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Crabs #6
Crabs: The Human Sacrifice
When the bloodthirsty crabs are stricken with a devastating cancer, a psychopathic human attempts to aid them, a plan that requires a human sacrifice
184 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1988
7 people are currently reading
447 people want to read
About the author
Guy N. Smith
175 books298 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 - 24 of 24 reviews
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March 27, 2018Oh my bloody stinking fish, where has this book been all my nefarious crustacean life?! Come to me, my homicidal babies!!!!!
June 3, 2018
A rerun of the crabby invasion of London, only this time told from a different POV. It's like a Christopher Nolan movie with crabs inside of crabs inside of crabs inside of crabs...
If they were giant carbs I'd actually be worried, but it's only crabs.
If they were giant carbs I'd actually be worried, but it's only crabs.
June 16, 2009
First published back in 1988, ‘Crabs: The Human Sacrifice’ later became somewhat of a scarce rarity for Guy N Smith’s signature ‘Crabs’ series. This instalment forms the sixth full length addition into the ever popular series.
Like within Smith’s 1984 novel ‘Crabs’ Moon’, Smith has once again inserted a quick passage to explain exactly where this next instalment falls within the complex chronology of the crabs series. Smith's opening statement is as follows:
“Whilst the giant crabs were slowly dying from cancer, as told in Crabs on the Rampage, a massive battle was still to be fought on the east coast where the crustaceans were to make one final attempt to overthrow Mankind. This is the story of that final battle set against the background of a macabre cult of crab-worshippers and human sacrifice – GNS”.
So the scene is set, its place within the crabs saga established, all that’s left is for some gruesome click-click-clickety-click fun...
The tale kicks off in Long Sutton where a group of fanatical animal rights campaigners, led by the psychotic and charismatic leader, Pete Merrick, begin a campaign against those that they deem to show cruelty to animals. The disturbing lengths in which Merrick is pushing his small following of animal rights terrorists has become nothing short of first degree murder.
With poultry corpses awaiting their distribution for the Christmas festivities that are injected with strychnine on Christmas Eve by Merrick and his weak willed girlfriend Christine; to the purposeful beheading of a Major Watterson using some fine wire stretched between two trees, as the Major heads up a fox hunt. Merrick’s lust for murder becomes more and more intense, with ‘animal rights’ used as a mere excuse to justify his bloodthirsty actions.
Meanwhile, the crabs are on the move again, as per ‘Crabs on the Rampage’. Here we see our crustacean friends swarming up the River Nene, about a quarter of a mile below Sutton Bridge. Merrick witnesses a seemingly defenceless dying crab, bombarded by navy firepower as it emerges from the water. A further burning rage builds inside Merrick.
Merrick begins to form the belief that the crabs are divine gods, exacting a revenge on Mankind for delivering the cancer that is slowly eating away at them. Merrick sees a whole new goal now - to help avenge the crabs, he will start delivering human sacrifices to them. And so an array of victims viewed as having a streak of cruelty to animals about them, are left as sacrifices to be devoured by the dying crabs. One of these victims is eighteen year old Susan Delphore, daughter of the wealthy seal skin importer Morland Delphore.
Susan’s new boyfriend thirty-two year old and ex-SAS, David Knight, learns of Susan’s demise at the hands of Merrick and swears he will take revenge. But even with Merrick’s despicable death count rising and his psychotic madness spiralling further and further out of control, Merrick still manages to keep a cunning nature that allows him to evade capture time and time again.
With the crabs mounting their final battle on mankind and Merrick delivering victim after victim to the mutant crustaceans, Knight has to use all his skills and training to bring the sacrificial madness to an end...
In ‘Crabs: The Human Sacrifice’ Smith takes advantage of the popularity towards occultist novels during the late eighties, by incorporating this dark twist to the crabs series. The novel takes on a peculiar edge for a crabs novel, placing more weight towards the terrorist actions of Merrick and his animal rights activists than that of the crabs’ final stance. This is indeed a surprising stance to take with a late addition to the crabs series, but does add a certain freshness and new interest value to the instalment.
Packed from cover to cover with splatterpunk gore and non-stop action, this unrelenting pulp horror tale keeps its desperate storyline moving at a mile a minute.
The characterization is carefully constructed, with David Knight depicted as somewhat of a clichéd hero, whereas Pete Merrick is a magnificently delivered psychotic killer with a vivid depth to his complex personality.
