The Morgow Rises!

by Peter Tremayne

Beware when the Morgow rises;
Lament for the living.
Lament for the unborn.
All things end!

Billy Scawen and his son, Jack are local fisherman of the sleepy coastal, Cornish village of Bosbradoe.

This season, the fishing has been particularly bad.

What could be causing this shortage of fish?

Twenty-five years ago, Billy had skippered a trawler out of Penzance. That had been in the days when the Cornish fishing fleet was a force to be reckoned with.

Without protection for native fishermen, the Cornish seas were being farmed bare by the factory trawlers from upcountry, from France and even from the Soviet Union.

This meant the locals had to go further and further afield just to make their living.

While out to sea, aboard their ship, Ysolt IV, Billy and Jack have no choice but to explore further to find a decent haul.

Suddenly, something hard seemed to smash into the underside of the boat. The waters around them seemed to erupt. Billy Scawen’s mouth dropped open in horror, the briar pipe falling to the boards and smashing to pieces.

Then young Jack Scawen gave one long, piercing shriek of terror…



Praise for Peter Tremayne:


“Mesmeric stuff.” - The Times

“Tremayne is bloody good!” - Penthouse

“Peter Tremayne is established as one of Britain’s leading horror fantasy writers." - Retail Newsagent

“He brings to the writing of fantasy detail and dedication…scrupulous skill…” - Space Voyager

“Tremayne weaves no less engrossing tales than Edgar Allan Poe.” - Ashbury Park Press

Peter Tremayne is the fiction writing pseudonym of the Celtic scholar and author Peter Berresford Ellis. Peter Berresford Ellis is a historian, literary biographer and novelist who has published over 90 books to date under his own name and that of his pseudonyms Peter Tremayne and Peter MacAlan. He has also published 95 short stories. His non-fiction books, articles and academic papers have made him acknowledged as one of the foremost authorities on Celtic history and culture. His other work with Venture Press is Nicor!.

Genres: Horror

183 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Peter Berresford Ellis (born 10 March 1943) is a historian, literary biographer, and novelist who has published over 90 books to date either under his own name or his pseudonyms Peter Tremayne and Peter MacAlan. He has also published 95 short stories. His non-fiction books, articles and academic papers have made him acknowledged as an authority on Celtic history and culture. As Peter Tremayne, he is the author of the international bestselling Sister Fidelma mystery series. His work has appeared in 25 languages.

Reviews

[Warren Fournier · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the things I like to do when watching or reading anything in the horror genre is to pick out the cliches. And boy, this novel is crammed full of them.

Cliche #1: Creepy old person who serves as a portent of doom. This is kind of a way to write in some exposition--in this case, we have an old lady who is a witch, so she has some uncanny powers to know everything that's going on. However, this character is poorly utilized. Her presence doesn't affect the plot at all.

Cliche #2: A monster from ancient legend. In this book, people living in a place supposedly haunted by a mythical creature that nobody has ever seen suddenly find out the monster is real at the same time that all hell breaks loose. This relates to the creepy old person trope--the wise elderly characters who have some connection to the beast, the stereotypical wise old farts who know all about the ancient legends, giving cryptic warnings that no one believes because they purposefully act like people everyone wants to stay the hell away from. But their supposed foreknowledge is inconsequential, as they are usually one of the first characters to get eaten, which always makes me wonder why writers even bother investing so much time in building up a mysterious character only to have them prematurely dispatched before they play any significant role in events. So much for clairvoyance. "Oh, Mighty One, bringer of death, he who was foretold, hear ye your faithful servant--AAAARRRGGGHHG!!!"

Cliches #3 and 4: Nuclear waste explains everything. Since The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Godzilla, nuclear waste has been the catalytic macguffin from everything to giant man-eaters to zombies. I don't suppose it's much of a spoiler to say that such is the case here. And a corrupt, incompetent government trying to cover it up to boot. I guess that makes two tropes.

Cliche #5: Sex kills. Horror loves to paint at least one of the female characters as some kind of tramp, which means they are sure to be lunch. This novel doesn't subvert expectations in this department.

Cliche #6: Love is in the air. Usually, this involves the main protagonists, who find that through the course of their ordeal, they come to rely on each other and love each other. And so that is what we have here. I don't mind that, because I guess I'm romantic enough to want a little hope in my horror, some promise that our main characters will get together, that something good can come out of an awful situation. But it's cheesy, especially when you don't otherwise understand the attraction. And here, you don't. The male lead, Neville, is an absolute tool, talking down to the heroine, Claire, during their first date by man-splaining the history of the town and calling her "my dear girl." You ain't Peter Cushing, bozo. But Claire is not a very interesting person either. We don't get any sense of who she is or her motivation. The author hardly gives her any dialogue, nor does he write her as having much emotional reaction to the events of the plot. She is the definition of a wooden character. Speaking of characters...

