief mentions of good old Cliff Davenport, the army turn up in the vain attempts at protecting the civilians at Shell Island. Guided by the full moon and their King Crab leader, the crabs show their unforgiving hatred for humanity as they hit the people of Shell Island again and again, whenever the moon is full. Smith's `Crabs' Moon' is a curious instalment into the crabs series. It does fill a gap that was present within `Night of the Crabs', adding a further insight into the repeated and horrific wars that took place between the crabs and mankind at Shell Island. Smith delivers the usual high death count with buckets of bloody gore thrown in at every possible opportunity. Detailed depictions of the crabs haunting levels of violence are crammed into the book, leaving little room for any properly thought out storyline. Somewhat limited by the events and final outcome from `Night of the Crabs', Smith decides upon the simple (and relatively safe) option of simply delivering a novel bursting with crab action. Fast paced as it is, the novel still comes across to the reader as shallow without any real substance to the overall plot. Instead of adding any further insight into the crabs, or indeed developing more on the principals set down within the other novels, `Crabs' Moon' sits purely to bring the reader another 284 pages of gory crab action and little more. The ending to the novel is extremely weak, leaving the reader somewhat unsatisfied by the conclusion. Smith does however end on the following author's note: "Following the attack on the Blue Ocean Holiday Camp the giant crabs moved back to Barmouth where they demolished the viaduct over the estuary and more lives were lost. It was Professor Cliff Davenport who finally defeated them, matching strength and cunning with ingenuity, and rid the Welsh coast of danger. This story is related in Night of the Crabs". So there you have it. All in all, `Crabs' Moon' is an enjoyable read packed with fast paced action and page to page blood spill. It's a novel purely for fans of the crabs series, with little else in the book to satisfy any other criteria. This is a shame, but hopefully not enough to put anyone off reading the book. Just make sure you have the other crabs books under your belt beforehand. www.amazon.co.uk/review/R2OD7CUCQUD7QW/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
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Post by erebus on Apr 18, 2011 20:23:41 GMT
Always loved that fabulous cover art on the NEL version. Always wondered why the crab was menacing a pillar box. Sadly my version of this went missing so I'm stuck with the Grafton reissue with the shitty cover. The NEL one is like hen's teeth nowadays. Anyone see one on ebay a prompt would be greatly appreciated.
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Post by noose on Apr 18, 2011 20:34:14 GMT
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Post by killercrab on Apr 19, 2011 0:13:59 GMT
Probably the best Crab cover ever - though that wonky photo montage on ORIGIN is kinda groovy.
KC ... who still needs to afford CRABS: HUMAN SACRIFICE.
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Post by bluetomb on Nov 22, 2019 13:37:53 GMT
My first Crabs! That is, my first Crabs as a "grown-up". I actually read Night of the Crabs around age 12 and was put off Guy N Smith until recent years. I know he was a formative influence for many, in fact pottering around at my work I once read a rather nice letter from a 12 year old big fan some time in the late 70's/early 80's asking for information to write a school project on him. But King, Herbert and Hutson were my guys back then and somehow Night of the Crabs just seemed too tame and innocent. I assumed that was just going to be the way with Guy N Smith in general. Ha! Only got back into him around 2015. Not such a bad thing though I think. More than the others mentioned he has his own world, a strange and sleazy one that doesn't quite fit easy classification, with its own stock characters and codes of conduct, structures and even stock epithets, one best "understood" and appreciated with more experience of the "real" than a pre or early teen necessarily has. After a false start with a P, reading through his titles readily available to me (Hamlyn, Arrow, Sheridan) alphabetically has been quite a joy. Crab's Moon may not be perfect, but it sure does the trick.
The story takes place around Night of the Crabs, beginning either simultaneously or fractionally before (a couple of chapters in the first fatalities of Night of the Crabs are inserted, after the first fatality of Crab's Moon but still ending with the line "The killings had begun") and ending before. This means GNS can dispense with any heavy conceptual lifting and just get right on with the adventure. The main thrust concerns Irey Wall, dissatisfied housewife on holiday with her two young children but not her husband Alan, who prefers to go fishing with his friends. Irey is a decent enough sort, she makes off from her holiday camp for a deserted corner of the nearby Shell Island with young lothario Keith Baxter, but while he thinks he has a sure thing, she doesn't, and lets him go skinning dipping alone first. Inadvertently wise, as the crabs take him to pieces, including, in one skilful precision strike, his johnson. She's very much put out by his disappearance, and when she does eventually return alone, the guilt drives her close to reporting the incident. Things are too hot by that point though. Young salt of the earth greencoat Gordon Smallwood, at a loose end when his sex hungry lady friend Jean Ruddington heads off for the afternoon (he suspects rightfully to see another gentleman friend), ends up being the second bystander to save Irey's wandering kids from a crab sortie inland (the first doesn't make it) and falls in with the three of them. Jean has adventures, Gordon has adventures, and all the while the crabs ramp up the attacks and the camp is isolated.
There's a curiously lackadaisical, tension light feel to this despite pretty pretty straightforward and focused as the Smiths I've read go. But it does bowl along very nicely, with plenty of what I'm coming to appreciate as classic Smith touches. Salt of the earth Gordon as predictable hero, wayward but moral Irey as love interest. Then there's loose but likeable Jean, rich, dim-witted a-hole Miles Manning, owner of the Blue Ocean Holiday Camp, reeking, vandalising pretty well a rapist hippy Pete, and of course the Thompsons. Unhappily married, not as well off as they pretend to be and lying to their friends about their holiday, with mentally handicapped son Benjie, drawn in unedifying and not especially politically correct, but not unsympathetic fashion. As far as the action goes, it's reasonably well mounted throughout. What might have been a great scene of the crabs in disguise is slightly flubbed and the ending is pretty weak, almost comically in fact, but more importantly, the actual gore builds attack by attack to a standout mean spirited and graphic, would be plain obnoxious outside of Smith on form scene of two unlovely horny teens in a field who can't see around them until it's far too late.
I could have done with a bit more eccentricity, things are a bit rote here, and I definitely could have done with more description of the crabs themselves, there isn't quite enough feel for them on the page, as if we're just expected to know already. More countryside scenes as well, as Smith is good at them, and a gorier, if not necessarily actually better ending. But still, I had a pretty fine time with this and I expect anyone else tempted would too. Recommended.
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Post by Knygathin on Dec 6, 2019 17:52:44 GMT
Is this good literature, like Charles Birkin? (Some say seemingly ashamed that they read Birkin only to be shocked, but that it's garbage literature. I don't agree. He is an excellent writer. A fine thinker.)
If I were to read only one book by Guy N. Smith, what would you recommend? Something typical and representative. Which is his best crab monster book? How does The Festering compare? (I cast a horrified glance at it, and then shrugged. But I am willing to crawl back and be overwhelmed and have my mind blasted.)
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