As the bloodspill increases, so the novel climbs towards the dramatic conclusion. There are no surprises or clever twists to be had, just a satisfying ending to a thoroughly enjoyable pulp horror novel.
The novel runs for a total of 171 pages and was published by New English Library.
Like within Smith’s 1984 novel ‘Crabs’ Moon’, Smith has once again inserted a quick passage to explain exactly where this next instalment falls within the complex chronology of the crabs series. Smith's opening statement is as follows:
“Whilst the giant crabs were slowly dying from cancer, as told in Crabs on the Rampage, a massive battle was still to be fought on the east coast where the crustaceans were to make one final attempt to overthrow Mankind. This is the story of that final battle set against the background of a macabre cult of crab-worshippers and human sacrifice – GNS”.
So the scene is set, its place within the crabs saga established, all that’s left is for some gruesome click-click-clickety-click fun...
The tale kicks off in Long Sutton where a group of fanatical animal rights campaigners, led by the psychotic and charismatic leader, Pete Merrick, begin a campaign against those that they deem to show cruelty to animals. The disturbing lengths in which Merrick is pushing his small following of animal rights terrorists has become nothing short of first degree murder.
With poultry corpses awaiting their distribution for the Christmas festivities that are injected with strychnine on Christmas Eve by Merrick and his weak willed girlfriend Christine; to the purposeful beheading of a Major Watterson using some fine wire stretched between two trees, as the Major heads up a fox hunt. Merrick’s lust for murder becomes more and more intense, with ‘animal rights’ used as a mere excuse to justify his bloodthirsty actions.
Meanwhile, the crabs are on the move again, as per ‘Crabs on the Rampage’. Here we see our crustacean friends swarming up the River Nene, about a quarter of a mile below Sutton Bridge. Merrick witnesses a seemingly defenceless dying crab, bombarded by navy firepower as it emerges from the water. A further burning rage builds inside Merrick.
Merrick begins to form the belief that the crabs are divine gods, exacting a revenge on Mankind for delivering the cancer that is slowly eating away at them. Merrick sees a whole new goal now - to help avenge the crabs, he will start delivering human sacrifices to them. And so an array of victims viewed as having a streak of cruelty to animals about them, are left as sacrifices to be devoured by the dying crabs. One of these victims is eighteen year old Susan Delphore, daughter of the wealthy seal skin importer Morland Delphore.
Susan’s new boyfriend thirty-two year old and ex-SAS, David Knight, learns of Susan’s demise at the hands of Merrick and swears he will take revenge. But even with Merrick’s despicable death count rising and his psychotic madness spiralling further and further out of control, Merrick still manages to keep a cunning nature that allows him to evade capture time and time again.
With the crabs mounting their final battle on mankind and Merrick delivering victim after victim to the mutant crustaceans, Knight has to use all his skills and training to bring the sacrificial madness to an end...
In ‘Crabs: The Human Sacrifice’ Smith takes advantage of the popularity towards occultist novels during the late eighties, by incorporating this dark twist to the crabs series. The novel takes on a peculiar edge for a crabs novel, placing more weight towards the terrorist actions of Merrick and his animal rights activists than that of the crabs’ final stance. This is indeed a surprising stance to take with a late addition to the crabs series, but does add a certain freshness and new interest value to the instalment.
Packed from cover to cover with splatterpunk gore and non-stop action, this unrelenting pulp horror tale keeps its desperate storyline moving at a mile a minute.
The characterization is carefully constructed, with David Knight depicted as somewhat of a clichéd hero, whereas Pete Merrick is a magnificently delivered psychotic killer with a vivid depth to his complex personality.
As the bloodspill increases, so the novel climbs towards the dramatic conclusion. There are no surprises or clever twists to be had, just a satisfying ending to a thoroughly enjoyable pulp horror novel.
The novel runs for a total of 171 pages and was published by New English Library.
October 1, 2015
This book defies description. On the surface it's a pulpy creature-feature horror romp, but it's so much more than that. It has all the torrid sex scenes, grisly crustacean gore and farcical characterisation you'd expect from the cover, sure. But the fact that the menace is GIANT CRABS (who all have cancer!) never gets old. The author's politics are pretty clear-cut, too: the book's bad guys aren't just eco-terrorists. They're led by an eco-terrorist cult leader who's also a deadly kung fu master with a samurai sword and an evil gross passion for evil gross BDSM! And the book's...hero? is a rich 32-year-old bachelor with a penchant for teenage girls and a lust for bloody justice.
