|
Post by erebus on May 22, 2012 8:16:51 GMT
Don't recall seeing a discussion for this one here. Any thoughts on this ? Recall buying mine in 1990 when it was first published. I let a girlfriends brother borrow it and he returned it unread and creased on the spine and cover arsehole....I dumped his sister as well, Not cus of that though, although maybe I should. Anyway the book runs for the standard 202 pages which is about his usual limited and concerns The Colby Curse. Which in a prologue set in 1786 a starving hunter is trying to kill a stag for his hungry family. Risking the tyranical Earl of Colby's wraith whom demands that no animal should be harmed in or around his land. A man after my own heart . Anyway the fellow Jemmy Black is caught by the Earl and his men after bringing down a stag and is stripped naked and left to the creatures of the woods to take their own form of revenge. Serves him right too. Flash foward to present day and the current owner of the land Sir Thomas Colby has fallen on hard times and is selling the estate. He sells it and the land to a John Broughton. But with a condition. He must lift the Colby legacy and allow bloodsports to be part of the agreement. He does and that signs also Thomas Colbys fate , he dies in a motor vehicle accident. Not before hearing the fateful omen in his head from his ancestors. " Those who kill the wild animals which abound on my lands shall forfeit their own lives from this day on " And in true Smith fashion they do. Although attacks are not as fatal to begin with. On her first night in the huge home, Mrs Broughton, who has been left alone, hears a strange beast stalking on the driveway below her bedroom. Spooked by this she goes out and buys herself a dog.....a poodle Alas poor Peaches the poodle doesn't last to long. After getting caught to a fox snare he succumbs to a badger who rips the poor sod to shreds. Mrs Lucy Titley ( yep that is her surname ) is enraged by the new law on bloodsports. The self confessed animal lover is on her countrywalk to see Major the donkey. But he's in no mood for her today and has a go at biting her ear off over the stile. She flees but only into an adder who is equally as pissed off. Maybe because his counsins were killed in a previous Smith novel who knows. Anyway he bites old Mrs Titley on the ankle. Fortunately she manages to limp to the Gamekeepers home. The gamekeepers son meanwhile ( who is a little bastard ) is attacked by the angry pheasants. Lucky for him and not us Broughton manages to save the day. But others are not as fortunate. A Farmhand is swarmed by angry bees by the river. And best of all a certain Adrian Roberts is bemoaning how he fucked up his once rich lifestyle by getting the local bit of rough from the council estate pregnant. His Dad has disowned him and now hes stuck with her and his new brat. Lisa is trying to breast feed little Sam in the car whilst he has a sunbathe in the field. When she gets the youngster settled she places him in his basket and decides to go see how Adrian is. Well she has her knockers out and he's led down so she might as well make the best of the situation. I'm sure you have all read enough Smith books to know the rest. A huge Hawk above thinks his luck must be in and swoops down on little sleeping Sam and tears him ashunder. The throaty gurgles alerting the copulating couple. I was expecting the Hawk to claw Adrians meat and two veg off here as he rescues his son. But is doesn't this time and just makes do with his eyes. Lisa in her delirious shock craddles her tattered corpse of a son. Oblivious to the hawk ripping her back to shreds. Seems the creatures are taking a stance once and for all. And all this in six chapters.
|
|
|
Post by erebus on May 27, 2012 12:59:00 GMT
Just to summarise this book, its a strange little read. For a Smith novel the kills are not to graphic. In fact a lot of the potential victims get away injured or maimed, whether it be from a flock of pheasants or a murder of crows. There are some good kills on display to delight the more morbid of readers like me. A fellow gets barged , butted and pummelled by cows. A young mother and her baby are attacked in the manor house by a plague of rats from the attic. And most bizarre of all a young raggamuffin trying to steal the trout in the river is torn apart by Mink !! . Perhaps it is violent after all. Sex wise alas its pretty barren. Apart from the above frolic in the post above, the only other notable scene of sex etc has the character of Mrs Broughton masturbating in her bath. A huge spider then a plague off moths though soon extinguish her lust. As for the books ending...Well its certainly very strange. I will not reveal anything but it seemed very rushed and anti climatic.
This takes nothing away from a very enjoyable read though. And well worth the effort and time. Although though not as depraved as his other insect/animal attack novels.
|
|
|
Post by bluetomb on Dec 8, 2018 14:19:34 GMT
Read this corker recently. A multi species nature nasty, Smith's first such since Abomination (I believe) and taking a different tack to that one. A supernatural cause, and instead of drawn out depravity more atmosphere, suspense and variety. Not that it isn't gory, of course. I actually preferred it, though of course tastes will vary.
