The Ancient Enemy by Donald Thompson

[erebus]

Donald Thompson - The Ancient Enemy (Coronet 1980: Fawcell, 1979)

A tale of chilling cataclysmic horror-an invasion of terror that destroys every living thing in its path. Apparently.

Grabbed this one yesterday on a forage, Apologies if we have a thread elsewhere. Looks like a roach novel to me. Of course its not gonna touch Night Killers, but I love a good killer bug novel so I just had to. Published by Coronet in 1980 its 220 pages and the back cover blurb goes something like this.

One Summer in the mountains of Nevada, a young doctor savours the first hours of a quiet fishing holiday. By Nightfall,he is screaming to be delivered from a horror he will carry to his grave.
One the plains it is carnival time. But up by Eros Ranch even the trees hang still. Already there are twenty-nine dead-their bodies grotesquely mangled, raw flesh oozing, their faces twisted with terror.
Beneath the dry earth of the hidden valley, the ancient enemy is multiplying. Within hours it will pour out again in a boiling black wave-in search of blood.
Six survours have until dark before the seething nest engulfs them.

I think that's it, can't tell because some proper pillock has stuck a gold sticker over the bottom of the back cover. But flesh ripping and oozing mangled flesh, that's proper up my street. Anybody know anything of this book ? A read and review ( if wanted ) is on the agenda.

[dem bones]

Don't have a copy myself, mr. E., but here's Justin's verdict from the indispensable Bugged! Dawn Of The Nasty feature in the Winter 2007 ish of Paperback Fanatic

"The Ancient Enemy ... weighs in with tidal waves of cockroaches to fill their victim's lungs, but author Donald Thompson only uses them as a sub-plot to get himself out of jail when his cops versus bikers story runs out of steam."

Have scanned in the Coronet cover; Fawcett published a US edition the previous year.

Thank you. A review would be much appreciated!

[erebus]

Thank You for placing a pic to the post. Well, inspired by this cold spell we are having my next trashy targets were to be the Sasquatch sandwich of SNOWMAN by Norman Bogner. And THE SPIRIT ( one yourself urged me to pick up ) by Thomas Page. But I'll take one from the team and come what weekend I'll tackle The Ancient Enemy.

[erebus]

Well, the grisly weather has forced most of us to stay indoors this weekend. So I thought I would pick this up in the evening and tackle a couple of chapters. I nearly cleared it, in fact I missed Match of the Day. NO its not that good to have missed the footy, I was sulking at the results so I recorded it, but onto the book.

We Start with Dr Roberto Costaign, who is driving up the hills getting away from it all for a spot of fishing. He almost runs a straggling messed up woman who is all over the place in the middle of the road, shes messed up and in a proper state, flesh ripped and scraped. He takes her to the local Sheriff believing her to be the victim of a rape or assault. The Sheriff, a proper big hulk named Anton Whitney believes the Doc is the culprit, a verbal spat clears that one up. He then summises she is probably a whore from the Eros Ranch up in the hills near where the incident took place. So off the duo go.
One arrival they are met with a scene of carnage, or as the book calls it...The grounds were a butcher shop. If the Angel of death had lifted his fist, the judgement would not have been more brutal... Bodies are everywhere, twenty nine in fact, all virtually skinned and with looks of contorted agony on their faces, numerous animals and bugs also litter the place. They believe it may be a contagion, so Sheriff pops back to town whilst the Doc holds the fort.
In true Jaws fashion the Mayor of the town is outraged, Its the forthcoming annual Fiesta, a great money spinner for the town. He will have none of it and demands the Sheriff keeps his trap shut.
Meanwhile Patricia Symington from the Health Department has turned up at the ranch. She is a bit flippant with the shell shocked Doc, but soon shuts up and mellows when she sees the bodies. She deduces the people have been strangled, not in the conventional way, by cockroaches which have gone into every orifice, throats mouths,ears,eyes,anuses and vulvae. Those are Pats words not mine. The two are then joined by five more young uns. Three girls who work at the ranch and two customers whom have been up in a cabin in the hills doing,,,,ah you know.

