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Crabs #4
Crabs on the Rampage
Thought dead by the public, a horde of giant mutant crabs returns to terrorize the countryside
186 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 1981
14 people are currently reading
345 people want to read
About the author
Guy N. Smith
176 books300 followersI was born on November 21, 1939, in the small village of Hopwas, near Tamworth, Staffordshire, England. My mother was a pre-war historical novelist (E. M. Weale) and she always encouraged me to write.
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.
My father was a dedicated bank manager and I was destined for banking from birth. I accepted it but never found it very interesting. During the early years when I was working in Birmingham, I spent most of my lunch hours in the Birmingham gun quarter. I would have loved to have served an apprenticeship in the gun trade but my father would not hear of it.
Shooting (hunting) was my first love, and all my spare time was spent in this way. In 1961 I designed and made a 12-bore shotgun, intending to follow it up with six more, but I did not have the money to do this. I still use the Guy N. Smith short-barrelled magnum. During 1960-67 I operated a small shotgun cartridge loading business but this finished when my components suppliers closed down and I could no longer obtain components at competitive prices.
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.
In 1972 I launched my second hand bookselling business which eventually became Black Hill Books. Originally my intention was to concentrate on this and maybe build it up to a full-time business which would enable me to leave banking. Although we still have this business, writing came along and this proved to be the vehicle which gave me my freedom.
I wrote a horror novel for the New English Library in 1974 entitled Werewolf by Moonlight. This was followed by a couple more, but it was Night of the Crabs in 1976 which really launched me as a writer. It was a bestseller, spawning five sequels, and was followed by another 60 or so horror novels through to the mid-1990's. Amicus bought the film rights to Crabs in 1976 and this gave me the chance to leave banking and by my own place, including my shoot, on the Black Hill.
The Guy N. Smith Fan Club was formed in 1990 and still has an active membership. We hold a convention every year at my home which is always well attended.
Around this time I became Poland's best-selling author. Phantom Press published two GNS books each month, mostly with print runs of around 100,000.
I have written much, much more than just horror; crime and mystery (as Gavin Newman), and children's animal novels (as Jonathan Guy). I have written a dozen or so shooting and countryside books, a book on Writing Horror Fiction (A. & C. Black). In 1997 my first full length western novel, The Pony Riders was published by Pinnacle in the States.
With 100-plus books to my credit, I was looking for new challenges. In 1999 I formed my own publishing company and began to publish my own books. They did rather well and gave me a lot of satisfaction. We plan to publish one or two every year.
Still regretting that I had not served an apprenticeship in the gun trade, the best job of my life dropped into my lap in 1999 when I was offered the post of Gun Editor of The Countryman's Weekly, a weekly magazine which covers all field sports. This entails my writing five illustrated feature articles a week on guns, cartridges, deer stalking, big game hunting etc.
Alongside this we have expanded our mail order second hand crime fiction business, still publish a few books, and I find as much time as possible for shooting.
Jean, my wife, helps with the business. Our four children, Rowan, Tara, Gavin and Angus have all moved away from home but they visit on a regular basis.
I would not want to live anywhere other than m
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.
My father was a dedicated bank manager and I was destined for banking from birth. I accepted it but never found it very interesting. During the early years when I was working in Birmingham, I spent most of my lunch hours in the Birmingham gun quarter. I would have loved to have served an apprenticeship in the gun trade but my father would not hear of it.
Shooting (hunting) was my first love, and all my spare time was spent in this way. In 1961 I designed and made a 12-bore shotgun, intending to follow it up with six more, but I did not have the money to do this. I still use the Guy N. Smith short-barrelled magnum. During 1960-67 I operated a small shotgun cartridge loading business but this finished when my components suppliers closed down and I could no longer obtain components at competitive prices.
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.
In 1972 I launched my second hand bookselling business which eventually became Black Hill Books. Originally my intention was to concentrate on this and maybe build it up to a full-time business which would enable me to leave banking. Although we still have this business, writing came along and this proved to be the vehicle which gave me my freedom.
I wrote a horror novel for the New English Library in 1974 entitled Werewolf by Moonlight. This was followed by a couple more, but it was Night of the Crabs in 1976 which really launched me as a writer. It was a bestseller, spawning five sequels, and was followed by another 60 or so horror novels through to the mid-1990's. Amicus bought the film rights to Crabs in 1976 and this gave me the chance to leave banking and by my own place, including my shoot, on the Black Hill.
The Guy N. Smith Fan Club was formed in 1990 and still has an active membership. We hold a convention every year at my home which is always well attended.
Around this time I became Poland's best-selling author. Phantom Press published two GNS books each month, mostly with print runs of around 100,000.
I have written much, much more than just horror; crime and mystery (as Gavin Newman), and children's animal novels (as Jonathan Guy). I have written a dozen or so shooting and countryside books, a book on Writing Horror Fiction (A. & C. Black). In 1997 my first full length western novel, The Pony Riders was published by Pinnacle in the States.
With 100-plus books to my credit, I was looking for new challenges. In 1999 I formed my own publishing company and began to publish my own books. They did rather well and gave me a lot of satisfaction. We plan to publish one or two every year.
Still regretting that I had not served an apprenticeship in the gun trade, the best job of my life dropped into my lap in 1999 when I was offered the post of Gun Editor of The Countryman's Weekly, a weekly magazine which covers all field sports. This entails my writing five illustrated feature articles a week on guns, cartridges, deer stalking, big game hunting etc.
Alongside this we have expanded our mail order second hand crime fiction business, still publish a few books, and I find as much time as possible for shooting.
Jean, my wife, helps with the business. Our four children, Rowan, Tara, Gavin and Angus have all moved away from home but they visit on a regular basis.
I would not want to live anywhere other than m
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
October 7, 2012
The fourth volume in the epic story of giant, evil crabs with impenetrable exoskeletons and mean, beady little eyes, this is definitely canon material. Some of the highlights so far:
Blood spouted from the wrist stump, a scarlet salute to the king of the crabs, rich wine spurting into the wizened, lusting face.
I know, right? How about this:
Panicking, tugging at the sash, slamming it hard. Glass splintered and fell tinkling on both sides of the window, an eerie frightening noise that seemed to say "You can't keep the tidal wave out now, Mollie, because the window's broken.
In other words, the sound of the window breaking seemed to be saying "The window is broken."
But this might be the very finest quote so far:
"Ever since we've been married, our whole life seems to be dominated by these damned crabs!"
Blood spouted from the wrist stump, a scarlet salute to the king of the crabs, rich wine spurting into the wizened, lusting face.
I know, right? How about this:
Panicking, tugging at the sash, slamming it hard. Glass splintered and fell tinkling on both sides of the window, an eerie frightening noise that seemed to say "You can't keep the tidal wave out now, Mollie, because the window's broken.
In other words, the sound of the window breaking seemed to be saying "The window is broken."
