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Post by franklinmarsh on Oct 22, 2007 11:47:56 GMT
Scorpion - Michael R Linaker. NEL June 1980. ' A high shrill cry of terror ripped from her taut throat. Thousands of black scuttling insects curving tails arched over their backs and pincered arms splayed out... They surged towards her, sensing her warmth, the promise of food. In moments her body was covered by flowing blanket of hungry scorpions...' Les Mason has just been stung by something. A bee? A wasp? He's waiting outside Long Point Nuclear Plant in Kent. He's a journo and there's about to be a demonstration led by Christine Lane. This pair get along quite well as Les is anti-nuclear and the protestors make for a good story. Chris notices he looks pretty ill, and drives him home in his own Triumph Spitfire. She returns to the plant to find there's been a good old knuckle-up in her absence. Her bloodied second in command, hot tempered beardie Jack Webster tips her the wink that scheming pervo head of security Vic Condon (who'd like nothing better than to drool all over Chris) had planted an agitator in the peaceful demo - giving him an excuse to send in the gorillas to dish out a few whacks to the peaceniks. The Old Bill and ambulances arrive. Chris gets a talking to from good at heart Inspector Duncan, and she leaves to check on Les whilst Condon cackles in the background. Mason's not at the flat - neighbour Jenny Mills had to dial 999 when Les's agonised screaming wouldn't stop. She saw his swollen arm, skin black,fingers like big sausages - and as he was stretchered out, the blackness was spreading across his face! Mason is rushed to Greenbank Hospital and the care of kindly Dr Renshaw - who's baffled. Fortunately a Tropical Disease Research Unit is attached to the healing centre, overseen by Dr Camperly, a glory seeking despot who makes life miserable for his underlings - Allan Brady, capri-driving young hero, and red-haired comedy Scotsman Fergus McFee. Allan's analysis of blood and saliva from Les Mason shows that the venom in him is far more virulent that anything a bee or wasp could conjure up - it's worse than an adders. Meanwhile, Maurice Jenkins has shut up his small newsagents in the Mile End Road and is enjoying a leisurely camping holiday on the Kent coast with his black and white terrier-cum-collie Rex. As Maurice enjoys a leather bound copy of David Copperfield from the comfort and warmth of his sleeping bag he's surprised to hear Rex growling. That's a bit out of character for the pooch. When Rex gets in the tent, the saliva pouring from his mouth, the swollen, puffy, discoloured flesh around his eye and the dark objects within his tangled fur set alarm bells ringing. Before Maurice can aid Rex, the hound tears out his throat. Two days later, Les shuffles off this mortal coil - in great agony. Camperley's cheesed off - nothing beats his department. Chris is in tears, but is consoled when Allan gives her a lift home. Holidaying family the Lippmans suffer a mysterious death - and nude sunbathing model Fran Collingwood 'bronzed body glistening with oil' is stung. Fran manages to get into her expensive sports car and makes a desperate attempt to drive to an hospital. The pain proves too much and she crashes at 121 mph. Allan manages to determine that the dead Lippman and Fran have been stung - and gets a lunch date with Chris Lane. Chris is determined to finish Les Mason's last article as a tribute to him. He's discovered a few things about the nuclear plant. So ends section one - Encounters. Things hot up in Engagement. Chris interviews one of Les's contacts who has knowledge of a leak from the plant. A young courting couple get stung and nipped while enjoying love al fresco. A self-employed garageman is attacked by poor old Rex - an oxy-acetalane torch and petrol make for a terrific explosion. Allan is at the hospital with Doc Renshaw when some workmen, one of whom has been stung, identify the culprit as - a scorpion. And so we're off on another animal rampage classic. Scorpion is very small scale - the action confined to Long Point and its environs - and a bit by the numbers - young couple,tramp etc but still a very enjoyable read, and at 158 pages doesn't outstay its welcome. A superb welter of gore set piece in a supermarket made my day.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Oct 22, 2007 11:53:15 GMT
Excuse the cheek, Steve - but here's one the good Mr Goodwin prepared earlier...
Go on, let's have a go at a bit of a review then...
SCORPION
Michael R. Linaker
New English Library, 1980
"A SEETHING SWARM OF FLESH-SEARING CLAWS AND DEATH-DEALING VENOM SEEKING OUT HUMAN PREY..."
Between the mid 1970s and the early 1980s, the worm definitely turned. And not just the worm. At some point pretty much anything that walked, crawled, slithered or scuttled across the surface of the earth - or swam in the wet bits (if they were amphibious, even better) - suddenly got it into its rodent/reptilian/crustacean/insectoid brain to challenge our previously uncontested dominion over the planet and set about biting, stinging, clawing, gnawing, or otherwise kicking Mankind's collective arse.
They were all at it, weren't they? The crabs, rats, bats, cats (feral and domestic), dogs, frogs (CROAK, Hamlyn, 1981), the pigs, even the rabbits had a go. The snakes, crocodiles, alligators, lampreys, pike, jellyfish, locusts, maggots, slugs, worms, spiders, cockroaches, devil's coach horses, blowflies, woodlice, preying mantises, and apparently one sickeningly terrifying tale about killer deer(?). It didn't even matter that (apart from the really mutated ones) we were bigger than them. They had us outnumbered. In the case of the spiders - as Hamlyn Horror stalwart Richard Lewis points out in the introduction to his SPIDERS - by about 70,000 to 1.
I first heard about Mike Linaker's entries into this 'animal nasty' genre in an article from an old copy of the George G. Gilman fanzine; STEELE EDGE. I'd been on the look-out for his particular titles for a while, so it was with considerable excitement that I recently happened across a copy of SCORPION, written for NEL at the height of all the creepy-crawly commotion.