Cliche #7: Stupid characters. Those of you who've read my reviews before know that one of my pet peeves regarding storytelling is when you make characters do overly contrived things to move the plot along, or to create some peril or cannon fodder. I normally can suspend my disbelief quite well. Giant monsters trampling Tokyo again? Absolutely. Spaceships having a dog-fight over a distant planet in a galaxy far, far away? I'm down. But I just lose all investment in the survival of a moron who goes down into a creepy basement by themselves with no light and no weapon, perpetually announcing their presence by calling out to the darkness, "Hello? Is anyone there? This ain't funny. I'll kick your ass. Hello? Who's there?" Yes, there's a creepy basement in this story, and yes, someone goes down there in the dark to fix the fuses or some lazy nonsense. There is also an old mine where bad things keep happening, yet people keep finding reasons (dumb ones) to go into the maze of shafts constantly, with predictable results. We also have a scene where Claire is attacked by the monster and she runs screaming to Neville's house, in her nightgown of course. Now, let's assume there is no giant monster involved, and think about this very realistic scenario. How would someone who wasn't a character cooked up by a pulp fiction author really respond? If I answered the door to someone hysterical, scratched up, and who clearly ran for her life barefoot in a nightgown, the first thing I'd do is briefly assess what dangers may be following right behind her, call the cops, and find a defensive weapon. But what does Neville do? He tells her to sit down on the couch first while he makes a spot of tea, promising "and then you can tell me all about it." Tea? This obviously isn't a social call, "my dear boy"! And she's not a sulking 12-year-old coming to you for advice about mean Tweets or something, so you don't need to treat her like she is making a mountain out of a molehill. There could be a killer chasing her and about to bust down your door to stick a machete up that clenched butthole of yours any minute. And it would serve you right.

Cliche #8: The first one to see the monster is not believed. That's because they are usually a kid. Or a drunk. Or a crazy homeless person. Or perhaps they are perfectly credible, but the story just sounds too far-fetched to believe, unless, of course, the character is in a tokusatsu film. In this story, the first person to see the monster and live is a boy. When he tells his father he saw a sea monster, he is dismissed as having an active imagination, even though the townsfolk where this novel is set are very superstitious and tend to believe in a local legend of such a monster. In addition, for some reason the press instantly decide to crawl all over the place thinking there's a good scoop to be had based on this one kid's testimony. There must not have been a lot of news coming out of Cornwall for that kind of reaction from reporters. But anyway, this leads perfectly into the next trope.

Cliche #9: Useless parents. The aforementioned kid is not believed when he tries to tell his father about a monster, but is also so scared shitless of him that when the boy later sees a reporter get eaten, he casually just keeps it to himself so that his father doesn't think he was talking to the press. The kid doesn't seem traumatized by seeing a giant creature eat a fellow human being. Nope. All he cares about his ditching school and his father's belt. Dad of the year.

Cliche #10: Horror writers love their booze. So naturally, their characters love it too. This novel takes place in Cornwall, and therefore much of the action centers in and around a pub. There's lots of pints being pulled. Even a Campari and soda. All courtesy of a helpful village innkeeper who mostly just stands around polishing glassware and calling the main character "Miss." If this had been a Hammer film, he'd have been played by Michael Ripper.

So as you can see, we are in such familiar territory as to the point of farce. But this novel is not self-aware enough to serve as any kind of meta-commentary. Still, horror cliches can be effective if handled by a skillful writer. So is that the case here?

Unfortunately no. These formulaic plot devices were getting tired even in 1982 when this book was first published, and there is nothing in this story or in the prose that makes anything stand out above the 200-some-odd pages of mediocrity. That being said, there is something kind of charming and comforting about books like this. If you are a voracious consumer of horror, you will feel right at home with this book and have a good time, especially if you enjoy creature features like I do. I didn't find the book to be particularly scary, but it did tickle my chronic thalassophobia and lightly stimulated some latent speluncaphobia.

But if you want something that'll push the boundaries of the genre, to thrill you with intense scares or gory carnage, to challenge you intellectually, or to simply give you a few WTF moments from sheer balls or eccentricity, this isn't it. Pick this one up if you are in the mood for light reading and some old-fashioned monster mayhem.

