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Post by dem bones on Nov 16, 2011 20:35:10 GMT
John Russo - Inhuman (Grafton, 1987)  Les EdwardsBlurb At a secluded marriage counselling retreat six couples tried to untangle what had gone wrong with their relationships.
But they were about to be confronted with problems more deadly than who squeezed the toothpaste tube at the wrong end.
Overhead a gang of terrorists on a hijacked plane to Cuba were suffering agonising brain-death due to a de-pressurised cabin.
They escaped with their lives–and the killer instincts of tree-pythons.
With dead snake-eyes and zombie single-mindedness they would stalk their prey, driven by an ancient, bestial need to revel in the spilling of hot human blood.
They wanted to squeeze something soft and warm until it split open – they were INHUMANIf the superlative blurb is to be taken the least seriously, a zombie-when-reptiles-attack crossover, but can the Night Of The Living Dead/ Return Of The Living Dead X2 man deliver? i'm sure it's going to be fun finding out. Carson Valley, Virginia, home to a small and impoverished farming community and the wealthy psychiatric husband and wife team, Drs. Charles and Anita Walsh, who own the luxurious Carson Manor. Among their most challenging patients, the local matriarch, Mary Monahan, 74, widow of the local Pastor who the deeply religious locals hold in awe on account of her astonishing powers of precognition. Loopy she may be, but when Mrs. Monaham tells you so-and-so is going to happen, then so-and-so is going to happen, of that you can be sure. Her latest mantra. "Snakes are a-comin' ... great big snakes are a-comin' to kill us." Snakes are big in Carson Valley. The faithful keep a basketful of deadly vipers in the church and come Sunday, believers grab hold a bunch in each hand to show they ain't afeared of God's judgement, and this despite the loss of Pastor Monahan who died frothing and raving at the altar when the vipers got vexed at all this interference. Mrs. Monahan is in the care of her daughter, Sarah Stone, an embittered, middle-aged battleaxe who, according to downtrodden husband George, on the very rare occasions he stands up to her, just loves to play the martyr. Her refusal of any help in tending her ma is making the lives of he and daughter Jamie a misery. She retorts that those fancy Walsh's are filling his head with Heathen wickedness but it is he, and not his wife, who regularly plunges his hands deep inside the serpents' basket during chapel. Jamie, fast closing in on her thirteenth birthday, is the brightest kid in school and tends to the horses at Carson Manor. She fantasises about being adopted by the Walsh's. She sure doesn't want to live out her life in this dump. Anita Walsh realises that Sarah Stone regards she and her husband as the spawn of Satan and half-jokes to him that someday the locals will arrive brandishing pitchforks and burn them both at the stake, but the Walsh's have more lucrative matters to attend just now. Tomorrow sees the arrival of six couples in desperate need of their marriage counselling service. Still no word on the plane hijackers but i guess they're keeping busy. Charles has just switched on the TV so there might be something on the news. To be continued
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Post by noose on Nov 16, 2011 20:53:06 GMT
I love this book, love it, love it.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 17, 2011 19:39:18 GMT
it hasn't really kicked off yet (p. 65 of 223), but the signs are looking promising.
Sure enough, Dr. Walsh turns on his TV to learn The Green Brigade have stormed the Manhattan National Bank and taken several hostages. Colonel Mao (born Denise Shaeffer) is demanding the release of twenty-five of The Green Brigade's best murderers including their leader, General Kintay, currently serving life in Attica, or the hostages will be executed at the rate of one every 30 minutes. To prove she means business, Mao shoots one of her prisoners with a crossbow bolt hollowed out to contain rattlesnake venom. He dies in excruciating agony on live TV. Jim Spencer, Commander of the FBI SWAT team has no option but to agree to her terms. Kintay and friends are delivered unmolested to the bank and a plane is provided for the terrorists' flight to Cuba.
Dr. Walsh decides it would be best his wife knows nothing of this terrible breaking story, 'specially as the plane will be flying directly over Carson Valley. Clearly Mrs. Monahan's outbursts have got to him more than he'd care to admit. Meanwhile young Jamie has been given the unenviable task of feeding her bedridden grandma who, between mouthfuls of lentil soup, prophesies that it is already TOO LATE and urges the youngster to run the hell away before the big snakes arrive!
