Slime

by John Halkin

(They arrived originally in ones and twos - deadly jellyfish eager to feast on human flesh. Attaching themselves lovingly to their victims bodies. Then stinging ... paralysing....feeding.
Nothing can stop them- not even on dry land. Thousands surge over the beaches... fight their way inland up creeks and rivers.... leaving behind their telltale smears of luminescent slime)

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Halloween

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quintessential 80s horror on a jellyfish invasion threatening Britain! You have a filmset, a good looking main character named Tim Ewing who is loved by many woman, even a lesbian, eerie effects, the military taking over, romance, every cliche imaginable within those pages. It is well written, fluent, with people dying like flies, a situation getting more hopeless and hopeless. Is there a chance to overcome the jellyfish? What about Tim and Sue? This book reads like a movie, it's compelling and has all the ingredients you need: sex, an unknown danger, suspense, uncanny descriptions. One of the best animal horror novels I ever came across. Don't get me wrong, this is no comedy but dead serious horror. It's long missed 80s horror with all its aspects and a great ending. I was a youth in the 80s and missed the book then. Reading it now was like a journey back into that decade. Absolutely recommended! I will also have a look at the other books John Halkin wrote.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hordes of jelly fish invade England. The slimmy little buggers attach themselves to faces and whatever they can and pump poison into their victims. It seems that no one is safe. Even folks living miles from the seas are still hunted. An actor who does a documentary on the little devil's to help warn the public. And who earns the nickname, "Mr. Jelly Fish" in the process, along with a few others try to stomp out the onslaught.

Much better than the first book in this series, "Slither". In that one, the worms that attack people were made into handbags and such. The jelly fish here are only burnt and poisoned and stomped and shot and so on. No posh eccessories this time around. Had a lot of fun with this one.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was an idyllic time when I enjoyed nothing more than skulking about the local video store (Video Villa) with my pal The Gak and searching for the most preposterous and obscure crap we could get our hands on. We can call these the formative years of whatever degree of ‘indie’ phase I might have gone through, where nothing seemed so cool as to denounce someone’s film acumen mockingly, with a showstopping dis like “You haven’t seen Street Trash…pshaw!” In retrospect, this was probably why nobody liked me. Well, f@ck them. During these excursions, we’d rent anything that we’d never heard of, the cheesier the better, even purveyors of pure trash like TNT or USA wouldn’t touch these films with a ten foot pole. As anyone who has tried asserting their own individual tastes in this manner can attest, about 95% of everything that we checked out was complete garbage. The gems in the rough however, a completely different story; films that truly destroy all opposition and lay down the law, kicking ass and remaining films I either still cherish to this day and would pay at least 20 bucks for a copy of. Can you really ever go wrong with ‘Rebel High’, ‘Arena’, ‘Split’, ‘Dolls’, ‘Street Trash’, or ‘Story of Ricky’. An enthusiastic "Hell no!" is the correct answer. It was during this time that outcast publisher Zebra and I crossed paths. For anyone out there who has ever partaken in the luxury of killing off a pack of smokes and a twelve-pack while reading completely disposable literary trash in the vein of the Zebra releases or watching some obscure (for good reason) film by AIP Studios, well my friend, get your ass to Amazon.com and throw “Slime” at the top of your wish list and pray someone is selling a used copy.

This is not to say that Slime is awesome. That is certainly not the case. One look at the cover, and you know you’re dealing with something scraped grudgingly from the bottom of the barrel over at Guild Press. Who the hell has heard of Guild Press? I can tell you exactly how the copy I own ended up at the local resale shop however; some bumbling nimrod like myself saw this fantastic cover and read the tagline “Turn on the faucet….and die of terror!” and was instantly sold. Hell, the cover is so unbelievably cheesy, I doubt they took the time to read that juicy sales slogan. There isn’t even any acknowledgement as to who created this timeless piece of art on the cover, it was probably drawn late at night in the height of a toluene binge by the same Guild Press employee that decided to make the first three pages practically identical, blank, with only the title “Slime” in that slimy/dripping-looking font from the cover.