After all the explaining is done ( a roadblock prevents the roads as being exits ) one of the tough guys decides to get off in his van into the hills. A barrage of M16 bullets holds them back. It seems our Sheriff has hired a group of Bikers to make sure they don't leave. Maybe Candy with the big arse and knockers can distract them whilst they sod off another way. So out she goes into the night air and begins to disrobe and shake her stuff for the hidden gunmen to drool over. Seems our bugs want a bit of Candy too, as a whole avalanche of them pour down the hillside to engulf her.
Our hostages run into the Docs VW. Just in time as the Bug is engulfed in bugs. The air stale and breathing becoming an issue the squashed up six use a rather unconventional way to escape, with a screwdriver and the petrol tank. Into the walk in fridge they flee till dawn. They just make it.

Meanwhile our ...not so tough Bikers.. have ran to the Sheriff and told him all about the Roaches etc, and the flee into the wilderness , taking the M16s with them. A guilty Sheriff Whitney decides to check the group out at the ranch. Meanwhile, the bikers, who now have decided they are tough again. Have robbed a petrol station workers car and stuffed him in a cupboard. They are going back to sort the Sheriff out you see. Armed with the weapons and, I presume, loads of robbed fags and booze they head back. I think this is where the above mentioned siege comes in.

And thats where I'm up to. I'll finish this today no doubt. Ok so far its not one of our insect attack novels littered with gory set pieces like Nightkillers, Slugs, Spiders etc. But for some reason its kept this violence craving blood hound interested. Don't know how the second half will shape up. More to follow.

[erebus]

Cockroaches as a subplot is right, oh how this book suckered me in. The first half was quite good and got my interest up. Boy oh Boy did the second half hit a wall. I knew it wasn't going to be the archetypal rampaging bug fest, but this really was poor. No orifices are violated at all for that matter. It just became a tedious lets wait it out in a dull setting story. The dialogue is boring, there's no sex, heck there's not even a swear word for that matter. I seriously would have had more of a good time painting the skirting board under my stairs then read this. I fact I wish I did.
The ending is sudden, after a poor mans Night of the Living dead the folks escape, here the writer remembers hes writing about bugs and throws them in for one final attack. That's two attacks in total throughout the novel. We get no explanation why they are hoarding as they are. Nor do we get a reasonable outcome. Are they all dead or not ? The potential victims were all there. There are seven or so bikers up in the hill holding them down. But only one dies via bugs, and thats only falling down a bloody hole. Then bugger all is mentioned, at least have a description of them pouring down his throat etc. The other bikers sod off or get shot.

As I type this Richard Lewis's Devils Coach Horse is looking down at me mockingly saying..see you should have re read me. Think I will. But first, wheres that paintbrush ?

[dem bones]

Oh, essentially another The Fire Ants then. How annoying. I'm sure you will have a much better time with Devils Coach Horse which finds Mr. 'Lewis' at the peak of his powers or thereabouts. I actually prefer it to Spiders.

[erebus]

I liked Devils Coach Horse, but Ive always been a Web man myself.

I certainly will be keeping my distance from Fire Ants then if it turns up thats for sure. Ancient Enemy is rather like James Montague's WORMS. Books that promise bugs and stuff, but stitch you up by giving you a plot thats basically totally devoid of them. I recall in Worms they only turn up in the last couple of pages, that being said its vastly superior to this codswallop. Its like when you rented Hellraiser 5, and Pinhead only turned up in the film for a couple of minutes or so.

[dem bones]

Feb 4, 2014 11:57:23 GMT erebus said:

I liked Devils Coach Horse, but Ive always been a Web man myself.

I certainly will be keeping my distance from Fire Ants then if it turns up thats for sure. Ancient Enemy is rather like James Montague's WORMS. Books that promise bugs and stuff, but stitch you up by giving you a plot thats basically totally devoid of them. I recall in Worms they only turn up in the last couple of pages, that being said its vastly superior to this codswallop. Its like when you rented Hellraiser 5, and Pinhead only turned up in the film for a couple of minutes or so.

For me, Worms is a marvellous horror novel in its own right, the lack of killer inveterate madness doesn't bother me in the slightest. Don't let me put you off The Fire-Ants, because it's likely i'm being too harsh. In this case, the book would possibly benefit from more insect versus human attacks, but i've read worse, far worse.

Richard Lewis. The Web is such a massive improvement on Spiders. I'd put that in my top three with Night-Killers and Devil's Coach Horse but they are all dead good.

- the dem who never saw a Hellraiser flick in his life.