But this might be the very finest quote so far:
"Ever since we've been married, our whole life seems to be dominated by these damned crabs!"
December 18, 2016
This is the most sadistically nihilistic novel I've ever read.
This was also the first crabs book I ever came across.
On a family vacation, prepubescent K.T. checked the hotel lobby bookshelf and found this staring back at him.
How could any red-blooded young fan of TBS's Super Scary Saturday possibly resist?
The only impression that survived was blood. Lots of blood. Blood everywhere, humans being ripped apart left and right.
Y'know what? Young K.T. was pretty observant.
I'm going to spoil the hell out of this one, by the way.
The crabs are back, and meaner than ever. With both single scouts and large groups, the crabs trek overland to murder, mulitlate, and destroy.
Guy N. Smith has always had two obsessions in his Crabs series: poachers and talking about the Loch Ness Monster. Having gotten his first taste at killing a child last book, Smith is well and truly addicted to that, too.
Seriously, there is a triggery amount of dead kids. My wife is a dyed-in-the-wool horror fan, and she nearly walked out of AVP:Requiem and The VVitch because of violence to children (which let me write a whole blog post about horror fans with children). If this were a movie, she'd jog out the aisle while giving the screen the middle finger.
Toddlers are pinchered, babies are stepped on, and parents kiss their twelve year-old's severed head right before getting crabbed themselves. There's a parade of kid-killing described in loving detail, so be warned.
It’s not even fun anymore. Even the crabs aren’t enjoying this one! All of them are wracked with a painful, fatal cancer. We get to see an injured child survive the messy deaths of his parents only to crawl right into a crab’s grasp. You know what the crab does after disemboweling him? It just sits there, in too much pain to even go for the beloved taste of human flesh, and promptly dies of cancer.
Yes, Guy N. Smith has taken the most gleefully evil murder-machines in literature and made the book a chore even for them.
As a further shit on the reader, let's considering the surviving new viewpoint characters introduced in this book.
. . .
Okay. We're done with that.
Whenever we, as the reader, ask ourselves what the human characters can do to save themselves, what the resolution could possibly be, Guy N. Smith answers, “FUCK YOU, CRABS!” He then throws back his head and laughs.
Young mother trying to save her two year-old? FUCK YOU, CRABS!
Parents willing to endanger themselves for the sake of their child? FUCK YOU, CRABS!
An old anti-poacher (because Guy N. Smith) has a plan to trap and kill one of the crabs? FUCK YOU, MORE CRABS!
This is not a novel. This is a murderthology.
Okay, I admit that one or two new characters survive, but they're introduced at the very end point of the book where fields of crabs are dropping dead of cancer.
Last novel, we had some fun. For smeg’s sake, we had a crab swallow a cat with the tail whipping around outside the mouth! This is just the most relentless parade of nihilistic, pointless deaths ever. The moment you see a sentence in italics, that person is going to die.
This is what people who haven’t tried Game of Throne think George R. R. Martin is like.
For the Crabs fan, it does work to tie in everything it can from the last three books, revisiting character, concepts, and locations. Then it looks at those things and says FUCK YOU, CRABS!
I dunno, folks, I dunno. I read the first three Crabs novels in a delightful flurry, but now? I actually need a break before handling book 5, where crabs will inevitably swarm a children's cancer ward.
Finally, let's have our Women Protagonists of the Crab Series rundown!
Book 1: Exists for the protagonist to put exposition in her ears and other things into her pants.
Book 2: Con-woman nymphomaniac who steals money so she can rent a sex hotel room and lounge naked inside it all day. Killed with rock.
Book 3: Waitress who's main goal is to have our hero "accidentally" impregnate her to get out of her little town. Crabbed.
Book 4, #1: Young mother with mania about having a bastard child, they know, they all know, they're looking at me! Crabbed.
Book 4, #2: Teenage girl who trying to have sex with the town popular boy in view of her partying friends, hoping he'll get her pregnant. "That way he would have to do something about it and she would have the laugh on all of them." Crabbed.
Book 4, #3: Agoraphobic granny. Crabbed.
Book 4, #4: Neurotic wreck of a mom. Cooked.
Book 4, #5: Housewife cheating on her husband. Crabbed.
At this continuing rate of murder and portrayals of women, I expect the next book to be Crabs in the Kitchen, where the giant crustaceans hunt a bevy of women who are pregnant and barefoot.
This was also the first crabs book I ever came across.
On a family vacation, prepubescent K.T. checked the hotel lobby bookshelf and found this staring back at him.
How could any red-blooded young fan of TBS's Super Scary Saturday possibly resist?
The only impression that survived was blood. Lots of blood. Blood everywhere, humans being ripped apart left and right.
Y'know what? Young K.T. was pretty observant.
I'm going to spoil the hell out of this one, by the way.
The crabs are back, and meaner than ever. With both single scouts and large groups, the crabs trek overland to murder, mulitlate, and destroy.
Guy N. Smith has always had two obsessions in his Crabs series: poachers and talking about the Loch Ness Monster. Having gotten his first taste at killing a child last book, Smith is well and truly addicted to that, too.
Seriously, there is a triggery amount of dead kids. My wife is a dyed-in-the-wool horror fan, and she nearly walked out of AVP:Requiem and The VVitch because of violence to children (which let me write a whole blog post about horror fans with children). If this were a movie, she'd jog out the aisle while giving the screen the middle finger.
Toddlers are pinchered, babies are stepped on, and parents kiss their twelve year-old's severed head right before getting crabbed themselves. There's a parade of kid-killing described in loving detail, so be warned.
It’s not even fun anymore. Even the crabs aren’t enjoying this one! All of them are wracked with a painful, fatal cancer. We get to see an injured child survive the messy deaths of his parents only to crawl right into a crab’s grasp. You know what the crab does after disemboweling him? It just sits there, in too much pain to even go for the beloved taste of human flesh, and promptly dies of cancer.
Yes, Guy N. Smith has taken the most gleefully evil murder-machines in literature and made the book a chore even for them.
As a further shit on the reader, let's considering the surviving new viewpoint characters introduced in this book.
. . .
Okay. We're done with that.
Whenever we, as the reader, ask ourselves what the human characters can do to save themselves, what the resolution could possibly be, Guy N. Smith answers, “FUCK YOU, CRABS!” He then throws back his head and laughs.
Young mother trying to save her two year-old? FUCK YOU, CRABS!
Parents willing to endanger themselves for the sake of their child? FUCK YOU, CRABS!
An old anti-poacher (because Guy N. Smith) has a plan to trap and kill one of the crabs? FUCK YOU, MORE CRABS!
This is not a novel. This is a murderthology.
Okay, I admit that one or two new characters survive, but they're introduced at the very end point of the book where fields of crabs are dropping dead of cancer.
