Paper Beasts On The Rampage

Not to be confused with Nick Sharman's THE CATS, this is Berton Roueche's first person account of cats gone wild on Long Island. Very brief at 126 pages, it moves at a quick clip and dishes up some vivid grue.

I've always liked the bloody-faced kitty on the cover.

Roueche's effort was the first cat novel out the gate, and though it is copyrighted 1974, the same year Herbert's THE RATS appeared in the UK,  I can't find an American copy to confirm whether it was published that year. It was first published in the UK in 1975.

Published in '79 when mad animals, insects, and reptiles were all the rage (thanks to James Herbert and Guy N. Smith), this Hamlyn paperback original focused on the building of a resort on top of a snake colony. No points for predicting some resistance from the creepy crawlies.  

A new copy of the American/Signet paperback of this book is rushing out the door for $193 this week at Amazon. 

More killer cats in D. Gunther Wilde's CLAWS (Leisure; 1978), a novel that came after  Roueche's THE CATS, but before Nick Sharman's attempt to demonize the little fluffs in the early 80's.

Quite a fun read.

If you're looking for the best in killer mantis fiction, you've hit the mother lode, old chap.

I fail to find another novel in existence that I can compare to Nace's EAT THEM ALIVE. 

As the cover blurb screams, it really is A NEW PEAK IN HORROR.

One of the best reads ever. Much better than ULYSSES.

Wonderful Guy N. Smith-style horror about a mad fungus infecting, mutating, and ugly-fying all and sundry.

Lots of funny stuff, too.

Harry Adam Knight was Aussie writer/film critic/novelist John Brosnan, who died in 2005.

The first of his non-fiction books I read was THE HORROR PEOPLE ('76), then FUTURE TENSE - THE CINEMA OF SCIENCE FICTION ('78).

THE FUNGUS is also known as DEATH SPORE.

Fuckin' Fantastic Fiction

 

Elizabeth, one of the greatest horror novels ever written, is on nobody's '100 Best Horror Books' list, but I don't care.  I recommend it -- and all the books below -- with no reservations.

 

Don't expect lists of 'Guilty Pleasures' from me because 'Guilty Pleasures' are for withering dickweeds who spent their youth listening to priests spouting bullshit while copping illegal reach-arounds. 

 

The authors of all these books are not household names, but they're welcome in my house any time.

These authors can write. By Christ, they can write! 

 

These masterpieces explore evil and chaos and anarchy, and smell of truth. 

All these books influenced me greatly, and reminded me that the greatest storytelling comes from unique voices, voices that aren't afraid to speak, aren't afraid to tell.

 

 

I love these books. I treasure them. I'm grateful for their existence.

 They're the work of brave people, of shameless adventurers of the soul.

They push established boundaries, they shun convention. 

 

Embrace them as I have.

You won't be sorry.

Are Giant Prey Mantises Part of Your World?

 

I'm not sure how comfortably Pierce Nace's Eat Them Alive fits into your world, but I can assure you it fits very well into mine.

 

I've written about this brilliant, audacious, and truly magnificent book twice before, and you can bet I'll be writing about it again. Being the stunning work of art that it is, it lies where it wants in my world, isn't required to work, and never incurs my wrath.

 

How could it? With a mug like this?

 

When Nace decided to out-Herbert James Herbert's The Rats (and associated vermin), and out-Smith Guy N. Smith's Night of the Crabs (and associated crustaceans), he/she (nobody knows Nace's true identity) didn't mess around. The book is a celebratory gore-fest of unrepentant violence and spirited insect rape, a poem to literary extremity. It is the sorry tale of a Man/Hero/Villain named Dyke whose penis is liberated by a nasty gang. Unable to forgive and forget the dismissal of his manhood, Dyke gathers an army of giant prey mantises to exact revenge on all who've done him wrong -- which is pretty much everybody, as you could imagine. If you're wondering where Dyke found mantises willing to assist him with his revenge campaign, I should mention that he happened to be close to an erupting volcano at the time, and, lucky for him, the eruption vomited up some sleepy giants of the mantis variety. Turns out dear old Dyke wasn't born under an unlucky star afterall. 

 

I Google "Eat Them Alive by Pierce Nace" quite often, hoping to scavenge another tidbit of its mysterious parentage. This morning over breakfast, I came across a youtube clip in which a young horror fan discusses his eight favorite horror books. One of them, it turns out, is Eat Them Alive. God bless this son of Britain! He also lavishes schoolboy praise on Barker's Weaveworld, King's It and Misery, and HG Wells's Island of Dr. Moreau. 

Check the fine lad out here: h**p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIk7n3EcSTw   (replace *'s, of course)

Eat Them Alive is set on an island called Malpelo, and what happens on Malpelo is something I'm sure old HG would have been quite excited about. Islands are rarely boring. I know that. HG knew it.

