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Post by dem on Dec 22, 2008 8:51:42 GMT
Simon Ian Childer - Worm (Grafton, 1987)  Alan Hood
That's when something bit him.
He felt the teeth sink deep into has hand between his thumb and forefinger, slicing through muscles and tendons. He screamed and jerked his hand out of the patient's belly. To his horror he saw what appeared to be the head of a large worm attached too his hand. As he backed away more and more of it emerged ... About sixty pages in and this is proving to be a welcome addition to the 'when slithering invertebrates attack!' library. A mystery woman arrives at the Middlesex Hospital complaining of the dreadful pains in her stomach. She looks like a corpse and, very soon, is one because that's her we just met in the paragraph quoted above. She was Laura Finch, glamorous model, and her sister Olivia believes that her death is the result of negligence on behalf of private surgeon and potential mad scientist Dr. Shayaz. Olivia hires washed up, alcoholic, seedy Soho Private Investigator Ed Causey (on a recommendation!) and his snooping seems to be doing the trick because he's now lying in a hospital bed, having been thrown off a landing by two of Shayaz's henchmen. Meanwhile, more citizens are suffering agonising gut pains and one poor chap has already vomited a three-footer down the toilet!
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Post by carolinec on Dec 22, 2008 12:00:45 GMT
I've got a feeling I know that story from somewhere - but it's either as a short story, or maybe it was done on TV some time as one of those little 30-40 minute things or part of a portmanteau film? I don't think I've read that book so it can't be that. Or it might just be one of my nightmares! There was a pickled tapeworm in a jar in our biology lab at school, many years ago, and it used to give me the "heebi-geebis" (spelling?) every time I had to go in there ...  |
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Post by killercrab on Dec 22, 2008 13:51:37 GMT
A rival to MORGOW and SLITHER !! Looks great - onto the list it goes.
KC
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Post by ghostwriter2109 on Dec 22, 2008 19:57:54 GMT
Ordered it today via Amazon...now what of his other book Tendrils...any good?
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Post by dem on Dec 22, 2008 20:26:01 GMT
"Causey listened to these reports with less than his full attention. As far as he was concerned he had more important things to worry about than a dubious story about subterranean head-hunters."
Hookworms, Roundworms and, yep, Tapeworms - the patients at Dr. Shayaz's exclusive clinic have been infected with genetically enhanced worms of just about any persuasion so plenty of exploding intestine action guaranteed. This is an incredibly busy novel for a 180 pager, but the gist of it is that Rashad, a pseudo-Libyan terrorist in the pay of Gaddafifi, has set himself up in Soho as a top gangster-cum-pimp, but all the time he's working on his revenge versus the British Empire for wiping out the Mau Mau: he's going to contaminate our water supply with these super-deadly, fast growing worms. Remember that one I mentioned got flushed down the sewer? when next we encounter it, it's grown to forty feet in length and eats Australians - that gives you some idea of what we're up against. Ed Causey, the whiskey-reeking Private Eye is in storming form, but even he can't prevent nasty things happening to the women in the case (Rashad's idea of recreation is a single-handed attempt at reviving the white slave trade). Anyway, it all gets very satisfactorily unpleasant and perhaps, just this once, you won't see the end coming. Much recommended!
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Post by carolinec on Dec 23, 2008 11:36:48 GMT
Hookworms, Roundworms and, yep, Tapeworms ... You've just reminded me, Dem, I must worm the cat! (sorry, folks, I'm getting a bit frivolous here again - if it's too much, just tie me up and beat me till I stop  ) |
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Post by dem on Dec 23, 2008 12:18:33 GMT
(sorry, folks, I'm getting a bit frivolous here again - if it's too much, just tie me up and beat me till I stop ) Blimey! And its only the 23rd! now what of his other book Tendrils...any good? Can't help you with that, i'm afraid, but it seems 'Simon Ian Childer' was one of John Brosman's many pseudonyms (he was AKA 'Harry Adam Knight', the name he used for 'Carnosaur'). If Worm is anything to go by, Tendrils will be worth seeking out, though not at the inflated abebook/ amazon prices we've been hearing about! |
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Post by killercrab on Dec 23, 2008 12:42:54 GMT
SIC and HAK - har har ! Should of known it was one of the authors of SLIMER which I highly recommend. Genetic alien mutation slimes rampant on an oilrig. Wasn't Harry Adam Knight two writers in fact ?
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Post by ghostwriter2109 on Dec 23, 2008 19:25:27 GMT
Ooh...I must have been lucky to get Tendrils for £2.78 on Amazon yesterday. And thanks for all the info on Mr Brosman...I'm hunting down his back catalogue.
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Post by bushwick on Dec 24, 2008 11:35:36 GMT
John Brosnan used to write film reviews for Starburst when i was a lad. I have Slimer, whch i haven't read yet, and also picked up Bedlam fairly recently. Quite enjoyable, never got round to reviewing it. Good bits included aborted foetuses raining from the sky and Harold Bishop from Neighbours getting himself decapitated! Maybe I should get round to a review...
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Post by killercrab on Dec 24, 2008 14:20:06 GMT
Brosnan cut his teeth reviewing for HOUSE OF HAMMER magazine and probably elsewhere before that. His reviews were entertaining - not just synopsis but opinion too. His movie book THE HORROR PEOPLE I hear is worth tracking down. He also wrote fiction under his own name - SKYSHIP ( Hamlyn 1981) - a giant nuclear powered airship is under threat of sabotage - Michael Colino is hired to protect the maiden voyage .
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Post by carolinec on Dec 24, 2008 15:59:48 GMT
Brosnan ... His movie book THE HORROR PEOPLE I hear is worth tracking down. Ah, I knew I recognised his name from somewhere! It's sitting here on my shelf right next to me. I picked it up a few years ago at a book fair - a bit tatty, but interesting. Includes pieces on: Karloff, Lugosi, both Lon Chaneys, Price, Cushing, Lee, James Whale, Val Lewton, Robert Bloch, Terence Fisher, William Castle, Richard Matheson, Roger Corman, Milton Subotsky, etc. Good stuff. I'll try to do a contents list, cover scan, etc if I get the chance. ;D |
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Post by erebus on Feb 1, 2009 20:20:40 GMT
Got Tendrils is great . Gotta keep a lookout for this though.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 5, 2009 10:19:01 GMT
Worm (why not Worms?) tells the story of a mysterious illness affecting women in London. The symptoms include losing weight, needing lots of sleep, and growing a huge tummy. Looks like a pregnancy, but since the women go from being normal to ill in the space of a few days, that can't be it.
Suspecting internal bleeding one of the women is rushed into emergency surgery. All is going well until the surgeon puts his hand into her abdomen, only to have it chewed by a giant worm!
Yes folks, these aren't you normal everyday overnight pregnancies, these are WORM pregnancies. Oh the delicious gruesomeness this allows, you can't beat it.
Of course there's a mystery - where are these worms coming from? How are the women getting impregnated? And that I won't go into. Suffice to say, it's all rather bizarre and silly in the end - just the way I like it.
This is a short book at 189 pages, with fairly large type. You can read it very quickly. It has good pace, and as monster books go there's nothing to complain about. Yes the explanation at the end is odd - but the book does conclude answering all questions.
Worm is a good read of its type.
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Post by lordgorse on Sept 5, 2009 10:53:30 GMT
He also co-wrote a book called TORCHED! under the name James Blackstone. Haven't read it yet but it looks promising: spontaneous human combustion wiping out America!
There's also a half-decent film of SLIMER called PROTEUS.
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