Last novel, we had some fun. For smeg’s sake, we had a crab swallow a cat with the tail whipping around outside the mouth! This is just the most relentless parade of nihilistic, pointless deaths ever. The moment you see a sentence in italics, that person is going to die.
This is what people who haven’t tried Game of Throne think George R. R. Martin is like.
For the Crabs fan, it does work to tie in everything it can from the last three books, revisiting character, concepts, and locations. Then it looks at those things and says FUCK YOU, CRABS!
I dunno, folks, I dunno. I read the first three Crabs novels in a delightful flurry, but now? I actually need a break before handling book 5, where crabs will inevitably swarm a children's cancer ward.
Finally, let's have our Women Protagonists of the Crab Series rundown!
Book 1: Exists for the protagonist to put exposition in her ears and other things into her pants.
Book 2: Con-woman nymphomaniac who steals money so she can rent a sex hotel room and lounge naked inside it all day. Killed with rock.
Book 3: Waitress who's main goal is to have our hero "accidentally" impregnate her to get out of her little town. Crabbed.
Book 4, #1: Young mother with mania about having a bastard child, they know, they all know, they're looking at me! Crabbed.
Book 4, #2: Teenage girl who trying to have sex with the town popular boy in view of her partying friends, hoping he'll get her pregnant. "That way he would have to do something about it and she would have the laugh on all of them." Crabbed.
Book 4, #3: Agoraphobic granny. Crabbed.
Book 4, #4: Neurotic wreck of a mom. Cooked.
Book 4, #5: Housewife cheating on her husband. Crabbed.
At this continuing rate of murder and portrayals of women, I expect the next book to be Crabs in the Kitchen, where the giant crustaceans hunt a bevy of women who are pregnant and barefoot.
March 15, 2022
This is the fourth book in the series that I have read one after the other, and I though by this stage id be getting sick of them, but I'm not,
I'm still loving the carnage, and they way this book connects with the previous books.
Now on to book 5 Crabs' Moon
I'm still loving the carnage, and they way this book connects with the previous books.
Now on to book 5 Crabs' Moon
September 10, 2023
While not as good as the first book in this series, Crabs on the Rampage is a better book than Origin of the Crabs or Killer Crabs.
Smith seems to narrow his focus more on the wonton destruction by the titular creatures and gives them an actual reason for their anger. There’s plenty of great deaths and one scene that involves an attempted escape through a blocked tunnel that rivals some of the best thriller novels out there.
Of course this is still Guy N. Smith so it’s schlocky as hell, full of bad sex, over the top deaths and prose that isnt exactly the most original thing written. Plus, this one has a bit too much focus on the death of innocent children (one thing I’ve gotten increasingly disgusted of as a parent of 2 kids myself.
Still though, it’s far from terrible and if unrestrained creature feature violence is your thing, this is a fun read.
Smith seems to narrow his focus more on the wonton destruction by the titular creatures and gives them an actual reason for their anger. There’s plenty of great deaths and one scene that involves an attempted escape through a blocked tunnel that rivals some of the best thriller novels out there.
Of course this is still Guy N. Smith so it’s schlocky as hell, full of bad sex, over the top deaths and prose that isnt exactly the most original thing written. Plus, this one has a bit too much focus on the death of innocent children (one thing I’ve gotten increasingly disgusted of as a parent of 2 kids myself.
Still though, it’s far from terrible and if unrestrained creature feature violence is your thing, this is a fun read.
February 26, 2026
The wit of Ernest Hemingway, the prose of Shakespeare. 🎭 Guy redefines what professionalism looks like! 🍿
“Your mother was anybody’s, Rodney. It was on the cards she’d get pregnant one day. You’re just the unlucky bastard out of possibly scores who might have spawned in a nympho’s cunt.” 🥶
Romeo, is that you? 😍
And the carnage isn’t that bad either! 🦀 Nothing is off the table, no character too important (or young!) to be spared the wrath of the crustaceans. 🌊
It reminds me of when Tim so-and-so removed the headphone jack from the iPhone. “Bravery”. But it was! 👏
George R.R. Martin is busy worrying about his next book. Worrying about his reputation. Guy Smith says “hold my beer, I haven’t hit rock bottom yet!” 🍺😎
“Your mother was anybody’s, Rodney. It was on the cards she’d get pregnant one day. You’re just the unlucky bastard out of possibly scores who might have spawned in a nympho’s cunt.” 🥶
Romeo, is that you? 😍
And the carnage isn’t that bad either! 🦀 Nothing is off the table, no character too important (or young!) to be spared the wrath of the crustaceans. 🌊
It reminds me of when Tim so-and-so removed the headphone jack from the iPhone. “Bravery”. But it was! 👏
George R.R. Martin is busy worrying about his next book. Worrying about his reputation. Guy Smith says “hold my beer, I haven’t hit rock bottom yet!” 🍺😎
September 22, 2016
Crabtastic! The killer crabs are back, and this time they have...lips!? Guy Smith takes crab anatomy, crab psychology and crab politics off into crazyland with this one. The crabs are really feeling quite ill in this volume, but they're determined to rid England of featherless bipeds before they die off. WILL ANYONE SURVIVE? Read it and find out.
August 20, 2020
Agree with other reviewers that the series stumbles here.
The crabs return, now mostly on the east coast of England. (Never quite explained how they moved from Scotland to Wales to Australia and back to Britain, but I suspect it has something to do with to Guy Smith’s holiday destinations.) But soon they pop up everywhere, even London!
Cliff Davenport back to the rescue over the protests of long-suffering Pat. Upon examining a dead crab, Cliff deduces (through an ingenious plot device and series gamechanger) that the crabs may have contracted cancer, making them less invincible but more desperate. The crabs rampage farther inland and destroy more lives in more scenarios than possible before solely on sea and shore.
Further complicating the latest counter-crab campaign, the army can’t use paraquat this time because the crabs are infiltrating population centers and concerns about the herbicide’s effect on ecosystems.
If the story had just stuck with Cliff and maybe alternated with one or two other characters in the bigger cities, it would have been an exhilarating rematch between man and crab.
Instead, we are subjected to relentless episodes of strangers with disappointingly mundane backgrounds being dismembered by bloodlusty crabs. Typical scene: Susie and her husband Harry don’t get along. Maybe one of them has been unfaithful. Gee what’s that noise? Oh no. One of those giant crabs from the news. It just ate my leg off! Now my spouse’s leg too! Now my arm! Now my head. Geyser of blood. End of scene.
Those scenes took up sixty percent of the book. Just too episodic with minor characters who we meet so briefly before death that it’s hard to care.
The crabs return, now mostly on the east coast of England. (Never quite explained how they moved from Scotland to Wales to Australia and back to Britain, but I suspect it has something to do with to Guy Smith’s holiday destinations.) But soon they pop up everywhere, even London!