 

There is some speculation that Nace is a woman: Evelyn Pierce Nace, an American crime author. Being extremely familiar with the Nace novel (I've read it at least five times), I'd be surprised if it were written by a woman. The passages of salacious dismemberment feel like the emptying of a male brain. Then again, castration does play a significant role in matters. Few males fantasize about that.

 

If you haven't read it, why the hell not? You're denying yourself one of the world's greatest literary experiences. You're starving your brain of something extraordinary, the likes of which it has never reckoned with before.

Make Eat Them Alive part of your furniture, part of your world.

 

Live a little.

John Saul

John Saul, whose first thriller, Suffer the Children, was published in '76, doesn't get much blog press -- not favorable blog press, anyway. I Googled him recently and found a lot of venom directed at his work (37 thriller novels plus another 10 non-thrillers written prior to '76 under other names). That puzzles me because he can be a really commanding storyteller.

Mainstream success does shine a great deal more light on an author, so he/she ends up being more widely read and, therefore, more widely criticized or praised. I haven't liked all of his books, which is par for most courses, but I have found some quite haunting and atmospheric. I recall vividly, at 17, reading his Cry for the Strangers, and feeling terribly uneasy.  I didn't know how he achieved it, but he managed to instill fear in me.

The first book I read of Saul's was Punish the Sinners (I love these early titles!), a tale of a medieval curse visited on the pretty girls of a small desert town in Eastern Washington. Fast-paced, hysterical about the subject of Evil, slightly perverted -- I enjoyed it. Like many early Saul books, it opens with a description of a horror from the past, then re-locates to the present day where that same horror rears its ugly again.

Many have criticized Saul for writing the same book over and over. They assume that because the first five  titles -- Suffer the Children, Punish the Sinners, Cry for the Strangers, Comes the Blind Fury, When the Wind Blows -- had the same ring to them, he's recycling.   It's really not true.   Obviously, these early titles were a marketing decision, and they must have done their job. Saul sold millions, and continues unabated to this day.  But the books are all significantly different.

Innocence perverted, curses exacted, children paying for their parents' sins, and undying evil are themes that  clearly rock Saul's boat. He enjoys the small town setting, favors the coast, and usually opts for an historical subtext. Is that a sin? Most writers focus on themes that interest them, that fire off their creative pistons. It's each authors' themes that make that author unique.

Does Saul's writing achieve greatness? For me, it achieves commanding readability. I'm not smart enough or well read enough to judge the greatness of anything. What's great to me is a pile of shit to the guy next door. Keep in mind that one of my favorite novels of all time is Pierce Nace's Eat Them Alive, a super-gory, super-ridiculous book about a castrated gimp and his army of vengeance-seeking prey mantises. To me, the book is beyond great, and that's the important part. When it comes to films and books, your own reaction is all that matters. The man or woman who ventures into the unknown with an opinion poll in hand is a pathetic creature indeed.

I started this blog to share the stuff I love.  I love it so much that I want to give others the opportunity to try it. That's my mission. Nothing more than that. I love to be pointed towards stuff I don't know about myself. I figure you might enjoy that, too.

Today, I felt the need to sing the praises of Mr. John Saul. He's been punching the typewriter keys for more than forty years. Telling stories still gets him out of bed in the morning. I respect that.


Give him a go!

I recommend Suffer the Children, Punish the Sinners, Cry for the Strangers, Comes the Blind Fury (such a beautiful evocative title), The Right Hand of Evil, The Black Stone Chronicles, The Unloved, Black Creek Crossing, Nathaniel, When the Wind Blows, and The Homing.

 

Read my rave about Eat Them Alive here:

http://phantomofpulp.blogspot.com/2009/01/greatest-story-ever-told.html

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Some have called The Bible "The Greatest Story Ever Told".

That's only because they haven't read "Eat Them Alive" by Pierce Nace.

If one book can separate the men from the boys, this is that book.

First published in the US by Manor Books in '77, it was quickly picked up by New English Library (NEL) in the UK and released in December of the same year.

"A New Peak in Horror", the cover blurb trumpeted, confirming that there was truth in advertising at last

If Pierce Nace hadn't written about a dickless ne-er-do-well and his army of bloodthirsty prey mantises, Guy N. Smith would have done so sooner or later. But even Guy may not have troweled on the blood and guts with the unabashed enthusiasm of Nace.

The back cover of the NEL edition sets up the premise nicely:


Irresistible, isn't it, fellas? A volcanic island splits open and hellish creatures emerge. Did these monsters head for Toyko or New York to destroy streets and buildings and fleeing pedestrians? No way! These buggers emerged looking for a leader and they found one in Dyke Mellis, a recently castrated sailor with the smarts of Gilligan and the shoulder chip of Willard.

Even his name is masterful -- "Dyke", a word usually associated with butch lesbians and bodies of water you're best advised to steer clear of 'less you catch a dose of Hep C.