It begins with a good bit of "that's what you get for trying to feed your starving family!". The Earl of Corby has decreed that no animal shall be harmed on his lands, and any man who does so shall forfeit his own life. Jemmy Black has an ailing wife and children and so takes the risk. He brings down a stag, and is nearly hauling home the disassembled bits when the Earl and his men show up. And tie him to a tree for the beasts. We cut forward a few hundred years, and Sir Thomas Corby is selling his lands to an American businessman, John Broughton. Broughton insists that the old decree be done away with so he can turn the place into a plush shooting and fishing resort. Sir Thomas agrees, but does not make it far with his money. He's speeding, sure, but the curse has a hand in his fatal car accident too.
Broughton and wife Pamela move into the Corby House. She doesn't like the place from the start and then is confused and scared by facts of rural life like nocturnal animals or the wind. So she buys a poodle for protection. The poodle does not last long. Unworldly and a snob to boot, Pamela starts as a good Guy N Smith obnoxious woman, but actually grows sensible and sympathetic over the course of events, a development I rather liked. Broughton himself belongs to the unbeliever category of people who unwisely disturb old horrors, and could be charged with malicious stupidity as well as other things, but I liked him too in a way. He does his best and isn't nasty, its just that his best is wrong and bad. More actual goodies though are gamekeeper Gordon Shank, wife Jill and son Gary. Sensible, practical, salt of the Earth people, they do their job and take no bull. They save lives as much as they can, even as the tide turns unstoppably against them.
The first attacks on humans are a donkey and an adder on an ageing local animal rights nut Lucy Titley, and then a pen full of pheasants on young Gary Shank. The Shanks save Mrs Titley and Broughton saves Gary, but the scenes deliver on offbeat creepy thrills. Soon comes a fatal buzzard attack though, and we know GNS really means business. Poor council folks on a sunny drive, pretty obnoxious but wholly undeserving of the sheer queasy nastiness of their fate. Graphic, shocking, but sharp, reasonably short, matter of fact, not wallowing, quality nasty writing. And there's plenty more to come. More animals, more deaths, more escapes but not enough to stem the tide of death. A interesting sense of absurdity sets in, not mounting tension or boredom as is the usual way with these things but of ceaseless futile human beating against a hostile and weird Universe. And then the end is aptly muted.
I generally really enjoyed this. Another of Smith's novels in which he displays a naturally atmospheric, compelling way with writing the countryside, but here he adds real gamekeeping and estate management detail and it works very well, giving the book not just a proper solid through line but an unusual, quasi-realistic one. Not just the standard teacher/vet/farmer is actually a badass hero sort of thing. Though they probably should have just wrapped everything up a lot earlier, Broughton and the Shanks otherwise act and seem reasonable and relatable. Gordon and Jill are even essentially actually likeable. I liked the variety of the animal attacks (including one nod to Smith's earlier Alligators involving mink), and the way that the gore is as it needs to be in keeping with the flow of the specific situations and pace in general. More fast and sharp than thick and full on (though a couple of scenes are, don't worry), attacks not always fatal, there's an effective sort of rhythm, not always predictable build ups and releases. Good suspense. I could have done with more oomph in the first part of the two part climax, but it works even so. Perhaps even more different animals doing some attacking would have been a nice push. Squirrels? Weasels? But still, there are a good deal of different animals. I don't really have any especial complaints about this. Lack of bad sex I suppose. But I don't consider it an absolute essential myself. Overall well recommended.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jun 25, 2020 20:19:36 GMT
Guy N. Smith - Carnivore (Arrow, 1990) Terry Oakes (?) Blurb: "Those who kill the animals which abound on my lands shall forfeit their own lives ...’