Cliff Davenport back to the rescue over the protests of long-suffering Pat. Upon examining a dead crab, Cliff deduces (through an ingenious plot device and series gamechanger) that the crabs may have contracted cancer, making them less invincible but more desperate. The crabs rampage farther inland and destroy more lives in more scenarios than possible before solely on sea and shore.
Further complicating the latest counter-crab campaign, the army can’t use paraquat this time because the crabs are infiltrating population centers and concerns about the herbicide’s effect on ecosystems.
If the story had just stuck with Cliff and maybe alternated with one or two other characters in the bigger cities, it would have been an exhilarating rematch between man and crab.
Instead, we are subjected to relentless episodes of strangers with disappointingly mundane backgrounds being dismembered by bloodlusty crabs. Typical scene: Susie and her husband Harry don’t get along. Maybe one of them has been unfaithful. Gee what’s that noise? Oh no. One of those giant crabs from the news. It just ate my leg off! Now my spouse’s leg too! Now my arm! Now my head. Geyser of blood. End of scene.
Those scenes took up sixty percent of the book. Just too episodic with minor characters who we meet so briefly before death that it’s hard to care.
May 11, 2023
"click-click-clickedy-click"
May 28, 2009
Back in 1981 Guy N Smith released the forth instalment into his popular crabs series entitled ‘Crabs on the Rampage’. Ever the prolific writer, the year of 1981 also saw the publication of five other novels by Smith including ‘Doomflight’, ‘Manitou Doll’, ‘Warhead’, ‘Entombed’ and ‘Wolfcurse’.
Great Britain is once again at the mercy of the giant crabs as they return to wreak more bloody havoc on the islands unprepared population. The monstrous crabs are as big as ever, but this time they have a deeper rage for humankind burning inside them. The crabs are dying from a cancer that is slowly eating away at them from the inside. The cancer was man’s doing; caused by an underwater nuclear explosion. Now the crabs have revenge in their sights and they’re here for bloodshed.
Intent on causing as much death and suffering for humankind as possible, the crabs return to the shores of Great Britain, destroying bridges and buildings and anything else that lies in their wake. Nowhere appears safe with the crustaceans finding their way to the heart of London via the River Thames. Carnage ensues, as the crabs unleash a bloodthirsty onslaught upon mankind in every possible direction.
Cliff Davenport is once again called in to tackle the returning crab epidemic. With the death toll rising by the minute, there is little more anyone can do but simply try to defend themselves. It is soon learnt that the crabs are dying from the cancer that’s eating away at them from their insides, and with this news the defensive position held by man changes to one of offensive.
The crabs attempt a series of final rage filled assaults, once again on the picturesque location of Shell Island and subsequently on to Bournemouth beach (an echo from the battles within ‘Night of the Crabs’). It’s only a matter of time before the crabs die from their cancer, but their final assaults on mankind are so devastating that time is now running out for them too.
From the outset ‘Crabs on the Rampage’ unleashes a veritable tsunami of splatter filled violence. Smith clearly went all out to top the scales of gore drenched crab action in this action packed instalment. For sheer brutality alone the storyline is entertainment from start to finish. Rage fuelled crabs, hell bent on revenge, creates one hell of a deadly opponent.
The story is packed full of memorable moments, such as the crabs causing carnage within a congested motorway tunnel. The blood spill is in epic proportions with this fast paced thrill of a novel.
The ending is somewhat inevitable and leaves all us crab fans with a final heart felt sigh. Running for 157 pages, this is a monstrous addition to the crabs series and one that cannot be ignored by all good splatter-punk fans and pulp horror enthusiasts. Gore drenched genius!
Great Britain is once again at the mercy of the giant crabs as they return to wreak more bloody havoc on the islands unprepared population. The monstrous crabs are as big as ever, but this time they have a deeper rage for humankind burning inside them. The crabs are dying from a cancer that is slowly eating away at them from the inside. The cancer was man’s doing; caused by an underwater nuclear explosion. Now the crabs have revenge in their sights and they’re here for bloodshed.
Intent on causing as much death and suffering for humankind as possible, the crabs return to the shores of Great Britain, destroying bridges and buildings and anything else that lies in their wake. Nowhere appears safe with the crustaceans finding their way to the heart of London via the River Thames. Carnage ensues, as the crabs unleash a bloodthirsty onslaught upon mankind in every possible direction.
Cliff Davenport is once again called in to tackle the returning crab epidemic. With the death toll rising by the minute, there is little more anyone can do but simply try to defend themselves. It is soon learnt that the crabs are dying from the cancer that’s eating away at them from their insides, and with this news the defensive position held by man changes to one of offensive.
The crabs attempt a series of final rage filled assaults, once again on the picturesque location of Shell Island and subsequently on to Bournemouth beach (an echo from the battles within ‘Night of the Crabs’). It’s only a matter of time before the crabs die from their cancer, but their final assaults on mankind are so devastating that time is now running out for them too.
From the outset ‘Crabs on the Rampage’ unleashes a veritable tsunami of splatter filled violence. Smith clearly went all out to top the scales of gore drenched crab action in this action packed instalment. For sheer brutality alone the storyline is entertainment from start to finish. Rage fuelled crabs, hell bent on revenge, creates one hell of a deadly opponent.
The story is packed full of memorable moments, such as the crabs causing carnage within a congested motorway tunnel. The blood spill is in epic proportions with this fast paced thrill of a novel.
The ending is somewhat inevitable and leaves all us crab fans with a final heart felt sigh. Running for 157 pages, this is a monstrous addition to the crabs series and one that cannot be ignored by all good splatter-punk fans and pulp horror enthusiasts. Gore drenched genius!
October 1, 2024
As I've continued my Guy N. Smith runthrough, I've kept this one very much in mind. For all that it was 'The Sucking Pit' that got that effusive Stephen King quote—"the all-time pulp horror classic title"—there were a lot of other reasons to remember that book. This one, with an arguably even more over the top title, tends to be remembered primarily, if not entirely, because of it. It was the fourth in Smith's signature series, but it was a new decade and his writing was evolving, as he took new approaches in books like 'Satan's Snowdrop', 'Doomflight' and 'Wolfcurse'. I had to find out if this one was another departure or whether it was just, well, crabs on the rampage.
Initially, it's very much just crabs on the rampage. The first chapter contains a mild attempt to give Ike Ballinger and Lorna Watson character before they're eaten by giant crabs, the former hunting bird eggs on the Wash and the latter taking her three year old to the beach at Wells-next-the-Sea. The second doesn't even give us names, merely impressions, as the giant crabs collapse the Sutton Bridge onto an incoming ship. It's quite the setpiece, but it's over in two pages.
And, with that, we know that there are two to three hundred giant crabs on one side, returning to our shores after their spawning trip to Australia in 'Killer Crabs'. On the other side, yes, there's an old friend, Prof. Cliff Davenport, who's been waiting for the phone call ever since he got back from Hayman Island three years earlier. While he hoped it would never come, it's almost a relief now it has. Back to work he goes, but Smith hobbles him immediately. No paraquat this time, as it would destroy the fishing industry. However, he does get a dead crab to inspect, because the suspension bridge crushed it when it came down.
