When launching their ambitious reprint series of Guy N. Smith's back catalogue, it made sense for Black Hill Books to start with series. The 'Crabs' series is what made him famous and it's often the first stop for new fans who heard about it somewhere and want to try the crustacean delights for themselves. The 'Werewolf Trilogy' is what started it all off for him, back in 1974, with publication of his debut novel, 'Werewolf by Moonlight'. Those are the logical first steps which have now been taken, with the first six 'Crabs' books and the whole 'Werewolf Trilogy' back in print, along with an unrelated werewolf novel. There are three more 'Crabs' books to come, from much later on, but it seems to be time to venture into standalones.

This is the first of them and it's a common fan favourite, originally published by Arrow in 1986 but, as a note on the legal page points out, out of print since the Sheridan reprint in 1994. It's overdue for a new edition and I'm very happy to see this one, even if the gloriously lurid cover appears to have slid oddly up the page. The artist is Kevin Enhart and I'd guess that he found his way onto the project through David Owain Hughes, as he also painted the cover for 'The Rack and Cue', the very Hughes novel that I picked up from him last year at the annual Guy N. Smith convention, as well as others, including 'Fuck the Rules', an anthology Hughes co-edited that featured a Smith story.

I'm fond of all the covers I've seen from him thus far, which are agreeably different, and expect to see more work from Enhart on future Black Hill Books covers. This one is very appropriate for this novel, because it's utterly in your face. We really didn't need the usual text to go with it, like the author's name and the book's title, or even "A 1980s Pulp Horror Classic", typed onto the cover by a neatly flawed typewriter. The imagery tells us all that on its own, its monstrous green cannibal clearly having already killed the woman staring glassily-eyed at nothing and ready to devour her flesh, his mouth open and sharp teeth about to clamp down. In fact, from the blood, he must have taken a bite already.

Last year was my first time meeting David, other than within the pages of charity anthologies and the 'Hell of a Guy' hardback that feature stories from us both, but he's a long-term Smith fan and arguably the most obvious link we have between the Great Scribbler and the modern subgenre of extreme horror. While the most commonly accepted influence on extreme horror is splatterpunk, I've long argued that early eighties horror novels of authors like Smith, Shaun Hutson and Richard Laymon are just as valid, not to mention earlier ones from the seventies by James Herbert before he diversified his output.

I was surprised (but not shocked) to find that Hughes didn't find the horror genre through fiction but movies. Such are the benefits of having elder brothers, I guess, who introduced him to horror at the age of five. When they left home, his mum took over renting all the films that young David ached to see. The eighties were his era, though the titles he cites highlight that he had no issues with the seventies, but the nineties lost the plot. And, when they did, he found horror fiction, his baptism by fire being through Richard Laymon. Soon after, this very title introduced him to Guy N. Smith and he was off and running.

Given that he contributed to 'Hell of a Guy', the hardback anthology written by fans as a present to Guy at his twenty-fifth convention, I was shocked to discover that it was Hughes's first time at that event. He apparently found Guy late and his convention later still, let in on the secret by the editors of that book, Justin Park and Chris Hall, one more reason for us to thank them. However, his contribution to that anthology was a strong one, a sequel to 'Cannibals' called 'Dacchas', with survivors Phil Drake and Vickie Halsey returning to Invercurie twenty years on to find it deserted but a plentiful supply of cannibals coming down from the mountain to kill, if they can survive long enough to do so.

Or, to use Hughes's memorable term at one point, "man-eating fucks". I mention that, because a quick glance towards his bibliography will highlight an extreme horror novel of that precise title, very possibly his defining book. It's been successful enough to warrant two sequels thus far, 'Man Eating Fuckers' and 'Man Eating Fucks: The Legacy'. Hughes is nothing if not subtle. As you might imagine, these are books about cannibals, the first two coupled together for an omnibus edition, a "double bill of cannibalistic terror".

There's not a lot more to Hughes's foreword, which mostly recounts his particular path to horror and Smith in particular, but it ends in a note that's recognisable to fellow fans. "Never meet your heroes" is a good maxim, he points out, but it didn't apply to Guy, who was "humble and gentle, a kind soul" who welcomed Hughes into his home. Every one of his fans who took that journey down to the Black Hill will remember him in exactly the same way. He wrote things like 'Cannibals' with its outrageously brutal chapter thirteen, but he was the kindest, most welcoming soul in person and he's continually missed.

That leads me to the only catch to these reprints from Black Hill Books, which are bringing classics like this back into availability after decades. Goddamn, 1994 is over thirty years ago now! If there's any justice in the world, reprints like this will serve as gateway drugs for a new wave of fans to Guy N. Smith's expansive back catalogue. However, none of them will ever get the chance to meet him in person and experience that welcome for themselves. They'll have to settle for living vicariously through people like David in forewords like this. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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