“That book about rats is an absolute farking smash,” says a sweaty publishing exec with a fag hanging out of his mouth, “but we need more, and Herbert can’t write them quickly enough.” The offices of publishers the New English Library in the late 1970s. But alas, it was not to be, so enjoy this book as it is-a fun romp into the world of 70s exploitation horror fiction at its peak. Perhaps the only thing that could have earned this piece of pulp a higher rating would have been a helicopter leading the cats away from London with a piece of string.
It is short and very readable within a day, but packed with action, even if some of the sequences make you scratch your head at how stupid and unrealistic they are. Read it when you are feeling brain -dead or stuck in bed with a cold if you want the equivalent of a B-movie in book form to distract you. Written as an almost satirical answer to Herbert's wildly popular "The Rats," this absurd entry into the animals-running-amok genre of Horror that was very fashionable in its day is both a self-aware satire that is ahead of its time, and an unapologetic attempt to cash in on the hype. But if you want a taste of what the paperback horror craze of the 70s and 80s was like, here is a fine example that will leave you satisfied. The books runs for a mere 160 pages and was released through the New English Library.Ī three star rating is about the highest praise a pulp escapism adventure horror like this deserves. But still, if like me you love to read these pulp/trash horror novels, then this is a must. The characterization is flat and underdeveloped. The dramatic ending comes out of nowhere, as if the author just wanted to get the book over and done with. With such clumsy and badly thought out ideas, you can’t help but laugh at what is written. Smith and John Halkin, the sheer trashy nature of the novel is the joy of reading such a book. Once this is done, the story picks up speed, delivering some poorly written splatterpunk horror. Like in so many of these “animals vs mankind” horror novels, the storyline is simple with the plot quickly explained in some ridiculous and unlikely fashion early on in the tale. First released back in 1977, Nick Sharman’s debut pulp horror novel “The Cats” was yet another book to try and cash in on the huge success of James Herbert’s 1974 splatterpunk masterpiece “The Rats”.
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