|
Post by blackmonk on Nov 15, 2010 18:44:19 GMT
Atrocity Week Andrew McCoy Sphere 1978The blurb on the back: WOULD YOU DARE TO TAKE THE ULTIMATE TEST?
Imagine you’re wealthy enough to do just about any damn thing you want. Imagine you’ve bought all the kicks you can think of. EXCEPT MAYBE ONE. The ultimate thrill. The thrill of hunting down and killing the biggest, most dangerous game of all: MAN.
Imagine that somewhere – probably in Africa where life is lived at the outer limits of survival – there are two men (both ex-mercenaries) who are happy to arrange this kind of slaughter-safari for you. For a hefty price, naturally.
Imagine all this – and you’ve barely imagined the start-point of probably the most savagely, bloodily violent story ever written. ATROCITY WEEK a reading experience you will never forget. Never…The blurb inside: "Atrocity Week is without doubt a towering landmark in the literature of violence. For too long, writers have either balked at the task of describing in legitimately graphic terms the effects of bullets striking living targets - or they have been restrained from doing so by publishers and critics hung up on dangerously irrelevant and reactionary notions of 'taste'.
Andrew McCoy refused to be dissuaded from his aim to portray as vividly as is possible on the printed page the horrendous reality of high-muzzle-velocity violence - a reality that, like it or not, forms a part of the experience of millions of people in the twentieth century world. The result is Atrocity Week. A compellingly readable story of crazed violence, lust and greed set in the pulsating groin of southern Africa, it is probably the most unforgettably savage story you will encounter in a lifetime of reading."Chris Decker and Curtis Bill Bonham run a successful, though very illegal, business called Ultimate Test Inc. They operate from a base camp somewhere in the African veldt. Bonham tells Decker that he is quitting the business at the end of the coming week. Decker is unhappy with the news and tries unsuccessfully to persuade his partner to reconsider. At loggerheads they collect their latest three clients, an American Doctor, an English business man and a wealthy Japanese. All have brought their wives and hunting rifles along. Over the course of the week each man will be given the opportunity to hunt human prey from a helicopter with a high powered rifle. But things start to fall apart from day one – and there’s a whole week ahead of them! To make matters worse, a gang of ruthless terrorists are making their way to the camp intent on causing their own newsworthy atrocity. I bought this when it first appeared on the shelves in the late 70s (how could anyone resist that blatant warning?) and was pretty shocked by it at the time. I reread it again recently after having a hell of a time tracking it down. I recalled the plot but had completely forgotten the title and author. After decades of immersing in horror novels both good and bad, hard-core and frail, it still remains an effective, brutal and violent work wallowing in blood and guts, animal and human torture, gang rape, mutilation, castration, decapitation... basically a Sordid Sphere essential!
|
|
|
Post by blackmonk on Nov 14, 2010 15:39:21 GMT
bit of a useless title, isn't it? It is rather crappy. The original title isn't much better, either - Harry Doing Good published in 1973. Middle-aged Harry forms a group of youngsters and takes them to Snowdonia to treasure hunt with a metal detector. They come into contact with three sheep rustlers (Egan, Lumpy and Genius) who are armed with a rifle. The rustlers imprison the group in a crumbling moorland cottage and force them to help take the sheep carcasses off the mountainside. Lumpy (named due to the numerous growths and moles on his face) takes a fancy to two of the girls and rapes them. A follow-on set-to results in one of the group being killed. Harry and his underlings then plot their escape and brutal revenge. Despite finding the characters really irritating I persevered to the end. Most all the characters had a physical of psychological defect, a withered arm; facial birthmark; epilepsy etc. Even the hitchiker they pick up has one leg shorter than the other! Lots of tea is drunk and corned beef sandwiches eaten. The youngsters parents all seen to watch and discuss Coronation Street. Aware of the peril they are in Harry makes statements like, "If they could kill all those people in the middle of the Olympic Games that time, then I should have thought on that there'd be risks in coming to a place like this." - a reference to the Munich Olympics massacre of 1972 that implies the Welsh countryside to be as dangerous as the Arab/Israeli conflict! I was expecting a potential supernatural element with the blurb mentioning a Roman legion that went missing on the plateau but there was none. Harry's balls save the day, so to speak!
|
|
|
Post by blackmonk on Nov 14, 2010 14:23:07 GMT
hey, blackmonk, good to hear from you again! thanks, demonik. I've never been far away. Just never got round to re-registering until now.
|
|
|
Post by blackmonk on Nov 14, 2010 14:19:18 GMT
This was my second Hyde novel. The first being The Devil's Kiss and I pretty much agree with your comments, vaughan. The opening is a shocker, for sure, but then I found some set pieces a bit too derivative of The Exorcist (the chauffeur's rotating head, verbal abuse and projectile vomiting in the Pope's face) and The Omen (statue toppling from the upper part of a church to kill a person below). Hyde even name-checks The Exorcist by having it showing as a very unlikely choice of in-flight movie! Having said that it is a rip-roaring, good-fun read filled with excrement flinging cacodemons with a penchant for raping victims whatever the gender - and that, I suppose, is all that's important!
|
|
|
Post by blackmonk on Nov 14, 2010 11:14:42 GMT
Spore 7 Clancy Carlile Sphere 1980No one knew where the spores came from. Or what had activated them, But they carried the most horrific, virulent disease ever to threaten the world: Spore 7. It started in a sleepy town. A peaceful law-abiding citizen suddenly became a raging maniac, attacking everyone in his path. Within hours he’d become a savage, slime-secreting mutant of ferocious strength… and monstrous appetites. And by the time a medical team realised the spore infection was highly contagious – and incurable – the deadly fungoid had spread faster than wildfire.It starts with a minor road accident when a driver collides with what he though was a naked man scuttling across a darkened road – a dented bumper and slimy residue the only evidence that he hit anything. Shortly after reporting the accident to the sheriff the driver has transformed in to an eye-bulging, slime-secreting, deranged maniac. He is one of the first to be contaminated by the spore. The origin of the spore is unknown but after investigation there seems to be three favoured possible sources: a Russian biological attack, an accidental release from an American experimental weapons base, or a contaminant from a meteor. The town priest, however, believes it to be of demonic origin, exuded from the pits of hell, because the infected show all the signs of being possessed – something which he shockingly demonstrates during a sermon! The town becomes quarantined, extermination camps are set up for the infected, doctors and scientists work frantically on a cure, naked mutants prowl the town and the government and military proceed toward the only foreseeable means of preventing further spread. What a cracking read this was! Thoroughly engrossing, scary and gripping. The characters and dialogue are realistic and the plot very plausible. The science, too, is quite fascinating and the doctors try to understand the frightening fungoid based metamorphic disease that threatens them all. Seems to be the only horror Carlile wrote.
|
|