And here's where the questions begin. This crab is riddled with boils, a huge malignant cancer that would have killed a less tough creature sooner. And, as more die from the disease, heading inland up river beds, where they would eventually die from the lack of salt water even if the cancer didn't take them first, Davenport has to ask why. He hasn't read 'The Origin of the Crabs', of course, so it only counts as speculation to him that they spawned in British waters, but are they returning only to die or are they out for revenge?
That question only intensifies when more arrive on the Welsh coast, in Barmouth and Shell Island, the original locations in 'Night of the Crabs', and the Severn estuary and other places. In fact, the book turns rather into a travelogue of locations that the crabs reach and wreak mayhem in. Some are famous landmarks, like Westminster Bridge, cunningly toppled by crabs to crush and trap, the people even easier to dismember in that state. Some, treats for loyal fans, are returns to haunts we recognise, like the Cranlarich Estate on Loch Merse, from 'The Origin of the Crabs', where the new laird has finally arrived, only to be eaten by a new batch of crabs.
Many are memorable because of the circumstances under which havoc erupts, like a birthday orgy in an ox-bow lake on the grounds of privileged Rex Astley-Middleton or a clash between rival triad gangs in London, fighting over a heroin shipment. All are eaten by giant crabs. For a while, it's like they're everywhere, taking over the country, eating everyone. Smith introduces us to a whole slew of new characters, from security guards to members of parliament, only to kill them off quickly as further fodder for the ravenous giant crabs. Given the cult success of 'Cocaine Bear' right now, it's clear that Smith missed out on his opportunity to give us 'Heroin Crab'.
I wonder what Smith was trying to do here. 'Night of the Crabs' was an original novel. a British-set monster movie from the fifties with a new giant enemy. 'Killer Crabs' was a thriller, a way to take a success and twist it into a different form, one that Smith had more interest to write. 'The Origin of the Crabs' didn't live up to its title but it was a fun return to his most successful series, without the need to bring anyone back because it was a prequel. This fourth book is the most obviously horror and the most obviously a sequel. It doesn't do anything new and it disappoints because of that.
A cynic would suggest that he was simply knocking out yet another book in a successful series for a straightforward cheque, but Smith had never done that before and, with more Crabs books still to come, still churned out original novel after original novel for much of his long career, finding a way into new genres and new takes on old ones. He never ran out of ideas. But this one does feel much like a filler title, with such an endless stream of characters who don't live long enough to get deep insight into what makes them tick, just pulp introductions before they're, well, pulped.
Maybe there's a note of sympathy for the villain in this one. That was an overt feature of 'Caracal', in which human beings were the real bad guys and the Indian big cat of the title was only living up to its nature in alien surroundings. Cliff Davenport points out something similar here to a corporal in Barmouth, that the crabs never asked to be mutated into giant form by radiation spilled by the illicit underwater nuclear testing of human beings. He still plans to take them all down and we are just not buying that suggestion of sympathy. Smith had painted them as evil and knowing too long.
As the book ran on, I wondered if Smith had just tired of writing about the crabs and saw this as an easy way to kill them off. That's backed up by a set of frequent cameos, not only Cliff Davenport, a relatively useless presence this time out, and his wife Pat, who he guiltily acknowledges he met in direct consequence of the crabs attacking the Welsh coast in 'Night of the Crabs', a positive result of a negative situation. But there's Blacklaw, the landlord of the Royal Stag in Cranlarich, who we saw lose his daughter in 'The Origin of the Crabs'. There's Col. Matthews, once more in Barmouth, as he was in 'Night of the Crabs' but believing this time. There's even Klin, the fisherman in 'Killer Crabs', who gets the epilogue, back on the island where they'd trapped the creatures.
Most crucially, there's a hint that's dropped twice by Prof. Davenport, that maybe the crabs aren't heading inland because they have somewhere to be—after all, he also drops the theory that there might a sort of Elephant's Graveyard thinking going on—but because they no longer want to be in the depths of the ocean. Could there be something else out there in the sea, that's been mutated by the very same nuclear testing, that's even more monstrous, that we haven't seen yet but must be a new level of threat to us if it even scares the almost unstoppable giant crab? On occasion, it's almost a set-up for a sequel that ups the ante by ditching the monster we know for a bigger one.
So this one is just there. During a period where Smith was notably experimenting, this was a firm step back into the same old same old with a half-hearted sequel that didn't have much reason for existing, if not to kill off the series once and for all. If that was the goal, of course, it succeeded as well as most attempts to kill off the unkillable. Smith was a Sherlock Holmes aficionado. He knew exactly how well that tends to work out. And a book with a title this memorable deserved more, I think.
Originally posted at the Nameless Zine in February 2023:
https://www.thenamelesszine.org/Voice...
Index of all my Nameless Zine reviews:
https://books.apocalypselaterempire.com/
Initially, it's very much just crabs on the rampage. The first chapter contains a mild attempt to give Ike Ballinger and Lorna Watson character before they're eaten by giant crabs, the former hunting bird eggs on the Wash and the latter taking her three year old to the beach at Wells-next-the-Sea. The second doesn't even give us names, merely impressions, as the giant crabs collapse the Sutton Bridge onto an incoming ship. It's quite the setpiece, but it's over in two pages.
And, with that, we know that there are two to three hundred giant crabs on one side, returning to our shores after their spawning trip to Australia in 'Killer Crabs'. On the other side, yes, there's an old friend, Prof. Cliff Davenport, who's been waiting for the phone call ever since he got back from Hayman Island three years earlier. While he hoped it would never come, it's almost a relief now it has. Back to work he goes, but Smith hobbles him immediately. No paraquat this time, as it would destroy the fishing industry. However, he does get a dead crab to inspect, because the suspension bridge crushed it when it came down.
And here's where the questions begin. This crab is riddled with boils, a huge malignant cancer that would have killed a less tough creature sooner. And, as more die from the disease, heading inland up river beds, where they would eventually die from the lack of salt water even if the cancer didn't take them first, Davenport has to ask why. He hasn't read 'The Origin of the Crabs', of course, so it only counts as speculation to him that they spawned in British waters, but are they returning only to die or are they out for revenge?
That question only intensifies when more arrive on the Welsh coast, in Barmouth and Shell Island, the original locations in 'Night of the Crabs', and the Severn estuary and other places. In fact, the book turns rather into a travelogue of locations that the crabs reach and wreak mayhem in. Some are famous landmarks, like Westminster Bridge, cunningly toppled by crabs to crush and trap, the people even easier to dismember in that state. Some, treats for loyal fans, are returns to haunts we recognise, like the Cranlarich Estate on Loch Merse, from 'The Origin of the Crabs', where the new laird has finally arrived, only to be eaten by a new batch of crabs.