SCORE: 2.5, rounded to 3 cliches out of 5

[GD · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently no one has read this book or even heard of it, so I guess I am a pioneer! This is one of the worst writers ever. The plot is really stupid, there's not even a lot of gore, it's just lame.l But the reason I gave ti two stars is I have never read a book that was so perfectly suited to be a movie. The book has parts where "He turned and his face a ssumed a look of pure terror and fear, and then the black night was filled with shrieks." Just like movie! My favorite part:
" 'Christ, skipper, look at those things? What in hell are they?'

Carrington blinked and stared.

'Hell is the right word, Mike,' he muttered. 'They look like a chorus line from the infernal region.'"

[chucklesthescot · Rating 2 out of 5]

A cornish fishing town is under attack from an ancient mythical monster, attacking both the people exploring the flooded caverns and fishermen out on the water. Claire is visiting her eccentric uncle who has become one of the missing and teams up with the local police and a flamboyant author living in the town. This should have been a good book. I was interested in the cornish setting and the legend of this morgow creature but the idea being good was as far as it went for me. The novelist character was so annoying that my eye-rolling reached new levels. He is supposed to be trying to get involved with Claire but he talks to her as if she is a dumb kid. He continually refers to her as 'child', lectures her pompously on food, cars, history and anything else he can think of and orders her food for her as he knows EVERYTHING about Cornish food, didn't you know? Ugh, he is so annoying.

The writing itself is really weird. I haven't met real people who talk the way these characters talk, using strange word choices and flowery language. It was pretty long winded and dull, focusing on Claire and author boy's dull conversations and the obligatory weird old witch cackling and telling everyone that they are doomed. We also get a burst of cornish poetry from a searcher as the search party enters the tunnels which was a bit odd. The actual search is described in a couple of dull paragraphs but we get pages of Claire and her date discussing food and other things not relevant to the plot. There is just too much focus on the people in the town and not enough on the actual monster. Even the few attacks mentioned weren't tense or scary and there wasn't much detail. I wasn't impressed by the lack of depth in the plot, the dull characters, or the old fashioned and flowery language and writing. Not my thing at all and I won't try anything else by the author.

[Bookgasms Book Blog · Rating 2 out of 5]

So I finished the book, and had no trouble doing so. That's the only thing that bumps the rating up as high as it is. The concept should have been awesome. The settings were well plotted. From the rural countryside with its unique collection of small town neighbors to the old mine and its mysteries. How the monsters came about was even a well done, if overused, plot device.

Yet, there was something else going on that just made this only tolerable to read. The characters were all over the place in their actions, their opinions, their emotions. From insta-hate to insta love, noble sacrifice to unnecessary risks. Nobody was safe from the monsters, yet it was difficult to care since none of the characters had made any real impression on me. There was just way too much going on, and not nearly enough substance. ~George

[Veronica · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Morgow Rises" by Peter Tremayne is basically a story about giant creatures threatening a small village. It was enough that I finished the book but I wish there had been more background, and character development. The format is great for cozy novels but I like my horror books to have a bit more depth. I think the book could have gone farther than it did. It felt like this was an early experiment in this genre and I suspect the author is one who gets better and better with time.
I received a copy of this book from the publishers via Netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review.

[Richard Bush · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars for a two star book? Please explain?
Ok. Back in the 1970s I read mostly science fiction, by the 1980s I'd moved on to horror and believe me in the 80s there was a plethora of what would be called back in the 1920/30/40s Pulp horror fiction. Many of these authors would move on by either, as in the case of the late James Herbert, refining their craft and becoming less pulp or as in the case of Peter Tremayne moving on to writing historical whodunits featuring a crime solving nun in the dark ages. This was the second Peter Tremayne book I read and I remember as a young man enjoying it immensely, rereading it older and wiser I now see it for what it is, however the two extra stars are for nostalgia for a happier time in my life.
Peter Tremayne of course is the pen name of historian and academic Peter Beresford Ellis who is an expert on Celtic history and often draws upon this in his books. (I really wish someone would reissue his SF/Fantasy Lan-Kern books again!). In this, very much a pulp horror, he again draws on Celtic/Cornish legend for a story that takes an unexpected more Science Fiction turn and the result is that the creatures have less to do with Cornish legend and more to do with man's interference with nature.
So is it any good?
Well I suggest you read it yourself but be prepared to be disappointed by a formulaic pulp horror story.

[Joyce · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars

Billy and Jack Scawen are retrieving their lobster pots from the water when the sea starts to bubble around them. Something comes out of the water after hitting the bottom of the boat. Jack screams. The wreckage of their dinghy is found later.

