Hello, and welcome to another edition of me trying to write stuff on the internet.
Today I am going to write about slugs, not the invertebrates but the Shaun Hutson book from 1982. You know you are in for a treat with the brilliant tagline: “They slime, they ooze, they kill.”
The story: Murderous slugs are slowly invading the small English town of Merton and council health inspector Mike Brady is the first to realize what is happening and it is up to him to stop the invasion, he acquires the help of a local sewage department worker and a curator from the local museum to aid him in his battle.
Before you read this book, take heed this is no Hemingway. But it is exactly what you expect a book about murderous slugs to be like, a short fun gory story that you don’t need to think much, it is escapism at its finest. With lots of gruesome slug frenzied deaths, description of people slowly being eaten by a gooey slimy horde of slugs and characters that have a very 80s type of mindset.
The book reads like a B horror movie from the 80s with lots of gory slug induced slimy deaths, some gruesome descriptions during the mandatory teen sex scene that you would come to expect from it all (slug goes where no slug is meant to go on a teen girl). There are a lot of other gruesome examples, man cuts of own hand to survive the slug onslaught, business man dies during work lunch meeting of a supersized slug parasite going to his brain and then leaving his body in violent fashion.
It’s a fun read if you like the promise of unlikely creatures rising up against humanity or if you love cheesy(slimy) horror from the 80s (books and movies).
This book came during the influx of murderous animal and critter horror novels in the 70s and 80s among such titles as “Panther”, “Killer” (featuring a murderous orca), “Orca” (another murderous orca, these beautiful animals get an undeserved bad reputation) and “Night of the crabs”. In my opinion “Slugs” is one of the better ones from that era.
I would be amiss not to mention the movie adaptation from 1988 with the same name, with terrifying scenes like:
With all its slug terror it can muster, whether the movie is good or not I will leave to each individual who watches it, I will just say it’s something to behold. The movie has in more recent years gotten a bit of a cult classic status.
But since I read this book, I have noticed an increase in the number of slugs that is in my surrounding area, and I swear that they have started following me too.
If you liked this book you should check out “The Rats” by James Herbert
or “The Nest” by Gregory A. Douglas. For a more modern recommendation “The Hatching” series by Ezekiel Boone
Notes on book:
Paperback
Page number: 198
Publisher: Caffeine Nights Publishing