The first victim to die on the Corby estate is a starving poacher, condemned to a terrible end by both man and beast. He is not the last. The mad Earl of Corby’s ancient law has been repealed and blood sports are to be allowed once more on the land. But, the pact with Nature broken, the wildlife turn on their killers. Savage, predatory and murderous, they seek and take revenge on the flesh and blood of those who dare to defy the Corby Curse ....A woodland estate near Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. The recession and a six-figure bill from the divorce court drives Sir Thomas Corby to sell off the last of the family silver - namely, a sixteen bedroom mansion and surrounding wildlife sanctuary. Turns out that, while he was rogering TV presenter Alexis Innerman, ex-wife Danielle - an "anti-blood sports nutter," if you please! - was having it away with a fancy man! The bloody nerve of the Judge, awarding so-called 'Lady' blasted-gold-digging-scrubber the bulk of his hard-earned inherited wealth! Bloody typical! "One law for women and another for men!" It's PC gone mad! And so on, and so on. It's depressing. With only one interested party, the last Colby has little option but to sell to John "field sports are a matter of personal conscience, sir" Broughton - and that at a rock bottom price. Even then, Broughton stipulates that he'll only buy if Sir Thomas first repeal the Mad Earl's decree of 1780 prohibiting hunting, fishing or any culling of animal life on the estate. Thomas reluctantly does so. Within an hour of signing the deed, he is crushed beneath an articulated lorry while drink driving. Broughton immediately gets to work on his new toy, hiring a capable game-keeper, Gordon Shanks, whose first duty is to set multiple snares, clear huge swathes of woodland and get killing undesirable wildlife in preparation for a Big-game hunter's Paradise. Pamela Broughton is far less keen on the idea and plans to spend much of her time at their London residence among her own. Even so, she'll have to put up with cowshit country for the time being, but with John away on safari, it gives her the creeps to spend the night alone in this too big house, with that evil-looking fox glaring up at her from the garden. She needs company. Broughton will just have to buy her a dog, something to distinguish a Lady of the Manor from the common herd. I'm sure he'll be happy to oblige. It's not like she'd buy anything really stupid like a poodle. To be continued
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Jun 26, 2020 10:10:42 GMT
Another Smith I never bothered with. I never was a big fan of Anaimals Attack, and his Snakes did not a lot for me. Seems I missed something. Also Alligator. Which has gotten ridiculous expensive in paperback. They are avaiable as Ebooks, but it is just not the same.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jun 27, 2020 16:53:39 GMT
Peach the poodle didn't last long. Caught in a snare, mummy's fluffy little diddums is easy prey for psycho-badger, who tears it to pieces.
A bold fox attacks Shanks the gamekeeper's land-rover as fair warning of what's to come.
Lucy Titley, a 70-year-old-spinster, is angry and dismayed at Broughton's plans. When the police and her MP, Cecil Garrett, huntsman and gun lobbyist, prove indifferent to her objections, she tips off the anti-bloodsports layabouts as a last resort. They promise to do all they can to prevent the proposed pheasant shoot. Not that Lucy receives anything thanks from Major, the docile donkey, who snacks on her ear. After which, she's bitten by an adder. Not the best day for the manor's resident "nosey old cow."
As Gary Shanks learns for himself, the pheasants are quite capable of looking after themselves. As he scatters their feed, the big cock leads the birds in a stabbing frenzy. John Broughton arrives just in time to drag the bloodied bundle of boy free from their vicious beaks. What the Hell is going on? Why have the animals and insects of the land turned man-hating carnivore. "Maybe its the aftermath of Chernobyl." "Could be."
TBC
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jun 29, 2020 15:24:20 GMT
Lazy YTS farm labourer John Simpson is attacked by a swarm of wild bees, but still no actual deaths and, more ominous still, not a sniff of a BAD SEX break. Is Carnivore going to be rubbish?
Adrian "Don't call me 'Ade'" Roberts, public school educated, jobless at twenty-seven and facing disinheritance, father having disowned him for marrying beneath himself. Worst of it is, Adrian agrees with the old tyrant. Liza is a gold-digging council estate slapper who trapped him into fatherhood by insisting they have sex without a condom because"Don't worry, I'm on the pill!" These days she even makes a joke of his gullibility. Now Adrian detests the sight of her! And that bloody brat! What a mess he's made of everything. Now Liza is giving him the come on, running her finger up and down his zip. Dammit! A healthy alfresco knee-trembler is too tempting a proposition to resist.
While Adrian is merrily rogering Liza and vice versa, a buzzard feasts on infant Sam, a tasty appetiser before for the main course. Carnage! Eyeballs, giblets, gizzard and what have you everywhere you look. Forgive me, GNS. How could I ever have doubted?
Pamela reflects that country life might be tolerable were one waited upon hand and foot. Mrs, Bridges does what she can, but making do with a solitary cleaning lady is hardly befitting a woman of her status. For want of company, she's been forced to strike up something of a friendship with Jill, the gamekeeper's wife. Things have come to a pretty pass when one finds oneself associating with a the working classes through choice!