Many are memorable because of the circumstances under which havoc erupts, like a birthday orgy in an ox-bow lake on the grounds of privileged Rex Astley-Middleton or a clash between rival triad gangs in London, fighting over a heroin shipment. All are eaten by giant crabs. For a while, it's like they're everywhere, taking over the country, eating everyone. Smith introduces us to a whole slew of new characters, from security guards to members of parliament, only to kill them off quickly as further fodder for the ravenous giant crabs. Given the cult success of 'Cocaine Bear' right now, it's clear that Smith missed out on his opportunity to give us 'Heroin Crab'.
I wonder what Smith was trying to do here. 'Night of the Crabs' was an original novel. a British-set monster movie from the fifties with a new giant enemy. 'Killer Crabs' was a thriller, a way to take a success and twist it into a different form, one that Smith had more interest to write. 'The Origin of the Crabs' didn't live up to its title but it was a fun return to his most successful series, without the need to bring anyone back because it was a prequel. This fourth book is the most obviously horror and the most obviously a sequel. It doesn't do anything new and it disappoints because of that.
A cynic would suggest that he was simply knocking out yet another book in a successful series for a straightforward cheque, but Smith had never done that before and, with more Crabs books still to come, still churned out original novel after original novel for much of his long career, finding a way into new genres and new takes on old ones. He never ran out of ideas. But this one does feel much like a filler title, with such an endless stream of characters who don't live long enough to get deep insight into what makes them tick, just pulp introductions before they're, well, pulped.
Maybe there's a note of sympathy for the villain in this one. That was an overt feature of 'Caracal', in which human beings were the real bad guys and the Indian big cat of the title was only living up to its nature in alien surroundings. Cliff Davenport points out something similar here to a corporal in Barmouth, that the crabs never asked to be mutated into giant form by radiation spilled by the illicit underwater nuclear testing of human beings. He still plans to take them all down and we are just not buying that suggestion of sympathy. Smith had painted them as evil and knowing too long.
As the book ran on, I wondered if Smith had just tired of writing about the crabs and saw this as an easy way to kill them off. That's backed up by a set of frequent cameos, not only Cliff Davenport, a relatively useless presence this time out, and his wife Pat, who he guiltily acknowledges he met in direct consequence of the crabs attacking the Welsh coast in 'Night of the Crabs', a positive result of a negative situation. But there's Blacklaw, the landlord of the Royal Stag in Cranlarich, who we saw lose his daughter in 'The Origin of the Crabs'. There's Col. Matthews, once more in Barmouth, as he was in 'Night of the Crabs' but believing this time. There's even Klin, the fisherman in 'Killer Crabs', who gets the epilogue, back on the island where they'd trapped the creatures.
Most crucially, there's a hint that's dropped twice by Prof. Davenport, that maybe the crabs aren't heading inland because they have somewhere to be—after all, he also drops the theory that there might a sort of Elephant's Graveyard thinking going on—but because they no longer want to be in the depths of the ocean. Could there be something else out there in the sea, that's been mutated by the very same nuclear testing, that's even more monstrous, that we haven't seen yet but must be a new level of threat to us if it even scares the almost unstoppable giant crab? On occasion, it's almost a set-up for a sequel that ups the ante by ditching the monster we know for a bigger one.
So this one is just there. During a period where Smith was notably experimenting, this was a firm step back into the same old same old with a half-hearted sequel that didn't have much reason for existing, if not to kill off the series once and for all. If that was the goal, of course, it succeeded as well as most attempts to kill off the unkillable. Smith was a Sherlock Holmes aficionado. He knew exactly how well that tends to work out. And a book with a title this memorable deserved more, I think.
Originally posted at the Nameless Zine in February 2023:
https://www.thenamelesszine.org/Voice...
Index of all my Nameless Zine reviews:
https://books.apocalypselaterempire.com/
April 19, 2021
This book was mostly vignettes of unrelated people getting killed by crabs.
How many times do we need read about people knowing about the crab danger, going near the water and then either being inmobilized with shock while the crabs feast on them it going insane while the crabs feast on them.
3 stars because the story flowed a little better and for the absence of the obiquitous oversexed woman that has shown up in every book of the series so far.
How many times do we need read about people knowing about the crab danger, going near the water and then either being inmobilized with shock while the crabs feast on them it going insane while the crabs feast on them.
3 stars because the story flowed a little better and for the absence of the obiquitous oversexed woman that has shown up in every book of the series so far.
November 8, 2007
Not a very good book about Crabs being on a rampage. I wouldn't recommend it.
June 16, 2015
I have to give this book three stars. It's called "Crabs on the Rampage" and that's exactly what it's about!
August 28, 2017
This is less of a good-natured rampage, and more of a full-blown revolution.
August 4, 2025
HILARIOUS!!!
The people kept saying that the crabs were making these huge attacks and planning to take out mankind, but they never attacked more than a handful of people at a time. And those people just happened to be in the water. The crabs never even went to populated areas… the dumb humans came to them for the slaughter! 😂🤷🏼♀️
The kills were great fun! Stellar B-movie gore.
I didn’t care about a single character in this book and I wasn’t supposed to.
The beginning of EVERY chapter introduces you to a new character and the end of EVERY chapter shows them being eaten by the crabs. It was great! 😂😂😂
The humans didn’t even bother trying to figure out a way to kill the damn things. They were just hoping a disease would magically kill them off quickly 😂
The government has the means to kill the crabs… but they DON’T! 😂😂😂
At one point, the Prime Minister makes an announcement stating that they have an effective poison, but they’re just not gonna use it. Then in the next sentence he says, and I quote “we will do everything in our power to protect human life”….. except kill the fucking crabs 😂😂😂
And then, in the end, the crabs just DIE. That’s it. And to be fair, they only killed a handful of people through the entire book, and I’m assuming then entire series has been the same.
I thought for sure that the radiation and “cancer” that was killing the crabs wasn’t actually killing them. I thought FOR SURE they were mutating and that the carcasses were just incubation pods.
Nope. Nothing. Just dead.
Man… that sucked.
I have not read any of the other books in this series and to be honest, I don’t think I need to. You get everything you need to know by the title. These are NOT deep books.
Having said all of that, one major negative is that the author’s personal agenda was shoved down your throat and I didn’t like the way it was done at all.
The people kept saying that the crabs were making these huge attacks and planning to take out mankind, but they never attacked more than a handful of people at a time. And those people just happened to be in the water. The crabs never even went to populated areas… the dumb humans came to them for the slaughter! 😂🤷🏼♀️
The kills were great fun! Stellar B-movie gore.
I didn’t care about a single character in this book and I wasn’t supposed to.
