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Post by erebus on Mar 14, 2010 15:48:11 GMT
Great book this.
It begins many centuries ago with a young tatty maiden waiting for her woodsman lover who has ventured out from the village and left her alone for weeks. When he stumbles back over the horizon he is stricken with horrid bursting and pus spewing boils and lesions.
The locals throw the ever festering freak in a barn and have the local witchfinder hang him. But to prevent the so called "evil" spreading they bury him deep deep in the earth.
Flash foward to present times and young couple Mike and Holly Mannion buy an old ricketty cottage so Mike can get on with his artist work. Alas there is no running water so they reluctantly hire some contractors to make a deep borehole for a well to get some clear water flowing. Guess what they dig up ?
You can of course guess the rest. And the victims of this sloppy disease do garner an abnormal heightened sexual response, it wouldnt by a Smith novel without it.
The victims are described in fabulous oozey detail and it will have you chuckling at some of the boil spewing depravity he treats us to.
Lots of fun and a great quick weekend read.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 15, 2010 18:14:10 GMT
must admit, i like the sound of this, and is The Festering a proper horror title or what? it's already done half the work for you before you're opened the book. enjoyed your review, erebus! |
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Post by ripper on Mar 16, 2010 7:44:58 GMT
I haven't read anything by GNS for quite a while, but I like the sound of this one and it has given me a yearning for something pulpy as only GNS can supply.
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Post by erebus on Mar 16, 2010 13:12:35 GMT
Its funny and of course in typical Smith fashion how the victims of the Festering develop their first boils and cyst's around their navel and lower abdomen. Perfect for bursting pus spewing mayhem when the males attack the women. As one poor doctors receptionist/nurse finds out.
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Post by kooshmeister on Oct 11, 2013 2:58:26 GMT
Reading an eBook of this. So far it's quite good. I just wish Smith had dated the prologue so I knew when it was set.
Some random observations:
1. I love how quick to anger and suspicion the townsfolk are regarding Tabor's whereabouts. He's is gone for longer than expected and suddenly everyone just knows he's cheating on Rachel and boinking every single London skank he encounters. What a friendly, trusting bunch the people of Garth are.
2. Assuming their suspicions are true, is that the origin of the Festering? Did Tabor just have sex with so many different gutter skanks that he caught every single STD known to man?
3. Holly annoys me. I'm curious if she is meant to. Her objections to things are almost always baseless and she seems to exist solely to drive Mike nuts with her fears. I also find it depressingly amusing that despite wanting to "get back to nature" in the country, she has no idea how to, and is helpless without the kinds of creature comforts she'd come to expect from life in the city.
4. I see anger, distrust and leaping to conclusions are still the modus operandi of the people living in Garth, considering that when Tommy catches the Festering, he immediately assumes firstly that it's an STD, and secondly that his girlfriend Penny gave it to him.
5. The sex scene between Penny and the infected Tommy is supposed to be horrifying, but instead I found it hilarious, especially since it's the only time I've ever read about someone (Penny) suffocating from being kissed because their lover's lips are too big and swollen. It rivals Chris' death in Slimer for "most unintentionally funny 'death-by-sex' scene.'"
6. The Festering sure went to work a lot faster on Tommy than it did on Tabor hundreds of years ago. Then again, we don't know how long poor Tabor was wandering around the woods like that.
7. Doesn't the guy on the cover (Tabor?) look like Randall "Tex" Cobb with a scorching case of acne...?
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