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Sunday, November 11, 2012

Animalize!

It began, of course, with Jaws: the horror of our animal brethren rising against us, their appetite unending, teeth/fangs/mandibles/stingers at the ready, no matter whether they were mammal, reptile, fish, or insect. The bookstore shelves of the '70s and '80s were loaded with these cheap paperbacks, and Signet Books featured some really, really fantastic covers. Feast yourselves!

 
 

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13 comments:

  1. Tim WhitcherNovember 11, 2012 at 4:58 AM

    I've had the "Killer Crabs." A little ointment cleared it right up.

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  2. Grey FrequencyNovember 12, 2012 at 4:21 AM

    I have a nice collection of these books on Flickr, if you care to take a look:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/reverb1971/sets/72157629815083760/

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  3. Doug BrunellNovember 12, 2012 at 7:51 AM

    That is some great stuff!

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  4. Alejandro OmidsalarNovember 12, 2012 at 5:14 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Alejandro OmidsalarNovember 12, 2012 at 5:16 PM

    Nice to see Sir Guy's Killer Crabs on the loose again.

    Shame you didn't re-include David J. Michael's Death Tour. I have the lurid Signet edition with the skeletal croc on the cover and boy, oh boy... What a stinker that was. Yeesh. Read it in 3 hours. Kinda want those back....

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  6. DougNovember 13, 2012 at 6:15 AM


    What about Herbert's "Rats"?

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  7. Will ErricksonNovember 13, 2012 at 6:37 AM

    I have featured both RATS and DEATH TOUR elsewhere on this blog but I def should have put them here too! Thanks for the reminders.

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  8. J F NorrisNovember 14, 2012 at 10:55 AM

    You're missing FERAL by Berton Roueché. A horror novel about a pack (is that the right word?) of wild cats on the rampage. Scared the bejesus out of me when I read it as a teen back in the 70s. NIGHTWING by Martin Cruz Smith is a good one about killer bats. Definitely better than the movie.

    I've only heard of THE SWARM because of the movie and THE RATS, of course. The rest are utterly new to me and I grew up in the 70s. Guess I was more into old horror movies on TV than the books being published at the time.

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  9. Will ErricksonNovember 14, 2012 at 4:14 PM

    Reverb, I have already seen your photos; in fact I believe I Tweeted a link to 'em several weeks ago! Good stuff.

    John, thanks. I didn't feature either title since these are books published by Signet. In fact I reviewed NIGHTWING just a few weeks back, and I've heard good things about FERAL.

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  10. Phantom of PulpNovember 16, 2012 at 1:59 PM

    Good round-up on killer critters.

    There's also Berton Rouche's 'The Cats', a good read.

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  11. Will ErricksonNovember 16, 2012 at 7:51 PM

    Thanks Phantom! Turns out CATS and FERAL are the same book. Oh horror fiction you never cease to amaze...

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  12. UnknownOctober 31, 2015 at 11:34 AM

    This is a favourite sub genre of mine, the killer animal books. I've got loads of them and have loved them since I was a teenager, even if done of then are a bit crap. There's a couple on here I didn't know about so it's off to Amazon for me.

    The Cats was pretty poor, with ridiculous action scenes and cardboard characters.Gila was written by horror author Katherine Ptacek under the Les Simons name. Death Tour is fun, I'll re read it soon, about alligators in the sewers. Killer Crabs is great pulpy stuff; full of sex and head-lopping, and Bats Out Of Hell equally is a hoot (and much better than the killer bat novel Vespers by Jeff Rovin that I'm currently reading).

    There's a whole horde of other books like this. Scorpion, Blight, Alligator, Devils Coach Horse, Ferocity, Devour, The Pike and Killer Budgies are just some of them.

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  13. Will ErricksonNovember 1, 2015 at 9:21 AM

    I own ALLIGATOR and SCORPION is on my list!

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