Nace, whose identity and whereabouts are unknown, had a drip running directly into the crimson arteries of pulp.


Pulp fans love islands. I know I do. Islands of mutants. Islands of death. Islands of lost souls. Islands of women imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit. Islands of malformed men and half-formed infants. "Eat Them Alive" gives us an island with a fantastic name, Malpelo (there's something very atomic about that), a cripple (we love those cripples), and a monster named Slayer.

Yes, folks, not only does Dyke, named after lesbians, succeed at leading a gang of vengeance-seeking stick insects, he forges a close relationship with their esteemed leader. A relationship forged in geysers of spurting blood.

After Dyke feeds his enemies, Pete and Zeb (another great name), to the mantises, he goes after every other fucker who ever did him wrong. In the following exchange with another enemy, Kane, from p.137 of the NEL edition, Dyke emphasizes the importance of taking credit for his acts of vengeance:

"You'll credit me when my mantises start biting off arms and legs, when they slit bodies open, when the blood runs red all over the fancy table and yard out there."

"You're off your rocker," is Kane's reply.

"We'll go outdoors now, old pal," Dyke continues. "We'll go out and have a big, fat ball watching your wife and kids and those rich neighbors of yours going into my mantises' bellies, one piece at a time."

Dyke's noble, long term ambitions are summed up in this declaration from p.135:

"I will eat the food on the table while Slayer and the other mantises dine on the people. This is not a bad way to live, not bad at all. If I could get by with it, I'd like to live like this for the rest of my life, raiding rich homes and eating their food and making off with their prized possessions, letting my beasts slit the bodies and spill the blood and reduce the people to a heap of marrowless bones."


This truly is pulp horror's Shangri-La, a classic with enough meat and gristle to satisfy the most jaded punter.

The book is filled with long, detailed descriptions of dismemberment that sometimes last for pages, not paragraphs.

Picture this:

"Immediately they were taken by Slayer. One by one he threw women to the ground and tore off their sweet-tasting breasts. After sucking a few mouthfuls of each female's blood, he tossed her aside and seized a new woman who could give him more soft, round parts. In only a few minutes he had cut of the lovely breasts off every woman who was still untouched, or who had been claimed by another mantis..."


"Slayer was at his best and most vicious. He was choosing women and children exclusively, seeming to know that he would find their meat more tender than that of the men. While Dyke kept his gun trained on the people not yet claimed by the insects, Slayer crouched beside his master, eating babies and children almost whole, not bothering to tear them to bits, and finding his ultimate joy in the women he stripped and slit and ate."

DeSade would have appreciated Nace.

If anybody was still unconvinced, Slayer's status as a true breast man is confirmed in this exchange:

"The breasts were always Slayer's first bite of a woman, apparently his most exciting delicacy. As Dyke watched, the redheaded beast sliced off a breast, held its nipple up for a breath, and then stuffed it into his great gullet, chewing it with obvious pleasure. Then he slashed off the other breast and devoured it just as eagerly. Blood was streaming from the female now, and Slayer drank it from the holes where her breasts had been."


The writing is admittedly awkward at times, but this minor gripe is eclipsed by the gleeful abandon with which Nace describes the coming to power of his psychopathic hero.


I can not recall another novel that splashes around so happily in a nihilistic trough of pig shit.

It is utterly and gloriously relentless.

At 75p in the UK, $1.75 in the U.S., or $1.95 in Australia, this was a bargain of nucleur proportions.


I remember tucking myself away in a corner of my Catholic boys' school playground devouring Nace's words with the passion of Slayer devouring a mammary gland. The week before I'd been surrounded by other schoolboy miscreants who'd salivated over my reading out loud of explicit passages of sex and horror from James Herbert's "The Rats" and Guy N. Smith's "The Sucking Pit."

It was going to be much tougher selecting which good bits to read from "Eat Them Alive" because the entire book was "good bits".


I've always been curious about the "First Time in Paperback" announcement on the cover of the Manor edition. Are they implying that there was a hardback? A hardback of "Eat Them Alive"? My God, I'd fight a hungry mantis to get my hands on that! I have searched high and low for a hardback edition, but I've never found anything to suggest that there was one. If anybody has one, please let me know. I'm prepared to make you a very generous offer you won't be able to refuse.


"Eat Them Alive" has never been reprinted. Speculation on the author's actual identity is rife on internet forums. One suggestion is that Nace is a woman. Although the strong, misogynistic tone of the book would suggest otherwise, I'm not that easily dissuaded. Afterall, there are plenty of women out there who hate women. We've all met one or two of them.

Thank you, Pierce Nace, whoever you are, whatever you are, and wherever you are, for giving us The Greatest Told Ever Told. If you hadn't told it with such unabashed honesty, we'd still be stuck with The Bible. And I'm afraid I don't believe a word of that.

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