With Broughton in London entertaining Erich Vogt, the famously loaded German sporting agent, Pamela is left to rattle around in the lonely mansion. She runs a nice, relaxing bath .... her mind drifts back to that torrid night two years ago when she cheated on John with Roland, a lowly sales rep of common stock who gave her a right seeing to in his Camden hovel. "Whatever his pedigree, he knew what a woman liked most." Pamela is snapped from her reverie by the horrible realisation that she has an audience. A huge spider is watching from overhead. Bats beat against the window. The house is under siege!
Pamela forces herself to make a run for the car, which instantly comes under attack from kamikaze moths, a stag, an entire roost, an undead badger - all God's creatures want a piece of the action. If only the vehicle can last out until she reaches the gamekeeper's lodge. He'll know what to do ...
TBC
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jul 6, 2020 8:56:03 GMT
are animal rights protesters the absolute worst in Guy N Smith's hierarchy of villainy or do Soviets have them beat? They both come in for a hammering in Carnivore, and the Reds haven't actually done anything! Gary Shanks' intended crow massacre goes horribly wrong when the intended prey refuse to stick to the rules. It looks all up for the little shit until his father unsportingly wades in with double-barrells blazing. Brian Barker, thirteen, lives in a council house at the far end of the village, not that he spends much time there. His parents squander the dole money on drink and fight constantly. Brian attempts to befriend Shanks junior, but the gamekeeper's son is a stuck up toffee nose and doesn't want to know. Gary regards Brian as a thug and a pest who, in common with his class, smells of cooking oil. Gary squeals to his father that a yob is poaching trout, but by the time they arrive to feel his collar, Brian has been butchered. By a mink. Broughton is incandescent. "This is what happens when these animal rights lunatics liberate mink. The creatures turn feral, kill anything and everything they can." Outspoken he may be, but in this instance he's correct - as a pack of hounds are soon to discover. Alerted by the sensational press coverage ( MAN-EATING MINK? THE CORBY CURSE?), Herr Vogt sends over an agent to run the rule over the estate, check there are trout left to fish before he commits to a deal. RIP Karl Rubisch, trampled beneath the hooves of stampeding Heifers. Animal-loving people-hating misery guts Lucy Titley has not been idle. Defying her years, Ms. Titley takes a hacksaw to the bars of the pheasant pen. The birds show their appreciation by feasting upon her tripes. And there was me moaning about a lack of deaths.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jul 10, 2020 10:26:19 GMT
Could be coming onto this one too soon after completing Alligators, or maybe I wasn't in right frame of mind, but for all the highlights - "The gun next to him was down with a cluster of feathered, crazed killers on him, pecking his face, lusting for that greatest delicacy of all; human eyeballs." - it required a determined effort to persevere with Carnivore once story ran out of steam over the final third. The final tear-up, in which massed hordes of pheasants attack a shooting party, is bloody enough, but disappointingly low on human casualties, almost as if GNS can't bring himself to massacre the huntsmen. To be fair, animal liberation "nutters" Glenn Middlemoor and Angela, his hippie lover, come through without a scratch, the carnivores respecting that their sympathies lie with the cause. It's suggested that Glenn is merely posing at this hunt saboteur lark to annoy his father, the vicar, and "he wished at times Angela wasn't so thick." In other words, the lad is going through a phase. He'll "grow out of it." Etc. For once, Guy attempts an ending that actually makes some sense (at least, it does in the context of the novel), while certain plot lines - Council Estate Sex Mum and Welfare Baby Eaten by Rats, Sado-Poacher on Benefits Let Loose Ferrets on £1 Million Sex Pheasant and My Flatscreen TV Sex Shame with Fifty Stone Lottery Cheat Single Mum on Benefits - have since been successfully recycled as Channel 5 True-face-of-Britain documentaries. Overall verdict. Lively read for most part, though not quite a match for his 1987 when wildlife revolts classic, Abomination.
|
|
|
Post by bluetomb on Jul 12, 2020 7:42:15 GMT
Carnivore certainly doesn't have Abomination's piercing bleakness. I have issues with that one overall but the ending is great, and haunting over time.
As to GNS double bills I have found that they work best for me with contrasting stories/styles. As I recall Alligators and Carnivore are both relatively straightforward and upbeat (and of course nature nasties), which may work against them together. My next is likely to be Doomflight and Entombed (I'm going alphabetically by readily available to me), who knows how they will work out?
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jul 12, 2020 18:12:16 GMT
Carnivore certainly doesn't have Abomination's piercing bleakness. I have issues with that one overall but the ending is great, and haunting over time. For me, GNS endings rarely impress, but Abomination is the exception. Will be interested to find out what you make of Doomflight.
|
|