Night of the Crabs: Volume 1 (Crabs Series)

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Bottom-line, if the title, the cover and above quotes make you think you would like this, odds are you will. Me, I had a lot of fun with it. Of course, be advised that you will be cheering for the CRABzillas in this story as the human inhabitants are so hopelessly inept that by the time they get ripped into gory chunks of stupidity you're just sighing thankfully that they've been flushed out of the human gene pool before they had a chance to breed. That is, of course, except for our intrepid hero, Professor Cliff Davenport, whose genius and MacGyver-like ability to squeeze out of tight situations and develop “on the fly” solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems is a “groan inducing” joy to behold. The book opens as a young couple go for a swim off the coast in Wales and, to their cost, encounter giant man-eating crabs. Professor Cliff Davenport, who was related to one of the youngsters, decides that the authorities are not taking the couple’s disappearance seriously enough and decides he will investigate himself. He wanted to run. He could not understand why he didn’t. His brain was in a whirl, trying to comprehend. He failed. This was Shell Island, Wales, a modern holiday resort. An occasional shark was seen out at sea. Nothing else. But these crabs… Cliff rolled in between her open legs. She still had a grip on his hardness and now she was guiding it down where she wanted it, bathing it first in her warm river of desire and then sliding it down further until it disappeared inch by inch into her.

Book 4, #1: Young mother with mania about having a bastard child, they know, they all know, they're looking at me! Crabbed. But although he has undoubtedly left an indelible mark on the Giant Crabs Invading Wales genre, one that will probably never be matched by any other author, I think all his subsequent work must inevitably fall short of the sparse brilliance of Night of the Crabs. whatever - the best review of this can be found here, and after you read that, what more is there to be said? It is undemanding and fun. A trashy, pulpy dumb book about big crabs. Smith knows the kind of book he is writing and keeps the pace brisk by wasting no time on minutia like plot, character development or dialogue. He does, however, leave room for healthy amounts of hokey, campy and corny and I spent much of the story with an ear to ear grin on my face. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and plan on reading at least one of the sequels to see if the magic can continue. There!” Cliff had spotted another movement amongst the waves. “Something’s…Oh, my God! Just look at that one!”Not only are these gigantic enemies of mankind colossal in size and naturally armoured to the teeth (not that they have them) by their huge shells, but they also display a surprising level of cunning and intelligence. Led by a (briefly glimpsed) ‘King Crab ’, these organised crustacean ranks pose a severe threat that certainly gets the juices flowing! The battle at Barmouth as the crabs army invades the seaside community is perhaps the very pinnacle of the novel. The death, destruction, and utter mayhem caused by the sudden invading crab army is quite frankly superb! Verdict: No other book about giant crabs invading Wales could possibly compare to Night of the Crabs. It is a gross literary injustice that this book is not on the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Cliff felt that thrilling sensation of his zip being pulled down, her fingers groping inside the open vent and then the coolness of the night air on his warm moistness. He gasped with pleasure. Pat Benson certainly knew what she was doing! The above should clue you that we are dealing with a certain quality of plot complexity, intelligent dialogue and deft characterization. The same standard of quality that made the films of Ed Wood and Roger Corman so famous and gave Mystery Science Theater 3000 the material to become the greatest show ever. Guy N. Smith’s epic masterpiece covers the entire spectrum of human/crab drama, from military tactics to life, death, and romance to scientific inquiry.

They’re…even they’re frightened of it!” Cliff exclaimed. “It’s got the whole lot of them just where it wants them!” But that's not the best part. The best part is the weird sex. Because Guy N. Smith writes sex scenes like a twelve year old who's never seen a naked lady before. The first time Davenport has sex with his lovely new girlfriend, Smith writes the following: In the first book, the crabs massacre Shell Island, whupping the military base like people in Overwatch has been whupping me when I act as if the team will stay together. This one happen simultaneously. Turns out there's an island just nearby with a crazily-defensible theme park run by an American millionaire so slimy he could've a murderer on Columbo. A claw was raised. A gesture of defiance. An expression of the most unbelievable malignancy. He might be thwarted but he refused to concede. He moved, scarcely able to drag himself down to the edge of the lapping water. Then he was gone with barely a ripple to show that he had ever been. Brian stood in Karen's throne room, his scientist getup on, to make sure everyone knew he was the scientist. "I tell you!" he told them, "There's only one way to get rid of these crabs!"Not only are these gigantic enemies of mankind colossal in size and naturally armoured by their huge shells, they also display a surprising level of intelligence. Lead by a briefly glimpsed ‘King Crab’, these organised crustacean ranks pose a severe threat to the community. An all-out war ensues, with the monstrous crustaceans now swarming onto the helpless community of Shell Island. The military presence on Shell Island is almost completely annihilated by these seemingly indestructible freaks of nature. My writing in those days only concerned shooting. I wrote regularly for most of the sporting magazines, interspersed with fiction for such magazines as the legendary London Mystery Selection, a quarterly anthology for which I contributed 18 stories between 1972-82. I was first published at the age of 12 in The Tettenhall Observer, a local weekly newspaper. Between 1952-57 I wrote 56 stories for them, many serialized. In 1990 I collated these into a book entitled Fifty Tales from the Fifties.

Her fingers were active... Cliff felt that thrilling sensation of his zip being pulled down, her fingers groping inside the open vent and then the coolness of the night air on his warm moistness." Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: When Cliff is captured by the military and suspected of spying, it turns out he's on good terms with a Sir Ronald Bradley at Whitehall. If he were a regular civilian without a direct line to a knighted politician, he'd probably be in big trouble. Let me preface this by saying that this book was a blast! So why am I only rating it 3 stars, you ask? Smith tries to make up for the absence of horror by throwing in more sex, but that’s fairly tame too (or at least boringly vanilla) and often unintentionally hilarious. His habit of using character’s full names doesn’t help. Somewhat limited by the events and final outcome from ‘Night of the Crabs’, Smith decides upon the simple (and relatively safe) option of simply delivering a novel bursting with crab action. Fast paced as it is, the novel still comes across to the reader as shallow without any real substance to the overall plot.With that in mind, reading this book was just like watching one of those 1950's monster movies that they used show on Saturday mornings. You know, the ones you used to watch through one bloodshot eye while you tried in vain to reconstruct the previous evening's Tequila-fueled round of misdemeanors. Well, this book would qualify as one of the better quality "bad" movies and I had a TON of FUN with it. I'm not sure if it was an editing issue, or if the original text was messed up, but there are a lot of weird things going on in the Kindle edition with exclamation points, capitalized letters in the middle of sentences and other things like that. In trying to describe the invulnerability of the Crabs to the inept military leaders, the Prof says, “You haven’t seen these monsters. If you had, you’d know what I mean. I’d have to see ’em blown to smithereens with my own eyes before I’d believe they’re not invincible.”...This, of course, is a classic restatement of the scientific method. I’m more than glad I let you come with me tonight," he whispered as he zipped himself up again. "I’m afraid, though, that we must still keep an eye open for those crabs!"