The beginning of EVERY chapter introduces you to a new character and the end of EVERY chapter shows them being eaten by the crabs. It was great! 😂😂😂
The humans didn’t even bother trying to figure out a way to kill the damn things. They were just hoping a disease would magically kill them off quickly 😂
The government has the means to kill the crabs… but they DON’T! 😂😂😂
At one point, the Prime Minister makes an announcement stating that they have an effective poison, but they’re just not gonna use it. Then in the next sentence he says, and I quote “we will do everything in our power to protect human life”….. except kill the fucking crabs 😂😂😂
And then, in the end, the crabs just DIE. That’s it. And to be fair, they only killed a handful of people through the entire book, and I’m assuming then entire series has been the same.
I thought for sure that the radiation and “cancer” that was killing the crabs wasn’t actually killing them. I thought FOR SURE they were mutating and that the carcasses were just incubation pods.
Nope. Nothing. Just dead.
Man… that sucked.
I have not read any of the other books in this series and to be honest, I don’t think I need to. You get everything you need to know by the title. These are NOT deep books.
Having said all of that, one major negative is that the author’s personal agenda was shoved down your throat and I didn’t like the way it was done at all.
September 13, 2025
Guy N. Smith's monstrous crabs are back - bigger, more vicious, more deadly and more flesh-hungry than ever. Dying from cancer caused by the undersea nuclear testing that created them in the first place, the crabs go into an uncontrollable rage and set their minds to revenge on mankind. They invade different parts of Britain including London and are soon destroying communities, bridges, tunnels and anything else that lies in their path. Tweedy, pipe-smoking hero Cliff Davenport returns, but given the multiple crab invasions he has little insight into how to stop the rampage. As the cancer begins to kill off the crabs he theorises as to why they are leaving the ocean and surmises that there may be an even greater mutated creature in the depths that is striking fear into the hate-filled crabs. "Crabs on the Rampage" is a splatter-fest from beginning to end. Smith goes from one outrageous sequence to the next piling outrage on outrage in a gore drenched plot line that does little to add to the overall crabs mythos established in the first three books - but is hugely entertaining for all that. The story becomes increasingly self-referential with sub-plots involving Loch Merse, Shell Beach, Hayman Island and the tough-guy fisherman Klin - all of which featured in each of the preceding three books. The writing remains clean and smooth; character development remains limited to non-existent and the overall length of the novel remains compact at 150 odd pages. There's little new in "Crabs on the Rampage", but it is still great fun - a short, sharp blast of giant monster pulp lunacy.
March 25, 2024
Click-click-clickety-click. The crabs are coming for you!
This was pure pulp fiction. Blood, guts, sex, and lust. It was basically a succession of chapters in which characters are introduced, you are given an intimate insight into their lives and then they are brutally murdered by giant killer crabs.
Guy N. Smith does a good job creating vivid scenes through his writing and birthing a unique spattering of poignant characters.
Overall it was enjoyable to read. I think I loved the idea of giant killer crabs more than the book itself though. (This was my first read of Smith's and it was not chronologically selected from the Crabs series.)
This was pure pulp fiction. Blood, guts, sex, and lust. It was basically a succession of chapters in which characters are introduced, you are given an intimate insight into their lives and then they are brutally murdered by giant killer crabs.
Guy N. Smith does a good job creating vivid scenes through his writing and birthing a unique spattering of poignant characters.
Overall it was enjoyable to read. I think I loved the idea of giant killer crabs more than the book itself though. (This was my first read of Smith's and it was not chronologically selected from the Crabs series.)
May 15, 2025
This, the fourth book in the Crabs series, is my favorite so far. The story moves quickly and tells many stories of people from all walks of life and how they met their ends when the crabs attacked. But this time there are some changes. The crabs have adapted to fresh water and are able to get far inland via rivers. And they are dying. All the dead crabs are found to have died of cancer. But does that make it the end of the crabs saga? Well, there are four more books in the series, so the answer is no. The question is, what will come next?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 6, 2019
Crabby
I am under no illusion that this is a great piece of literature. I am under no illusion that it is not so politically incorrect as to almost be a parody of political correctness. I know that this is a blatant advert for the next book. But it’s also a cracking page turner that takes me back to my youth
I am under no illusion that this is a great piece of literature. I am under no illusion that it is not so politically incorrect as to almost be a parody of political correctness. I know that this is a blatant advert for the next book. But it’s also a cracking page turner that takes me back to my youth
July 1, 2024
This one lacks the overall narrative the others have had in the series, so far. I still enjoyed it just as much. It's basically a collection of short stories of different groups of people encountering the crabs across the UK. I think it gives a good sense of the terror and scope of the crabs invasion, upping the ante compared to previous books that were focused on one location. It's a fun read. Exactly what I hoped for from this kind of book.
August 15, 2017
Weakest of the series so far. Some great scenes, but all felt a little disjointed. People are introduced just to be killed off, and The over-arching plot just fizzles out. A shame, as I've really enjoyed the series so far. Hopefully the next one is back on form.
December 17, 2022
Excellent and very gory 5 star because ok!
July 7, 2023
Not my favorite Crabs entry. Still gruesome and scary though!
December 6, 2023
Giant mutated crustaceans reeking havoc across England. Another episode in the crab series by Guy N. Smith. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water. Loved it!
June 14, 2025
if you meet a new character, be sure to look forward to their death.
September 9, 2025
Getting a bit boring now. Nice cover on my copy though. So if you buy books for the cover, rather than what is inside, this might tickle your fancy.
August 8, 2019
I am up to the 8th Crab book in the series and I made the mistake of not writing the review while the story was fresh in my mind. The 4th book is moving to the east coast and the crabs are riddled with Cancer, hinting at their origins. Mutation from some nuclear experiment. What gets me though is why are they more intelligent. No where is it mentioned that their brains have evolved. But its best not to overthink the series to much. Its just pure unadulterated pulp horror.
A theme of Guy N smith likes of Hunting, guns and pipes prevail in certain characters. Also its funny when some of his characters start moaning in their heads about certain issues. Some perception seem to have not changed at all.
I am sorry if I have mixed up parts of the story with our novel in the crab series, but although some set piece show some great imagination, the novels are petty similar. I think this is also where are author starts showing the action in the marshy Washes of East England.
The authors style is growing on me and for all its faults I am having lots of fun reading the series.
A theme of Guy N smith likes of Hunting, guns and pipes prevail in certain characters. Also its funny when some of his characters start moaning in their heads about certain issues. Some perception seem to have not changed at all.
I am sorry if I have mixed up parts of the story with our novel in the crab series, but although some set piece show some great imagination, the novels are petty similar. I think this is also where are author starts showing the action in the marshy Washes of East England.
The authors style is growing on me and for all its faults I am having lots of fun reading the series.