“Slime” doesn’t deliver, and it doesn’t need to. The story has almost noting to do with slime, and there is exactly one reference to anything coming out of a faucet. So what the hell can it possibly be about? Check it: killer jellyfish. Not just fatal through toxins injected via tentacles, but attacking in packs with a herd hunting mentality, communicating, and aggressively stalking prey. You really can’t go wrong, especially if you use the word jellyfishitish. That’s right. To be like jellyfish-$hit. Jellyfishitish. As far as I know, I created this word about ten years ago, and use it sparingly, lest it become public knowledge and transform into the next great, hip buzzword. You like Street Trash, you own some Zebra books, you also claim to have spawned brilliance like jellyfishitish; hit me up, we’ll trade numbers and hang the hell out.

So, a few flimsy and doomed characters are introduced as fodder to present the crisis at hand, a bunch of jobbers getting iced by the jellyfish, who employ a combination attack of paralyzing their prey and then creeping over their face and devouring it. The hero of the story comes out of the woodwork; Tim Ewing, a thinly-veiled representation of the author (and the man he aspires to be). Tim is allegedly a great actor, able to play any role in any work ever written, but ends up selling out to play a globe-trotting action hero on some crappy television show. Author John Halkin probably spent his years longing to pen the next work of lasting and unforgettable literature to be lauded through the ages, and ended up with the disgrace of having his name emblazoned on a trashy paperback relegated to 50-cent bins at resale shops in Niles, Illinois. Very similar in nature, selling short of the great dream to become a magnate of drivel, differing only in their levels of success and acclaim, the author receiving none and his dreamy self image having it heaped on by the dump-truckload; also, Tim Ewing, the embattled actor who plays a pivotal role in thwarting the marine menace, also lays the wood to almost every female in the story, and I assume Halkin spends many lonely nights weeping into his cold pillows after dropping some quaaludes.

So, after shooting the newest groundbreaking episode of his tv show on the Welch coast (the book takes place entirely in something called Great Britain), an extra in the scene that sucker punched Mr. Ewing earlier ends up the next victim of a rogue jellyfish, and while saving this guy’s ass, Tim also sustains a grievous wound by tentacle. In the confusing aftermath, the other central characters are introduced: Jane, a tease and a bitch who holds a job as a tabloid reporter getting the scoop on our lovable hero who happens to have a marine biologist sister with a hard-on for jellyfish, Jacqui, the new director of the tv show who the cast and crew have yet to warm up to, Dorothea, the director’s assistant who ends up going to bed with Ewing in perhaps the most random and spontaneous few pages which some editor obviously missed, and Sue, the other half in Tim’s tumultuous marriage, who has been preparing to drop the bomb that she’s filing for divorce while shacked up with another man.

At first the increasing number of jellyfish attacks are treated as silly little items in the media, but soon, it becomes obvious that this there’s no cessation in the trend, and soon whole schools of the jellyfish are awash on the shores, coordinating attacks, suckering people, attacking entire boat crews, going totally apeshit. Seeing as Tim has firsthand knowledge of these hostile creatures, and he’s already a media star in some supposed realm called the UK, he becomes the poster child for the network’s coverage, with Jacqui resuming her previous role as a director of documentaries. A few one-off icings occur sporadically, but the story stays the course leading to the ultimate confrontation: The Army Vs. The Jellyfish Horde : Squish the Fish! The fact that the British army actually has difficulties in suppressing an assault from barely sentient globs of aquatic $hit helps explain how a fledgling nation like the US won its independence from such practiced bunglers.

In all honesty, the payoffs are few; the sex scenes hinge entirely on women having 'finely sculpted' breasts, the death-by-jellyfish sequences are routine and unmoving, and the annoyance of spellings such as ‘colour’ and ‘tyres’ is enough to make one scream, but, while the book may not be anything I’m looking for in a gold-leaf edition, it is not jellyfishitish. Not by a longshot.

[Dustin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a solid enough animal attack/eco-horror type novel, heavily indebted to Herbert's Rats, as you might expect, except with hordes of killer jellyfish. The writing is definitely better than I expected, and the author makes a half decent attempt at real characters, and not just 2 dimensional cutouts. The only thing is, there's a bit of a soap opera/love triangle element at play, which while not badly executed, leaves one a tad hungry for the trashy thrills you might have anticipated from a book with this title and this cover art. There are some good kills and some jellyfish action that is actually pretty exciting at times, but I think I had a little more blood thirst than the book was prepared to quench. Still, you could do a lot worse when it comes to this sort of novel.

[Dez Nemec · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was actually pretty damn good. Jellyfish get a taste for human flesh and attack mankind. Makes me glad that it isn't beach season!

[Warren Fournier · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is painful to rate one of the more well-known examples of the 80s horror paperback boom as subpar, but unfortunately, this one falls short on several critical levels.

