A dark, incredibly entertaining excursion into the delightfully twisted imagination of David Owain Hughes....
An average teenage girl and her father find themselves caught up in a brutal nightmare at their local recreational centre, when an age-old enemy comes stumbling out of the woods to crash a heavy-metal gig; a gig that has all the promises of being killer. This is one blood-soaked gig you won't want to miss!
Praise for Man-Eating F*cks from Ty Schwamberger (author of The Fields, Deep Dark Woods & The Death of a Horror Writer.) "Man Eating F*cks is old school horror, but with a new, blood-soaked twist! David Owain Hughes effectively creates enjoyable and lethal characters in this tale that is sure to keep you up at night. This is the type of tale that you need to read with a light on…I'm serious. You better put your seatbelt on 'cause you're in for one helluva ride. Look out, Hughes might very well be headed to the major leagues after this twisted tale! Highly recommended!"
David Owain Hughes is a word-slinger of horror and crime fiction, who grew up on trashy b-movies from the age of five which helped rapidly instil in him a vivid imagination. He’s had multiple short stories published in various online magazines and anthologies, along with articles, reviews and interviews. He’s written for This Is Horror, Blood Magazine, and Horror Geeks Magazine.
Hughes is the author of six horror novels, four short story collections and a plethora of novellas. Although he predominately writes within the bracket of horror and its multiple sub-genres, he’s recently branched out into crime fiction and is slowly carving out a superb series of crime/noir thrillers under the umbrella title of South Wales.
I have been waiting to read a book like this for a long. Loved the characters, loved the storyline, so if you want blood, guts and more, this is your book.
David Owain Hughes knows how to create a great story, and this is one of his finest. He brings hordes of cannibals into Wales, and the slaughter begins. Its brutal, bloody and extremely nasty, but is incased in a terrific story. If like me you consider cannibalism to be jolly good fun, then you are in for a treat.
Even though this is an extreme story of blood,sex,and vicious killings I have to say I loved it so much. I thought it went beyond what most books do and really loved the story.
I am a massive fan of cannibal and crazy family type horror so this book was a must read for me, couple that with my growing appreciation of David's work and my love of all things Sawney Bean related and I couldn't wait to get started.
I'm not going to go over the storyline as it's in the synopsis and I'm sure all the other reviewers will do that anyway. What I will say is I do really enjoy David's style of writing and the characters he creates. His storytelling is fast paced and there’s rarely a dull moment in this one. It had a very eighties feel to it and I think would make a great movie.
I’ve seen others mention the typos and grammar. There are a few mistakes along the way but I can’t remember the last time I read a book that I didn’t see several mistakes in. It didn’t detract from the story for me anyway.
The only criticism I would have is the book is labelled extreme horror and I don’t think it fits that bracket. There is plenty of killing and violence but for me that doesn’t necessarily mean its extreme. That’s just horror. I’ve argued with others in the past about what I feel constitutes extreme and people seem to have varying opinions but I think the authors story Wind Up Toy would fit better into the category than this story.
Whether it’s extreme or not I really loved this one. Hopefully there will be a sequel at some point and I’m looking forward to picking up more by David soon.
Graphic horror, high tension, brutal rape and juicy scenes of cannibalism, delivered to you by David Owain Hughes as the descendants of Sawney Bean's clan move furtively around South Wales, stopping to bring death and destruction to the community centre in Pontycymer, Bridgend, where a heavy metal gig is about to take place. Storm Davies and her policeman father, D.I. Huw Davies are in for a long night, a night that will forever change their lives - if they live to tell the tale! The edition available to buy on Amazon is different from the copy that I own; on Amazon, the book is published by movement publishing, whereas my copy was published by Hellbound Books. My copy has some glaring errors that should have been spotted before going to print. I can only hope that these errors have been corrected in the edition available on Amazon, hence my review overall is one of only 4 stars, though the story itself is worthy of 5 stars.
I am having trouble putting into words what I thought of this book, so here I go, this was a book for punks and metal heads, in a way it reminded me of the woods are dark by Richard layman , but it was is own story, it was gory and it had heart , it was impossible to put down and had me guessing a few times, over all I think all fan's of modern horror should read this.
Excellent story and characters, the author not afraid to hold back. This was very close to getting 5 stars but the editing in the first half of the book was atrocious, for some reason the second half, from the scene of the big attack at the gig, was faultless! Great story that I would love a sequel to.
Wow what can I say, this is the love child of Guy N Smith and Richard Laymon. It is fast paced and mean. It reads like like a classic splatterpunk story and I had a blast with it.
Didn't get on with this one, I didn't really get into it. The story was good, but a lot of the dialogue between the characters seemed quite juvenile (I mean all the characters, not the cannibals), which was very distracting.
Bloody ... metallic ... good fun! Inside is as intriguing and extreme as the cover. If the title lures you in, dear reader, you'll really enjoy this story.
Well Hot Damn!! That Welshian writer savant David Owain Hughes begets us yet again with another thrilling, pulse pounding and brilliantly written hardcore horror tale. And as always, delightfully graphic and mega layered with lively and appealing characters, yea...that's pretty much his MO.
This time it centers around; a concert event, a group of friends, sex-drugs-and rock and roll (<---that's a good one :), the coppers, confused and hapless wrong place-wrong time citizens, the great and vast - very vast - outdoors, and our extremely clever antagonists. I originally thought this was a zombie story and nothing wrong with that, I love me some zombies but this....this is a bite deeper and a niblet more fleshed out than that, by a stiff pinch ~ at least.
18 year old Storm has concert plans with her father Hum, the chief of police, but he has to cancel, as usual...work. BUT she won't be missing out, despite his warning that something is amiss in their peaceful town. Calling upon her friend Ruby, they plan to attend said concert together in true fashion...stoned and drunk ~ obviously. She used to date Scuzz, drummer of the billed band Raining Spears, and Ruby has her eye on another bandmate. It should be a night full of debaucherious good times, well...they're part right. And so everything is going smashingly well so far, Scuzz and the group even get paid to play longer seeing as how the other band strangely did not show. Sure to be a killer night full of excites and frights, well...they're mostly right....
Meanwhile, people are going missing all over town, very unusual circumstances and odd traces left about, leaving Hum and his 2nd in command, Pitman flat out/sprawled out dumbstruck. And horses done been kiped too, WTF is going on... Teaming up with a hitman trailing his own agenda, they set out to find the mysterious miscreants who have taken cover in that vast vast wilderness with a few captives and/or snacks.
Also a historical linkage that I don't wanna give away, not that it'd be a spoiler or anything but I enjoyed the surprise expose of it all.
So yea, I just keep getting more and more impressed with this Welshian writer savants work, I've read alot of it so far and it's always very meticulous and clever, no matter what level of filth and/or extreme horror he titillates us with. He is a highly intelligent writer and knows how to expertly weave a tale that's incredibly...tiightly...wooven...~ that sounded better in my head but think I still managed to get my point across, somewhat. He's just super smart and gots a good imagination...there, that's better. Lol
He does seem to come out with them faster than I can read though.... Hmmm it's quite scary the amount of things going on in his head all at once just a bubbling, bursting, and bleeding to get out... Ummm probably be even scarier if he ever gets writers block though...EEECK!! Let it out Mr. Hughes, let it allll out, it's therapeutic.
I also highly recommend the Wind-Up Toy books from him, the original was my very first read by him and one of my favorite books of the year! Yep, I've been hooked, booked, and shook...ed.. :D
After a few chapters, you begin to see why this story is labeled "extreme horror." There are some truly brutal, disturbing moments, depicted with enough detail to make many people squirm. Which is perfect for those of us who like pushed boundaries--perverts, cannibals, gore, violence. The overall plot is sinister and chillingly realistic--it could happen virtually anywhere. Tons of metal/rock references too, which was a sweet bonus.
There were a couple head-hopping scenes which jarred me from the story, and typos/editing opportunities. But none of this was enough to detract from the amazing, heart-pumping story itself. David Owain Hughes proves once again that readers should approach his work with bated breath and expect unexpected twists. A solid, thrilling work which left me apprehensive to walk in the woods!
Author needs to proofread more. This book had sentence fragments, unfinished thoughts, missing words and tons of typos. The dialogue often fell victim to these errors making it that much harder to follow along. Too many loose ends at the end of the book. Storyline was a decent concept but it needs a major overhaul to be considered well written or enjoyable. I'm not opposed to reading more from this author but I do hope for many improvements in the grammar.