September 28, 2007
Okay, here's what I learned based on this book and reading Guy N. Smith's website at http://www.guynsmith.com/css-nav-2.php
First of all there are three other Crabs books that have not been released in America. All the books are, in order that they were written:
Night of The Crabs, 1976
Killer Crabs, 1978
Origin of The Crabs, 1979
Crabs on The Rampage, 1981
Night of The Crabs 2: Crabs' Moon, 1984
Crabs: The Human Sacrifice, 1988
As far as I can tell only three were published in America, out of order. They are:
The Origin of The Crabs
Crabs' Moon
Crabs on The Rampage
Now here's the thing. The first two books are basically a series of shittily strung together vinettes about hateable people being eaten alive by the giant crabs and begging to die, with some sex thrown in for "interest." Crabs on The Rampage actually introduces some story, even if only a little. There is a scientist who apparently has fought the crabs in the past using paraquat and nuclear weapons, along with some other people who are unnamed. The crabs have been beaten before, and these people are experienced in fighting them, even though conventional weapons have little effect on them. The crabs apparently were created by Russian nuclear weapons tests in the ocean somewhere, but we won't attempt to explain that.
This time the crabs have a new activity besides dismembering adulterers and sadists and random children and sucking their intestines down like spaghetti. They are intelligent enough to hate human beings for turning them into mutated monsters, and also for causing them all to die slowly of bubbling, oozing, puss dripping cancer. Yes, cancer. How ironic. So they're on a last ditch effort to invade land and take revenge on humans before they die. As if they weren't doing that before. Now there's a motivation, of sorts. I guess.
Despite these elements of a STORY, nothing the humans actually do matters because, ala H.G. Wells, the crabs just end up dying on their own anyway in the end.
Yeah, I'm pretty harsh on these books, but I wonder if the sadistic portrayals of human dismemberment and purulent descriptions of random sex could have been a bit more forgivable if I had read the other three books. From the last one, there seemed to have been some "plot" that takes place in them. Perhaps the American publishers, between coke-fueled pedophilia bouts, thought that would just be too confusing for the people in flyover land since they're too busy driving their tractors to church and fucking farm animals. Guy Smith actually seems like he could be a halfway decent writer if he would stick to the detailed images of the outdoors and wildlife that, having read his biography, he obviously enjoys very much and has much personal experience with and love for. That stuff's not bad ... until the crabs show up and flay the skin and genitalia from whatever asshole was introduced this chapter.
Oh yeah, that, and when you bring a British book to America you don't have to go through it with a word processor and replace every incidence of the word "pound" with "dollar." I think we all understand that they use different currency over there. Thanks, Dell publishing. Thanks for nothing. Where do I go to get 20 hours of my life back?
That having been said, if you enjoy pain, read these books. My new goal is to find those other three and abuse my brain some more in the vain hope that there may be something redeeming in them.
Oh, who am I kidding? I'm going to slit my wrists now. The long way.
First of all there are three other Crabs books that have not been released in America. All the books are, in order that they were written:
Night of The Crabs, 1976
Killer Crabs, 1978
Origin of The Crabs, 1979
Crabs on The Rampage, 1981
Night of The Crabs 2: Crabs' Moon, 1984
Crabs: The Human Sacrifice, 1988
As far as I can tell only three were published in America, out of order. They are:
The Origin of The Crabs
Crabs' Moon
Crabs on The Rampage
Now here's the thing. The first two books are basically a series of shittily strung together vinettes about hateable people being eaten alive by the giant crabs and begging to die, with some sex thrown in for "interest." Crabs on The Rampage actually introduces some story, even if only a little. There is a scientist who apparently has fought the crabs in the past using paraquat and nuclear weapons, along with some other people who are unnamed. The crabs have been beaten before, and these people are experienced in fighting them, even though conventional weapons have little effect on them. The crabs apparently were created by Russian nuclear weapons tests in the ocean somewhere, but we won't attempt to explain that.
This time the crabs have a new activity besides dismembering adulterers and sadists and random children and sucking their intestines down like spaghetti. They are intelligent enough to hate human beings for turning them into mutated monsters, and also for causing them all to die slowly of bubbling, oozing, puss dripping cancer. Yes, cancer. How ironic. So they're on a last ditch effort to invade land and take revenge on humans before they die. As if they weren't doing that before. Now there's a motivation, of sorts. I guess.
Despite these elements of a STORY, nothing the humans actually do matters because, ala H.G. Wells, the crabs just end up dying on their own anyway in the end.
Yeah, I'm pretty harsh on these books, but I wonder if the sadistic portrayals of human dismemberment and purulent descriptions of random sex could have been a bit more forgivable if I had read the other three books. From the last one, there seemed to have been some "plot" that takes place in them. Perhaps the American publishers, between coke-fueled pedophilia bouts, thought that would just be too confusing for the people in flyover land since they're too busy driving their tractors to church and fucking farm animals. Guy Smith actually seems like he could be a halfway decent writer if he would stick to the detailed images of the outdoors and wildlife that, having read his biography, he obviously enjoys very much and has much personal experience with and love for. That stuff's not bad ... until the crabs show up and flay the skin and genitalia from whatever asshole was introduced this chapter.
Oh yeah, that, and when you bring a British book to America you don't have to go through it with a word processor and replace every incidence of the word "pound" with "dollar." I think we all understand that they use different currency over there. Thanks, Dell publishing. Thanks for nothing. Where do I go to get 20 hours of my life back?
That having been said, if you enjoy pain, read these books. My new goal is to find those other three and abuse my brain some more in the vain hope that there may be something redeeming in them.
Oh, who am I kidding? I'm going to slit my wrists now. The long way.
September 4, 2015
Absolutely brilliant. Couldn't help but picture Garth Marenghi as Cliff Davenport and all of the small stories depicting the rampaging crabs throughout the UK summarising the authors personal views, from single mothers being generally looked down upon by society to boats passing through rising bridges generally bring a pain in the bum. I can picture the author, stuck in traffic at such a bridge one day, cursing the thing while plotting his revenge the only way he knows how.
Read with a glacier of salt, and make sure you read the dialogue in your head. So so funny.
I loved the bit where Cliff is facing off against one of the crabs. His shirt gets torn and he falls down into the mud. Can't help thinking the authors thought trail during this chapter was "yes, a bit of male nudity, give the ladies what they want".
Read with a glacier of salt, and make sure you read the dialogue in your head. So so funny.
I loved the bit where Cliff is facing off against one of the crabs. His shirt gets torn and he falls down into the mud. Can't help thinking the authors thought trail during this chapter was "yes, a bit of male nudity, give the ladies what they want".
June 14, 2016
I'm giving it four stars even though it probably deserves five. I really enjoyed it and it definitely lives up to the title.
I gave it four stars due to the fact that compared to The Origin of the Crabs, which was full of character depth, this really was just a relenting bloodbath of crabs eating people. Fantastic, but just a little too drastically different for my taste.
I gave it four stars due to the fact that compared to The Origin of the Crabs, which was full of character depth, this really was just a relenting bloodbath of crabs eating people. Fantastic, but just a little too drastically different for my taste.
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