I grew up during the heyday of books like these that I collected as early as age 12 from my local B Dalton at the shopping mall, titles that, more than any TV show or film, made me a fan of horror and scifi today. So I do have a soft spot for books and authors of this era. What made them intriguing was how translatable they were to the mind's eye, invoking vivid images as easily as a comic book or movie, by repackaging largely familiar tropes into new and exciting adventures or styles, often with a sociopolitical thread very pertinent for the times.

As such, "Slime" takes the familiar "animals amok" and "armageddon" themes, and then applies them to a rather unusual antagonist--the jellyfish. Actually, this could have had a lot of potential for excellent scares. If you have ever experienced a jellyfish sting or accidentally swam into a school of these things, you know just how horrific they can be. But opportunities are missed.

Very little of the story takes place on or in the water, robbing the jellyfish of their natural habitat where they pose the most threat. Instead, they start invading the land, and though these jellyfish are supposedly a new breed that has musculature allowing for purposeful movements, they are still portrayed as barely mobile blobs. So how can they pose any kind of palpable threat to sustain suspense and terror? The author's solution is to make all of his human characters as stupid and clumsy as possible, and his plot full of ridiculously convenient contrivances in order for any jellyfish to get the upper hand on a victim. People stumble and fall right on top of them for no reason, or dumbly watch as a jellyfish slowly wraps itself around their foot instead of running away, or decide randomly to take a dip in freezing water where there just so happens to be a school of sentient jellyfish waiting for a quick meal. It gets so ridiculous that the book could have been an effective comedic parody of the horror genre, but alas, this is no joke. The book takes itself very seriously.

The main character is magically present during most of the pivotal moments, a case where forcing your character to be in the right place at always the right time makes your already unbelievable story insulting to the reader who is otherwise willing to suspend a bit of disbelief for the sake of good fantasy entertainment. Our hero is a B-list television actor who gets stung by a jellyfish while filming his "Remington Steele" knockoff on location, and somehow this makes him some kind of expert on the jellyfish epidemic so that even the army allows him to accompany them on a anti-jellyfish mission that would be dangerous for well-trained soldiers. It was annoying when they dragged Matthew Broderick's character around in "Godzilla," it is annoying here, and it is an automatic demerit for any of the umpteen horror and scifi stories that do this kind of thing.

When he is not being sought after for his jellyfish prowess, he spends his time generally being a creep and asking numerous women to sleep with him while simultaneously whining that his wife is being unfaithful. By far, the best character in the whole story is his neurotic but spunky lesbian director, Jacqui, who is the only character afforded a wide range of emotions, a little character development, a smidge of humor, and a moment of true heroism. Yet the author degrades her by having her inexplicably seduce and sleep with the main "slime" of this story--the so-called hero.

Wooden and unlikable characters, lazy and silly plot contrivances, and a not very scary batch of "monsters" makes this unashamed cash-in on the "animals on the loose" sub-genre an absolute shame in which to invest your time. There are many better examples of this classic era of horror fiction.

[oddo · Rating 2 out of 5]

A massive letdown with dozen-plus problems poisoning its waters, Slime tells a nature-run-amok story in which pink-phosphorescent killer jellyfish plague the bodies of water surrounding Britain. Author John Halkin makes a point against "less is more" by serving up incredibly bland kills, only made worse that this universe he's created is populated by the clumsiest assholes to have ever been inked on paper. Tripping, slipping, stumbling, laying down, bending over, basic challenges of gravity—these are the methods with how death is divvied up amongst the body count. Sure, it's high, but it's a slog as well. Slime follows the exploits of a philandering television actor as he hops from bed to bed, conquering women with the absence of a personality, even going so far as to seduce a lesbian film director, all in hopes of patching things up with his wife. Both cover tagline and back cover synopsis promise "terror from the tap," but it's only mentioned during a single sentence in the final 30 pages of the book. Even still, whether or not the jellyfish came from the tap is inconclusive. The best part of the novel is some of the gorgeous scenery Halkin illustrates, armies of glowing death painting the shorelines with a soft-pink menace.

[Mike (Hail Horror Hail) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid writing amid decent action that becomes repetitive after the midway.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

“‘Fire!’ came the sergeant’s sudden command. The machine gun opened up, spitting out round after round in long, steady bursts. A stream of bullets chewed into the jellyfish, cutting them into fragments which were thrown a foot or two into the air, dropping back on to the road in a gleaming, squirming mess. However mangled they might be, dead they certainly were not. ‘Reload!’”