The guests arrive for their four day marriage counselling break ....
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Post by dem bones on Nov 22, 2011 12:13:42 GMT
So where were we?
What with all the terrorists and the couples seeking marriage guidance, Russo introduces so many characters it's hard to keep track so, provided nobody minds, will just mention when one of them dies horribly? General Kuntay and his squeeze Colonel Mao are dead amusing, a kind of sadistic rapist-murderer offshoot of Greenpeace, much given to clench fist salutes and cries of "power to the people!" even as they are executing them. Their demands met, the Green Brigade and surviving hostages are now en route to Cuba and a meeting with 'Brother Fidel'. Unknown to them, their pilots, FBI agents Larry Warner and Dave Rice, have hit upon a foolproof plan to overpower the gang. All they need do is get up high above the clouds, decompress the oxygen supply and slip on their protective masks (everybody else's has been sabotaged). The need to get on with it is emphasised when General Kuntay, having exhausted his pent up prison frustrations on obscenely wealthy heiress Elizabeth Stoddard, blasts her brains all over the cockpit as a warning against any funny business. Unfortunately, one hostage gets it into his head to pull a knife on Kuntay and, in the ensuing kerfuffle, the plane has a hole blown clean through it and a wing spontaneously combusts! The Boeing is flying directly above Charlottesville, Virginia at the time ....
Back on the ground, Rose and Vernon don't even make it as far as Carson Manor before their marriage is over, courtesy of a corpse-like fellow lying bloodied in the road who hijacks their car and drives them all over a cliff, decapitating himself in the process.
Dave already awarded Blight an honorary Hamlyn charter of merit. Much more of this hot stuff, and i think Inhuman will be in with a shout for a second.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 24, 2011 19:58:53 GMT
We're in familiar Night Of The Living Dead/ Straw Dogs-with-morons territory now, as General Kuntay's remaining terrorists and their likewise brain damaged ex-hostages lay siege to Carson Manor. As with the entire population of Shrewsbury in Guy N. Smith's Throwback, those who survived the plane crash have developed "reptile complex" due to lack of oxygen. The Green Brigade haven't quite lost their mojo - they're still at war with 'fascist pigs!'/ other people, always happy to ensure that anybody stupid enough to stand in their way "burns in the flames of freedom!" It's just that now their former hostages have developed vacant yellow eyes and share the same lust for violence.
Wannabe Saint Sarah Stone is among the first to die when she decides to play Good Samaritan to a hideously-injured man with a distinctive Cobra tattoo on his arm. He guts her guard dog and throttles her before plucky daughter Jamie - she really is an irritating so-and-so: i was rooting for her not to survive from the moment Russo introduced her - can stick a pitchfork in his face. I'm pretty sure Mad Granny Monahan also bought the farm in the same skirmish, but by then the death's are coming so thick and fast it's almost impossible to keep track. Meanwhile at Carson Manor, Dr. Walsh and his patient Mark Pearson (ex-army, but has never seen any action) have the raving General Kuntay bound and gagged, and are of a mind to hold tight till morning when help is sure to arrive. They clearly put too much faith in the FBI who are determined to cover up their bodged handling of the hostage crisis and sod the collateral damage! Headed by snivelling reformed alcoholic Sanford Berman, those other patients who've not been raped and killed by the pseudo-Commie Zombies, try to make a break for it, only to run straight into Colonel Mao and her maniac machine gun crew. The Walshes' one remaining hope is to sneak up on a wandering maniac or two and steal their weapons. They get their chance when undead hippies Mickey Holtz and Janet Fagen down grenades and creep behind a barn for a bad sex session ....
Short of spoiling the REALLY RUBBISH ending, there's nothing much else i can think of to say about Inhuman. It's certainly a lot of fun, and those of a Hamlyn disposition will likely appreciate it, but i can't help feeling slightly cheated. For all the carnage, it's nowhere near as nasty as it really should be.
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