But that's all just scratching the surface. Every page has something ridiculous on it, from epic scenes of crab warfare to stilted dialogue and non-sequitur inner monologues. Not to mention hundred-word descriptions of just how gross and hate-filled crabs are. Read it, it's atrocious and it's wonderful.
But that's all just scratching the surface. Every page has something ridiculous on it, from epic scenes of crab warfare to stilted dialogue and non-sequitur inner monologues. Not to mention hundred-word descriptions of just how gross and hate-filled crabs are. Read it, it's atrocious and it's wonderful.
March 28, 2022
This is book 6 in the Crabs series, this one, like the last one, was also set during the previous books, this one was more about the people and less about the crabs
September 13, 2025
Far too much focus on Pete Merrick and his crab cult and not enough crabs.
I have now read all the crabs novels and I'm glad I've got it out of my system.
I have now read all the crabs novels and I'm glad I've got it out of my system.
November 17, 2018
Let's not mince words: this is a book that is designed to offend the senses and the sensibilities. It's silly, clunky, weirdly plotted, and just kinda all-around messy, but it has a certain charm to it. I share my thoughts in depth, along with a strongly dissenting opinion from my co-host, on Bad Books for Bad People:
http://badbooksbadpeople.com/episode-...
http://badbooksbadpeople.com/episode-...
November 7, 2023
This book is fucking nuts and I loved it
July 15, 2012
Seem to remember this one being ok, and a refreshing change of pace to the rest if the series. Plus the hero was ex-SAS and at 14 I was kind of I obsessed by our boys in black so one extra point for that.
Damn I want to re-read this whole series....
Damn I want to re-read this whole series....
November 9, 2025
This is the sixth instalment in Guy N Smith's “nature on the rampage” killer Crabs series. This time the story revolves around psychotic animal rights campaigner Pete Merrick and his small group of campaigners, who mange in the opening chapters to behead the leader of a fox hunt and inject turkeys with strychnine in the run up to Christmas. With the mutated, cancer-ridden crabs on the rampage, Merrick develops a belief that they are gods rising up to extract vengeance on mankind in revenge for mans cruelty to animals. He begins to devise ways to sacrifice people to the crabs culminating in the sacrifice of socialite Susan Delphore. When Susan's boyfriend, ex-SAS soldier, David Knight learns that it was Merrick that killed her he sets out to gain revenge – against a background of the crab final attack. "Crabs: The Human Sacrifice" carries the feeling that Smith was fast running out of interest with the giant crabs concept, with the focus of the story placed on Merrick and his band of militant animal rights activists. Smith's depiction of the animal rights group is incredibly reactionary and probably arises from his own interest in outdoor sports – he has written a host of non-fiction books on the topic. Merrick, however, is a brilliantly over-the-top psycho, who is willing to go to any insane lengths, in between bouts of sado-masochistic sex with his compliant and long-suffering girlfriend, Christine. Knight is a bit of a clichéd hero, but this may be as a result of Smith having little time for niceties such as character development. The pacing isn't as frantic as previous books but still moves along at a fair clip and the bloody splatterpunk quotient is upped from the previous books if that is possible – one scene of Merrick and Christine eating cancerous, rotting, oozing crab flesh in some form of perverted quasi-religious rite is pretty nauseating. The crab action is less than the previous books, with the appearance of the mutants fairly limited and dull. "Crabs: The Human Sacrifice" isn't the best book in the series but it is still an entertaining enough slab of madcap splattery pulp horror fiction.
November 6, 2018
In Episode 43: Crabs - The Human Sacrifice: Book 6 in the Crab Series by Guy N. Smith, we enter this shallow, diseased pool of sex and crab murder!
Unless you're really into reading graphic depictions of humans being eviscerated by crabs, this book isn't for you. Even if you are , in fact, into that, we still wouldn't recommend this. The author is fond of run-on sentences, describing everything twice, and creating a host of characters that are hard to care about.
Unless you're really into reading graphic depictions of humans being eviscerated by crabs, this book isn't for you. Even if you are , in fact, into that, we still wouldn't recommend this. The author is fond of run-on sentences, describing everything twice, and creating a host of characters that are hard to care about.