Killer jellies on the loose, with a taste for human flesh! Loved it. Exactly as ridiculous as you’d expect. Definite cute stuff.

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review first appeared on scifiandscary.com: https://www.scifiandscary.com/slime-r...

I enjoyed John Halkin’s previous book ‘Slither’ despite its many flaws. It was a silly, fun horror novel in the classic 80s Brit horror mould. Slime’ was a disappointment by comparison. It’s incredibly similar to the earlier novel, with another hero who works in the TV business and another set of aquatic monsters. Unfortunately, it fails to capture ‘Slither’s’ cheesy fun and it left me cold.
This time around the hero is an actor in a popular soap opera. He witnesses an early attack by a new species of jellyfish (replacing the water worms of ‘Slither’) and becomes vaguely involved in the fight against them as they spread like a plague around the British coast. He also sleeps with a lot of different women because he’s ruggedly handsome.
The plot covers the gradual escalation of the jellyfish threat, with the normal formula of new characters being introduced and then killed off. Eventually the creatures get into the water system, prompting the great copy line “Turn on the tap…and die of terror”. Halkin never makes the most of this though, the attack scenes are dull and lack the gory entertainment value that they might have had in the hands of someone like Shaun Hutson.
The book is just too long as well, nowhere near justifying its 250 pages. Much of it is taken up with descriptions of the hero’s love life and failing marriage, both of which are far less interesting that people dying slimily.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not a pulitzer prize winning novel, but s fun, 1950’s style creature horror story. Great fun!

[Signor Mambrino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not that bad really. Halkin isn't an awful writer.

[Andy]

I also love the cover to this book. Back when I was an impressionable young teen the sight of a topless women covered in slime (with a bad haircut reflective of the age), excited me rather more than it should have. Mutant jellyfish in the water pipes. Awesome.

[Chris Puzak · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first and last word in novels about killer jellyfish.

[H.L. Amaral · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always find a thrill to read those old school books with such amazing covers. A nice artwork and a reasonable page-length are just enough to grip me right away. Its something only the horror genre can pull it off for me, really.

As for the story: Slime is a perfectly serviceable horror book. The story is about killer jellyfish that comes to enjoy human flesh. There are tons of gory moments and lots of characters die throughout. The tension is built well enough to keep you reading as the story goes along.

As for the cons: the characters are all pretty weak which is a big no no in any genre. It is important to have compelling characters because they are responsible to make a page turner alongside it's concept. If we don't care about the characters, we don't feel compelled to keep reading.

Add this to the fact that the story overstays it's welcome a bit and the result is that the book drags a bit at times. Which is also never a good thing for any genre.

So overall, do I still recommend this book?

YES. YES I DO.

Despite the flaws I've listed here, Slime does exactly what it proposed itself to do: deliver a gory tale with a somewhat silly premise. If you enjoy horror, there's a lot to entertain you here. However, if you are new to horror or don't enjoy the more campier side of the genre, better look elsewhere.

This book may not bring anything new to the table, but sometimes you just need a simple story to unwind for a couple days (or a day, if you're a fast reader). Give it a shot sometime.

I'm really torn between giving it 3 stars for being a simple and entertaining story, fast to consume and forgettable the moment you finish it, or if I give it 4 stars for doing well exactly what it was expected of it to do. So I'll leave it at 4 gory, slimy stars for now.

Bonus tip: if your mind's eye allows it, try to imagine the scenes of this book with the same image quality those direct-to-video 80s horror movies had. It makes all the scenes even more fun to read. 😁

[RVGSteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slime started out promisingly with loads of action and grisly death scenes, but the middle of the book becomes a bit bogged down by what only feels like filler. It lost me a bit as a result, although the hospital ward climax reinvigorated my interest. It's excessively long at 252 pages and it has these annoying odd chapter breaks. Some chapters are a page or less while others drone on for 30 pages. Pacing as a result was a bit uneven. The most disappointing aspect is that the front cover and back cover teases the idea of these creatures invading faucets and causing all kinds of mayhem through such a terrorizing concept. However, it turns out that that only plays a VERY SMALL role in the book and it happens near the end and is left largely unexplored. Therefore, the switch and bait does Slime absolutely no flavors. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it enough to rate it 3 stars out of 5, but the cover and premise seemed to hold high promise (again, as far as these trashy pulp horror books are concerned) that in my opinion was barely scratched. A shame, then, but I hear good things about this author's other similar works, Slither and Squelch. I have a copy of John Halkin's Slither staring at me and I'll have to get around to reading that one some time soon. I hope it will be better than Slime which, while somewhat enjoyable, failed to hit all the right notes I was hoping for.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slime offered me exactly what I wanted, and was expecting. A 'classic' 1980's monster horror novel.

This time we have killer jellyfish. Not quite the creature depicted on the front cover but whatever. I was in the mood for 80s horror and the book delivered. I can say that I enjoyed the plot overall.

Fast paced and written well enough by giving the characters a little fleshing out made this an interesting read. The book was a little disjointed with its chapters either focusing on ongoing relationships involving the main male character (he beds three women out of a possible four) and the jellyfish attacking and killing victims up and down the coastal waters. Of course the whole premise is farfetched but I am reading a book titled Slime...what else was I to expect?

Overall a solid 3/5 for this type of product. A good page turner making me want to seek out more by this author for when that same mood hits me :)

[Terry L. Estep · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Slime” follows the pattern of “Slither.” First there are a few creatures — jellyfish, in this case — and then there are more and more until they become overwhelming.

Some developments that feel like they should have more impact on the story are dealt with as almost throwaway exposition in flashback. There’s one death in particular that got shrugged off in a way that made me roll my eyes.

It’s also a weirdly horny book. Lots of people sleeping around in pairings that don’t always make sense. Maybe I underestimate the power of the celebrity main character’s ability to inspire lust in women.

It’s not a bad creature feature, though. There are plenty of gruesome deaths, but sometimes it’s hard to take seriously because it’s jellyfish and therefore an incredibly slow-moving apocalypse.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a child washes up ashore, interrupting the filming of a highly praised action series, ‘The Chronicles of Gulliver’, it’s up to TV star Tim Ewing and his crew to figure out the true story behind the slaying. More Brits eventually meet there untimely demise while submerged in water, and it doesn’t take long for the government to authoritatively claim that a new shoal of Jellyfish are responsible for carnage and onslaught.

‘Slime’ is more tranquil when it comes to sea creature reads. Some of the deaths are flushed with the usual gore one might find in a vintage 80s read, while others are mysteriously obscure.

[Michael P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This creature feature by John Halkin makes for an overall fun read, but is weaker than his previous work Slither. It concerns a horde of lethal jellyfish that gain the ability to function on land. While Halkin delivers the gore as usual, he devotes too much time to the male lead's love life, having him go through a succession of love interests to the point we never fully get invested in any of them. Furthermore, the book has issues where major events occur off-screen, leading to issues of "show, don't tell."

[Glenvisceration · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly a two star book but I tricked myself into believing it was a parody of some sort. It was pretty enjoyable any time it wasn't following the main character.

"Then, irrelevantly, the phone began to ring."

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable nutso premise that would make an even more bonkers film! Nothing earth-shattering, but still a lot of fun.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

British Horror in the vein of James Herbert ... its okay but would really of loved to see what Herbert would of done with mutant jellyfish.

[D.S. Cohen]

The tagline should have been "For God's Sake, Put On Some Shoes!"

[Aron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is nuts, but in a fun way. It's like a written version of an 80s monster/horror movie, including all of the random sex every has with each other. The ending leaves a bit to be desired, but if you are looking for something fun to pass some time, this would be great.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as a kid not long after it came out in 1984, it gave me nightmares. Although I was only 10 or 11 years old, so it might not be so scary now 😁

[Mikepottz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jellyfish feasting on human flesh, attaching themselves to faces, poisoning suffocating leaving their green slime behind. Not even land is safe from their insatiable hunger. Bring in the military and a lucky find on how to destroy them appears. And this cover is iconic!

[Scott Oliver · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third of John Halkin's creature novels that I have read, the others being, Slither & Squelch

This was a great creature novel about an invasion of man-eating jellyfish attacking the coasts of the UK

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great little horror read. What could be more TERRIFYING than JELLYFISH! Oh sweet jesus, turn off the tap! You are drinking JELLYFISH!

Great stuff. Though really, kind of creepy.

[Stacy Simpson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Let's see a book about killer jelly fish....BLOW! Ok it may happen someday with another kind of being grant it but JELLY FISH!!!! Please spare my sanity. Pass this book up it was horrible!