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Post by killercrab on Jun 7, 2008 0:55:46 GMT
 THE MORGOW RISES ! by Peter Tremayne - Sphere , 1982. 'Myth ... or living nightmare?' The idyllic Cornish village of Bosbradoe is suitably populated by eccentrics - none more so than 72 year old retired mining expert Henry Archibold Penrose , known as *Happy* to the locals. Owning a crumbling old mansion Tybronbucca ( meaning House on Goblin Hill) - Happy likes nothing better than to pack a thermos , sandwiches and explore the disused Tom Wheal tin mine he owns in the hopes of finding a new vein of Malachite that will re-energise the town's economy. However the dank undersea caverns hold something far more deadly than tin , as Happy finds out to his peril... Meanwhile his visiting neice Claire breaks down on a lonely stretch of the Bodmin moor ( in the best Hammer Horrible tradition). Local fortune teller and witch , cackling Mother Polruan accosts her - fortelling of her *doom* in no uncertain terms - echoes of a village CURSED reverberating across the desolute moors ! Claire is *rescued* by William Neville - thriller writer , car expert and all round ladies man and together their twin fates spiral intextricably towards the slavering jaws of the Morgow !!... Peter Tremayne's knowledge of Cornish lore embues the story with a delicious superstitous aura - is the Morgow a monster of myth or something of a more recent vintage?! The local pub The Morvren Arms is no doub't a derivation of Morveran - the name of the mermaid from Cornish folklore and certainly befits the drinking hole of the local fisherfolk like old Billy Scalwen and Jack Trenaglos - overseen by the moon-faced landlord Noall. The actual legend of the Morgow though seems more a fiction dreamed up by Tremayne - possibly the name inspired by the character of the same name in LORD OF THE RINGS ? - no matter - Tremayne makes you believe that Mother Polruan's fortellings of the mythical beast returning are dangerously real enough. Mix into this potent brew journalistic rivalries and Harrier jump-jets and you've a cracker of a tale! Whilst the book boasts a salaciously saliva-drippingly lurid delineation of red head siren Sheila Fahy ( of the too full breasts she opines!) , getting scoffed alive by the slithering Morgow - Tremayne opts to concentrate more on building suspense initially , rather than outright explicit sex and gore - but let's fly as the reader rounds on the final bend of the book. The story is exuberantly kinetic and easy on the eye - a couple of hours should suffice the average reader. Tremayne's real strentgh lies in his ability to forge folklore and reality convincingly without the story getting bogged down in too much detail - highly recommended! KC |
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Post by jkdunham on Jun 7, 2008 19:35:09 GMT
Nice review, Ade! I want to read this one now as well. I hope Justin gets round to interviewing PT soon.
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Post by killercrab on Jun 8, 2008 1:43:19 GMT
Best Tremayne I've ever read. If Justin could get Peter to open up about his horror catalogue - I'd be reading like a shot! I've got a couple of Tremayne's Dracula books and KISS OF THE COBRA perched on the disreputable bookshelf.
You remember that ?...
ade
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Post by jkdunham on Jun 8, 2008 16:36:23 GMT
I've got a couple of Tremayne's Dracula books and KISS OF THE COBRA perched on the disreputable bookshelf. You remember that ?... How could I forget the disreputable bookshelf? Every home should have one. I'd have one myself, if I had a home. Tremayne's The Revenge of Dracula is another book I remember buying new c. 1979. Around the same time Werner Herzog's remake of Noseferatu came out, I think, as I recall picking up Paul Monette's tie-in novel about then too. The nearest I ever came to a 'vampire phase'.  Magnum Books, 1979. Cover art by Gary Keane. |
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Post by erebus on Feb 1, 2009 21:03:52 GMT
Got Ants, Zombie and Swamp and thought they were poor. This book do the man justice ?
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Post by erebus on Feb 27, 2010 14:01:48 GMT
Well to answer my own question it is a hell of a lot better than his other books that I have read of him. Although it is quite a nice pleasant kind of horror tale ( the cover is very misguiding) not a great deal happens for a good while. The attacks are quick and not to indepth and sometimes a mere sentence or a few words later and a character is gone.
Its a decent book but I don't think I will ever go back in a few years for another pop at it. Give me Richard Lewis critters and Halkins Bloodworm anyday.
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Post by dem bones on May 15, 2014 6:19:21 GMT
Made a start on this last night, and so far, so gripping. As has been mentioned before, you don't read Peter Tremayne for excessive gore and explicit bad sex, he is far more in the tradition of a Hammer period piece which likely explains why his macabre novels divide opinion so (on here, at least).
"There be bad things happening down Bosbradoe way. Bad things. Do 'ee go back upcountry. Leave this place. It is wrong to chance fate. Bad things be happening. I feel them in the air, sense them in my body.... Don't say you have not be warned, Missy Penvose. i warn 'ee now." - Mother Polruan extends Claire a traditional Cornish welcome.
There's something big and squelchy astir beneath the old mine at Bosbradoe. It is Henry 'Happy' Penvose's 72nd birthday, and, to celebrate, he takes up his pick and once again descends into darkness on his ceaseless quest for tin. Just think of what it would do to the district's ailing economy if only he were to be successful. How fitting that today should be the one when his toil is finally rewarded. "Copper! I've been looking for tin seams and now I've discovered copper!" Wait until he breaks the news to his lovely niece, Claire, who will be arriving from London at any minute. Let's see Noall and the regulars at the Morvren Arms laugh at him now! There's that squelching noise again. Sounds like something massive slithering through the tunnel - and it's heading his way!
Nobody hears Happy's last agonizing scream.
Old Billy Scawen and son Jack are lobster-fishing off the the coast. Something big and horrible breaks the surface and smashes the Ysolt IV to splinters, its two-man crew similar ....
Claire is approaching Bosbradoe when her car breaks down on the moors. Drat! Nobody around for miles, save the local mad crone, Mother Polruan, who dutifully puts the willies up her. But who is that debonair-looking man in his thirties, tall, lean and tanned, approaching in his swanky sports car? It is dashing William Neville, the famous thriller writer, always happy to rescue a damsel in distress! Bill doesn't think Claire is beautiful exactly but still, something about her, might be worth a punt. They arrive at the Morvren Arms to be greeted with news that Billy and Jack Scawen are missing, presumed drowned ...
That's the setting. Will henceforth ease up on the tedious blow-by-blow account. Doesn't look as it will take too long to finish this one!
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Alf
Crab On The Rampage
Swans break arms
Posts: 15
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Post by Alf on Jul 18, 2022 17:29:18 GMT
Just finished this one. All good fun in the 1970''s Dr Who or quatermass pattern
Geat piece of pulp for holiday reading. Not very gory, unlike the risible cover
7/10
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Post by andydecker on Jul 18, 2022 19:19:09 GMT
Just finished this one. All good fun in the 1970''s Dr Who or quatermass pattern Geat piece of pulp for holiday reading. Not very gory, unlike the risible cover 7/10 I never was a big fan of Tremayne's horror novels, always thought his historical work more interesting. But I never became a fan of his series, read only one or two. I was already a devoted fan of "Ellis Peters" or Paul Doherty.
But I am firmly in the camp which thinks the cover is great if a bit misleading.  |
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Alf
Crab On The Rampage
Swans break arms
Posts: 15
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Post by Alf on Jul 20, 2022 6:56:35 GMT
The story explains the worm-monsters as being mutated earthworms . The teeth on the front cover are perhaps not quite what the author intended......
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