It might seem tempting to write off SCORPION as merely a scaled-down version of Guy Smith's NIGHT OF THE CRABS, but in fact it has quite a bit more going for it than that.
SCORPION is divided into three sections - 'Encounters', 'Engagement' and 'Invasion'.
The book opens with local reporter Les Mason getting stung by... something... while searching for his lighter in long grass near the Long Point nuclear plant. His girlfriend, Christine Lane, a commited environmental activist who's just about to lead a protest outside the plant, becomes more than a little concerned when Les comes over all funny, begins sweating profusely and has to have a bit of a sit down.
Obviously we know what's really eating Les Mason, or at least eating into him - after all we've seen the cover (apart from the title page, the word 'scorpion' doesn't actually appear in the book until page 71) - but we're quite happy to go along with the other characters as realisation slowly spreads and panic sets in, rather like the particularly toxic venom which is steadily but surely progressing through Les's body causing parts of him to swell up and turn black.
For the first few chapters Mike chooses to take a different route from the way these things often tended to go (see THE RATS et al) - namely: each chapter would introduce a character, his or her life story (usually involving some sort of guilty secret such as alcoholism, homosexuality, nymphomania - or even all three) would be gone into at some length, only for the poor unfortunate to end up being eaten alive and left a barely recognisable oozing bloody stump half a dozen pages later.
Instead, Mike takes some time to first develop the story and create a credible sense of tension.
Needs must though, so when we meet Maurice Jenkins lying on the grass drinking tea on page 28, we're not altogether surprised by what sort of state he ends up in by page 32. Maurice has no murky past however - at least none that we're made aware of - he's a 43 year old newsagent from London who enjoys reading the classics and taking camping holidays with his dog, Rex. And even if Maurice's fate is sealed at the beginning of the chapter, the precise nature of his demise may not be exactly what you were expecting. There are also some very nice little touches of detail which you wouldn't necessarily expect to find in a sub-genre not generally known for its subtlety.
A couple more of these 'encounters' follow, in which we learn first how Morris Minor owner, Jack Lippman and his formidable wife, Hilda; and later, "attractive, blonde, ...long-limbed" calendar model, Fran - nipples strategically protected by cotton wool pads - fair against the relentless swarming tide of you-know-what.
Unlike many of its contemporaries, SCORPION doesn't rely merely on relentless scenes of stomach-churning 'splatter movie'-type gore (although, as you'd expect, a certain amount of splattering does come into it).
The characters, particulalrly those inhabiting the background of the story, are - necessarily in a book of this length and type - drawn with fairly broad strokes, but always have sufficient depth to be engaging and believable for as long as they're serving the plot. Mike also has a very neat way of quickly and concisely establishing tensions between characters - such as those between the irrepressible heroine, Chris, and Condon, the willfully unpleasant head of security at the nuclear plant; or between Dr. Allan Brady, the long-suffering research assistant and Camperley, his arrogant and ineffectual boss at the Tropical Diseases Unit attached to the local hospital.
The story moves along at a well-measured pace. Never feeling unduly rushed but always managing to keep you turning pages.
NEL were pleased enough with SCORPION to commision Mike to write two more titles; THE TOUCH OF HELL, 1981 and a follow-up to the first book, SCORPION: SECOND GENERATION, 1982, which, as he wrote at the time, he was anxious not to call RETURN OF... or SON OF SCORPION (or even, presumably, SCORPIONS ON THE RAMPAGE).
"A high shrill cry of terror ripped from her taut throat.
Thousands of black scuttling insects curving tails arched over their backs and pincered arms splayed out...
They surged towards her, sensing her warmth, the promise of food.
In moments her body was covered by a flowing blanket of hungry scorpions..."
You'll never put your shoes on without looking inside them first again
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Post by dem bones on Nov 4, 2007 14:28:33 GMT
NEL were pleased enough with SCORPION to commision Mike to write two more titles; THE TOUCH OF HELL, 1981 and a follow-up to the first book, SCORPION: SECOND GENERATION, 1982, which, as he wrote at the time, he was anxious not to call RETURN OF... or SON OF SCORPION (or even, presumably, SCORPIONS ON THE RAMPAGE). The epilogue suggests he intended a third book wherein the scorp corps get fed up with our inclement weather and emigrate to the States. I read Second Generation first but it doesn't seem to make any difference whatsoever. They're pretty much the same novel anyway, it's just that the scorpions are bigger and more spectacularly mutated in book II. As mentioned, it takes a while for the scorpions to move stage centre but once Les Mason has lost his fight for life and Linaker unleashes the stingers, the story fairly belts along and, as much of it - particularly Part 3: Invasion - is told in a series of ugly vignettes, if you don't enjoy one horrible death not to worry, there'll be another one along immediately after.
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Post by rogboy666 on May 23, 2014 15:24:17 GMT
Just finished reading this a few days ago, and I rather enjoyed it. The book moved onto the gore fairly quickly, and there were some well set-up Scorpion attacks...through the explanation of how they landed up in Kent was rather vague...anyway all in all worth a look for those who haven’t read it. I'll see if I can track down Mr Linaker's 2nd Scorpion book now.
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Post by kooshmeister on Dec 31, 2016 18:03:26 GMT
I may need to give these a look. I'm into scorpions lately, and even considering getting one as a pet.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Dec 31, 2016 20:53:16 GMT
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Post by kooshmeister on Jan 16, 2017 23:03:14 GMT
Scorpion: My pearl! Nyeh!
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Post by kooshmeister on Feb 20, 2017 7:03:56 GMT
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