There was one thing I found a little irritating. When using a nickname in a story, one puts quote marks around the name the first time ones uses it. After that, the quote marks are not necessary. The constant use of quote marks around “Happy’s” name sort of drove me mad. But then I felt bad because Happy met such an end.

Peter Tremayne writes this book in a tongue-in-cheek manner that one cannot take the book seriously. I don’t know if this was his intention or not. The writing itself was a little simplistic, as was the plotting. All in all not a very good little book.

I want to thank Netgalley and Endeavour Press for forwarding to me a copy of this book to read.

[Sandra Knapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this story, and if I had not been so confused by the way it was presented, I would happily have given the Author 5 stars, because the story was that good, IMHO.

The problem everything ran together. I don`t know who the proof-readers were, but they did not do this book any favors. One minute we are walking down the road and in the very next sentence I am somewhere else entirely, and the conversation is between totally different people. No warning or even a new chapter to show the we were turning a corner or changing locations. It was very annoying, and as I said earlier, confusing. I was constantly being caught up on a short thread, shaking my head and trying to re-organize my thoughts to be where the story wanted me.

Still, it was a very interesting story, there was a lot of tension and mystery, like there should be in any good "monster" tale, and even with the bad editing or bad proof reading, I would still recommend it if you like this kind of Creature Feature tale.

[Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very much below par attempt at horror that randomly lurches from one scene to the next. Lacklustre characters with trite and thoroughly predicable situations, ticking every box in the trope list. I've been kind with two stars because it's quite dated, but that's no excuse for the writing. Whoever designed the cover didn't bother to read the book, as the creature bears no resemblance to what the 'monster' eventually turns out to be. Think along the lines of James Herbert, Shaun Hutson, or even Guy N. Smith, but without any good bits. The author also fails to explain the behaviour of the creatures - it's utterly ludicrous, but going into any detail would give it away.

[Laura Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Over fishing forces the fishermen of the Cornish village of Bosbradoe to venture further and further out to sea to find fish. On one such trip a man and his son are attacked in their boat. A giant leviathan from the depths of the ocean has risen. It’s angry. It’s hungry. It could be unstoppable.

A quick read, though a bit slow to really get into the meat of the story. I liked the Morgow. An interesting legend and new to me. That’s always intriguing.

Take a good look at the cover. Doesn’t that look like a giant piranha? i would have liked more scenes with the monster but this was still a fun read.

[Briana · Rating 2 out of 5]

*I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review*

I started reading this book and I found a LOT of slang that I didn't understand and it made the book very hard for me to get into and enjoy.
I really enjoy books about creatures and I thought that the creatures in this book were creepy, but I wish there had been better descriptions of them, instead of just dark shadows, or black blobs.
Overall, I enjoyed the idea of this book, but I found it to be a little lacking.

[Sieglinde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something is lurking in Cornwall. An apparent boat accident claims two lives, an elderly man goes missing in the local mine, an eccentric old woman warns of impending doom, a brief and minor earthquake strikes, and soon the body count starts to rise. The residents and visitors to the village of Bosdradoe are divided on whether or not the mythological creature Morgow exists, but what they find proves to be much worse than any of them could have imagined in their wildest nightmares.

[Polly Krize · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Although I had never heard of author Peter Tremayne before, I decided to give him a try. Unfortunately, I found this book to be a little lame and poorly written. The characters do not seem sympathetic to me, and I found myself not caring if huge mutant earthworms got them or not! Only my opinion.

[Pamela D. Puskarich · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was definitely not one of Peter Tremayne's finest but. just as with a "B" movie, it was a good afternoon read and quite inexpensive on Kindle. This author has crafted some beautiful Celtic histories and some very fine Sister Fidelma mysteries. If you didn't care for The Morgow Rises!, give his work a second shot and search for his works by his surname.

[Signor Mambrino · Rating 1 out of 5]

boring bloody rubbish

[Bookish_predator · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is set in Cornwall, there's a massive slug thing living in the sea and attacking and killing people, generally just being a nuisance and a huge dick.

There are no breaks between the different people talking or when you are taken to a different location in the town, it breaks the flow of the story as you try to work out who's talking and where we are now.

The descriptions of the town and area are wonderful though and I love the inclusion of the old Cornish language, it brings a charm to the story.

The ending, however, was pretty 'meh' for me, would've liked more action, suspense and a sense of urgency. That being said, it wasn't the worst 'creature feature' book I've read but it wasn't the best.

*Huge thanks to Peter Tremayne, Endeavour Press, Venture Press and NetGalley for this copy which I chose to read and all opinions are my own*