August 9, 2019
If you are following the series in order, this book has a character from the previous novel. While only a short appearance, here he is turned into the bad guy of the novel. A Charles Manson type figure, leading a group of environmental extremist. Who lead a reign of terror against hunters or people involved in killing animals. Using the steady decline of the Crabs from Crabs on the rampage, Guy N Smith wrote a interesting edition to the series. Much like Shaun hutson I am finding the books are growing on me. Silly and sometimes stupid but always fun.
I take it Mr Smith does not like environmentalist, and he really does love his hunting. The last few books are full of loving details of birds, shooting and migratory patterns. As per usual there are the sex scenes and gory details of Crabs eating habits.
I take it Mr Smith does not like environmentalist, and he really does love his hunting. The last few books are full of loving details of birds, shooting and migratory patterns. As per usual there are the sex scenes and gory details of Crabs eating habits.
April 20, 2021
This book takes place at the same time as crabs on a rampage and again entire paragraphs are lifted from that book for this one.
We have our usual cast of characters.
The poachers, the women who can only be shrewd or sex starved, low self esteem nymphos.
The manly man, that eats bullets for breakfast and has a taste for teenage girls.
Add to the mix a maniacal, murderous cult leader and cancer oozing crabs and.... You got the same old story of morons that can see a crab far away and freeze in fear or go insane until they become crab chow.
One more book to go...
We have our usual cast of characters.
The poachers, the women who can only be shrewd or sex starved, low self esteem nymphos.
The manly man, that eats bullets for breakfast and has a taste for teenage girls.
Add to the mix a maniacal, murderous cult leader and cancer oozing crabs and.... You got the same old story of morons that can see a crab far away and freeze in fear or go insane until they become crab chow.
One more book to go...
August 31, 2025
This book is my favorite (so far) in Guy N. Smith's Crabs series. It's a quick but very intense read, with characters that are fleshed out better than in the previous books. And the crabs are not the worst culprits in this book. The worst is a psychopath named Pete Merrick, who is the head of an animal rights group but who only uses that as an excuse to murder people by various means, and when the crabs appear, he is able to offer them grisly sacrifices, in the form of humans, of course. This book is not for the faint-hearted.
July 3, 2023
"His lips parted, showed her the inside of his mouth, disgustingly full of partly-chewed raw flesh that weeped yellow pus and blood, overflowed on to his beard, some of it dripping to the floor, splatting thickly. Grinning. A waft of foul breath hit her, a cold stinking gust."
November 1, 2019
Oh dear
Guy N Smith’s books are a guilty pleasure, reactionary even in the seventies but written at a cracking pace. This one is just a meandering mess with all the guilt and none of the pleasure
Guy N Smith’s books are a guilty pleasure, reactionary even in the seventies but written at a cracking pace. This one is just a meandering mess with all the guilt and none of the pleasure
November 1, 2023
This is not great literature but it deserves 4 stars for pure entertainment value. This book sparked the kind of joy I get from watching movies like 'Sharknado' and 'Snakes on a Plane'. Awesome, I loved every gory minute!
March 24, 2017
Like a super fast pace gruesome hammer film - very pulp and horrible.
December 14, 2023
Final episode in the giant mutant crabs series. As with all the others it's well-written and an enjoyable, though macabre read.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
September 28, 2024
Another enjoyable addition to the Crabs seires....really hope the rest of Guy's book become available on kindle!
October 22, 2025
Scraping the fish barrel. Give it up, mate. A terrible novel.
December 4, 2016
Really really enjoyed this, the sixth instalment in the Crabs Series. Although this is the sixth book chronologically it is set a little further back, but don't let this dampen the reading experience.
The story itself is excellent, but different (in a good way) to other novels in the Crabs Series in that there is a distinct focus on characters as opposed to just crabs, which was a nice touch. Definitely worth a read, and a strong novel. Click-click-clickety-click.
The story itself is excellent, but different (in a good way) to other novels in the Crabs Series in that there is a distinct focus on characters as opposed to just crabs, which was a nice touch. Definitely worth a read, and a strong novel. Click-click-clickety-click.
January 9, 2015
Ridiculous fun.
June 30, 2015
Another great pulp read!
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews