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Mania
Mania Smith, Guy N.
- GenresHorror
Paperback
First published December 1, 1988
4 people are currently reading
97 people want to read
About the author
Guy N. Smith
175 books297 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 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 29, 2022
One of the better books by Guy. This one took me by surprise, though. I would have guessed it to be more of a Norman Bates, "Psycho" type story. It weaves way out of that and right in the middle of a really silly good vs. evil possession tale. It still works because of the claustrophobic setting of a hotel in the midst of a blizzard.
A hotel that once was a mental institution, now a paying hotel is run by two married nutters who think their child will be reborn by one of their guests. They have a small paying clientele, most of which used to be as patients of the home. Into this comes a single mother and her teen daughter and a young man who needs refuge from the storm. They have to deal with a health goody goody lady who takes on crazies to help them on their way. Two of her charges are a masturbating young woman and an old smoking and drinking codger. A religious fanatic who likes to expose himself to the residents. And, oddly of all, a young pregnant girl who claims to be a virgin.
You still have Guy's sometimes annoying habit of cataloguing his characters one by one instead of just letting them flow with the story. Lots of back chat that sometimes deters from the story. He redeems himself this time by weaving a wild, and at sometimes violent story with some really, unmeant, funny moments. One of the top three books by Mr. Smith. Also, one of the best covers to one of his books.
A hotel that once was a mental institution, now a paying hotel is run by two married nutters who think their child will be reborn by one of their guests. They have a small paying clientele, most of which used to be as patients of the home. Into this comes a single mother and her teen daughter and a young man who needs refuge from the storm. They have to deal with a health goody goody lady who takes on crazies to help them on their way. Two of her charges are a masturbating young woman and an old smoking and drinking codger. A religious fanatic who likes to expose himself to the residents. And, oddly of all, a young pregnant girl who claims to be a virgin.
You still have Guy's sometimes annoying habit of cataloguing his characters one by one instead of just letting them flow with the story. Lots of back chat that sometimes deters from the story. He redeems himself this time by weaving a wild, and at sometimes violent story with some really, unmeant, funny moments. One of the top three books by Mr. Smith. Also, one of the best covers to one of his books.
March 13, 2022
Suzannah Mitchell is taking her daughter Rosie to a rehearsal when they get trapped in the snow. Book dealer Owain Pugh also gets trapped in the snow. They manage to find refuge at Donnington Country House Hotel. Run by George and Brenda Clements, it used to be a nursing home. Brenda is half-mad, and so are most of the guests who live there.
As it turns out, one of the guests, Alison, is about to deliver a virgin birth. Impregnated by "the Master", she set to give birth to the reincarnation of George and Brenda's dead daughter. In exchange, the Master wants George to provide him with a virgin sacrifice in exchange. Which means George won't let Suzannah, Owain and especially Rosie leave.
It took a while for me to get into this, but once it became clear what the story was about and where it was headed, it became quite the delightlfully twisted little ride. It's not a gorefest, but still gleefully skates around the lines of taste as you wonder just how far Guy N. Smith is willing to go. Another benefit was the small number of carefully managed characters. A problem I find with a lot of horror novels is that there are way too many characters. Not so here. This is essentially a people-stuck-in-a-house-as-they-die-one-by-one story, mixed with that of a girl about to give birth to a devil baby.
Sound like your kind of thing? Track this one down, then. It's great fun once it hits its stride.
As it turns out, one of the guests, Alison, is about to deliver a virgin birth. Impregnated by "the Master", she set to give birth to the reincarnation of George and Brenda's dead daughter. In exchange, the Master wants George to provide him with a virgin sacrifice in exchange. Which means George won't let Suzannah, Owain and especially Rosie leave.
It took a while for me to get into this, but once it became clear what the story was about and where it was headed, it became quite the delightlfully twisted little ride. It's not a gorefest, but still gleefully skates around the lines of taste as you wonder just how far Guy N. Smith is willing to go. Another benefit was the small number of carefully managed characters. A problem I find with a lot of horror novels is that there are way too many characters. Not so here. This is essentially a people-stuck-in-a-house-as-they-die-one-by-one story, mixed with that of a girl about to give birth to a devil baby.
Sound like your kind of thing? Track this one down, then. It's great fun once it hits its stride.
February 20, 2022
Kiedy przeczytałam już wszystkie książki z działu dziecięcego w mojej lokalnej bibliotece i przekroczyłam magiczny próg 13go roku życia, mogłam w końcu zagłębić się między półki działu dla dorosłych. Dział ten fascynował mnie mnogością gatunków, wysokością półek przepełnionych książkami, które były teraz dostępne również dla mnie - ta wiedza, te fantastyczne światy, płomienne romanse... I dlatego od razu skierowałam się na dział... horrorów. Nie wiem, dlaczego pozwolono mi wtedy wybierać takie książki, ale dzięki temu w dość młodym wieku przeczytałam dość sporo zbyt dojrzałych dla mnie historii, co też mocno wpłynęło na mój światopogląd, ale o tym może innym razem ;)
Pamiętam szczególnie jeden horror, który tak mną wstrząsnął wtedy, że do tej pory o nim pamiętam i nawet zaopatrzyłam się we własną kopię jakiś czas temu, aby sprawdzić, czy moje dorosłe ja będzie równie przejęte jak to nastoletnie. Jednak ciągle coś mnie powstrzymuje przed ponownym przeczytaniem, możliwe, że chodzi o tę okładkę (swoją drogą nie pamiętam, by wersja, którą ja czytałam miała tak wyeksponowaną nagość).
Skoro wstęp mam za sobą, przejdźmy do samej książki, którą jest 'Mania' autorstwa Guy N. Smitha. Jest to historia kilku podróżnych, którzy z powodu śnieżycy spotykają się w tym samym hotelu. Hotelu, który okazuje się byłym zakładem psychiatrycznym, prowadzonym przez byłych pensjonariuszy tegoż zakładu oraz (o ile mnie pamięć nie myli) - trzymających innych pensjonariuszy jako gości hotelowych. Hotelu, w którym zagnieździło się zło w postaci samego szatana.
Poza wrytą w pamięć historię z ciążą i kilka scen zachowania pacje... gości hotelowych ( 😉 ), niewiele więcej mogę o fabule i samej treści powiedzieć. Jedynie to, że ta książka za każdym razem wzbudza we mnie niepokój, gdy o niej myślę, a przez to sprawia, że wspominam ją jako dobry horror i po raz kolejny myślę o ponownym przeczytaniu. A potem przychodzi taka myśl, że może jednak lepiej zostawić ją w tym miejscu życia, w którym wywołała taki impakt, zamiast - być może- rujnować to wspomnienie poprzez przekonanie się, że to jednak dość słabe czytadło, a ja byłam jedynie zbyt młoda na nie...
Pamiętam szczególnie jeden horror, który tak mną wstrząsnął wtedy, że do tej pory o nim pamiętam i nawet zaopatrzyłam się we własną kopię jakiś czas temu, aby sprawdzić, czy moje dorosłe ja będzie równie przejęte jak to nastoletnie. Jednak ciągle coś mnie powstrzymuje przed ponownym przeczytaniem, możliwe, że chodzi o tę okładkę (swoją drogą nie pamiętam, by wersja, którą ja czytałam miała tak wyeksponowaną nagość).
Skoro wstęp mam za sobą, przejdźmy do samej książki, którą jest 'Mania' autorstwa Guy N. Smitha. Jest to historia kilku podróżnych, którzy z powodu śnieżycy spotykają się w tym samym hotelu. Hotelu, który okazuje się byłym zakładem psychiatrycznym, prowadzonym przez byłych pensjonariuszy tegoż zakładu oraz (o ile mnie pamięć nie myli) - trzymających innych pensjonariuszy jako gości hotelowych. Hotelu, w którym zagnieździło się zło w postaci samego szatana.
Poza wrytą w pamięć historię z ciążą i kilka scen zachowania pacje... gości hotelowych ( 😉 ), niewiele więcej mogę o fabule i samej treści powiedzieć. Jedynie to, że ta książka za każdym razem wzbudza we mnie niepokój, gdy o niej myślę, a przez to sprawia, że wspominam ją jako dobry horror i po raz kolejny myślę o ponownym przeczytaniu. A potem przychodzi taka myśl, że może jednak lepiej zostawić ją w tym miejscu życia, w którym wywołała taki impakt, zamiast - być może- rujnować to wspomnienie poprzez przekonanie się, że to jednak dość słabe czytadło, a ja byłam jedynie zbyt młoda na nie...
August 14, 2025
My first Guy N. Smith book.
I was not expecting to like this one as much as I think I'll like some of his other books. Thirst, Alligators, The Festering, Locusts...and a number of others that just seem like more up my alley. I mean, how can you NOT love a book about alligators or locusts out to turn you into their next meal?
Anyway, the premise of this book seemed interesting. A bunch of people snowed in by a blizzard, shut of from the rest of the world right in their own neighborhood. Like an Agatha Christie novel.
This book was good, definitely not great. Some freaky scenes, but nothing too crazy, I guess. A solid read. I like Smith's writing style and I'm looking forward to reading more of his books soon.
I was not expecting to like this one as much as I think I'll like some of his other books. Thirst, Alligators, The Festering, Locusts...and a number of others that just seem like more up my alley. I mean, how can you NOT love a book about alligators or locusts out to turn you into their next meal?
Anyway, the premise of this book seemed interesting. A bunch of people snowed in by a blizzard, shut of from the rest of the world right in their own neighborhood. Like an Agatha Christie novel.
This book was good, definitely not great. Some freaky scenes, but nothing too crazy, I guess. A solid read. I like Smith's writing style and I'm looking forward to reading more of his books soon.
June 13, 2024
Absolutnie pokręcony i dziwaczny horror. Zafascynowała mnie jego ogólna brzydota. Jest to naprawdę ciekawa lektura, raczej z rodzaju tych niesmacznych niż strasznych. Na pewno nie dla każdego lecz mi się podobała.
September 28, 2009
My first taste of Guy N Smith and I was left disappointed. Barely any of the sex and violence I was expecting. It read more like a farce. An interesting premise unfortunately let down by all being a bit silly.
October 2, 2025
Książka lipca #czytamsuspens
Po więcej zapraszam na ig @suspense_books
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https://www.instagram.com/p/DNJO6b5Mc...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews