The Cats by Nick Sharman (1977): Apocalypse Meow

Scott Grønmark was his name and writing pulp horror paperbacks under the pseudonym "Nick Sharman" was his game. Born in Oslo, Norway, in 1952, he was working in the PR department of New English Library (which is why of course he had to use a pseudonym) when he began his published career with The Cats. It was originally published by NEL in 1977 (below), and then by Signet in America in May 1979. Subsequently he wrote six or seven novels, only one under his real name. Notoriety came Grønmark's way some years back when internet wags postulated that he was the person responsible for the infamous sleaze-horror "classic" Eat Them Alive, which wasn't so; you can read his response here.

An early entry into the animal attack publishing craze led, of course by Jaws and The Rats, The Cats offers up most, but not all, of the usual template, even though the subgenre had only been going on a couple years by 1977. Most characters are irritable, stuffy, smug, and/or macho. Or American, for no reason I could discern. Victims run the gamut of British society, briefly introduced, quickly dispatched. Requisite cynicism about politicians while the mighty military comes in swinging their dicks. Science is responsible for the poor kitties' condition. There isn't even a love interest, believe it or not, but there is an attempted rape—about the only woman who appears (the assault is prevented at the last second). Two sets of estranged fathers and sons lend a tad bit of character conflict. One human is afflicted by the same disease as the cats have, maybe there's a psychic connection too, an addition I found intriguing.

I wish Grønmark had attempted to give his rampaging cats a smidge of personality. We all know cats in our personal lives who are more interesting than some people in our social circles. Imagine if he'd spent just a chapter on the creatures themselves, even just a couple kitties, perhaps even inspired by then-bestselling juggernaut Watership Down—recall how Richard Adams did marvels with cuddly rabbits! That would've given this slight 154-page novel some much needed ballast as well as some empathy for innocent animals.

But that's not what this book is or wants to be. Despite several vivid attacks early on, Grønmark doesn't seem to have much energy to inject his tale with anything but the driest essentials. There's little spark in the proceedings, not even anything but the most workmanlike approach to feline slaughter. Prose is competent, serviceable, but lacking any real juice. He simply keeps the narrative going faster and faster but with diminishing results, I mean I've kind of already forgotten the specifics of the climax, such as it is, and the cute yet utter by-the-numbers final paragraphs fail to surprise. I did like the guy who tries in vain to fight back against the beasts with acid, is still overwhelmed, and croaks, as his last words, "Oh well, you can't win 'em all."

Previous Grønmark books I've read, The Surrogate and Childmare, were more entertaining, written with a bit more skill and conviction. As noted, The Cats was Grønmark 's debut novel, and I guess he simply didn't have the chops yet. (At least it led to a successful writing career, I'll give it that; he died in 2020 aged 68.) Unfortunately, I found The Cats lackluster, offering nothing fresh to the all-too-common cliches of animal-attack literature. If you're a collector, you'll want the Signet edition with that spectacular Don Ivan Punchatz cover, but unless you're an animal-attacks obsessive, you can probably leave the book on the shelf.

As he lay on the ground he could see people jumping from the smashed upper windows of the double-decker bus, and then his eyes locked with those of the black cat. Its jaws gaped for a ghastly instant before its teeth rammed straight through the flesh of the man's nose and crunched into the hard knuckle of gristle underneath.

Lucifer Society: The Paperback Cover Art of Don Punchatz

New Jersey-born illustrator Don Ivan Punchatz was born on this date in 1936. His surreal, otherworldly, even whimsical imagery adorned paperback covers in the horror, science fiction, and fantasy genres from all the top publishers: Avon, Signet, Dell, Berkley Medallion, and Warner, as well as for top authors like Asimov and Vonnegut. Especially prolific throughout the late Sixties and Seventies, he worked until the turn of the century and died in 2009. For a complete bio, read his obituary, which made the New York Times.

Here I've collected my favorite Punchatz covers. Enjoy!

The monstrous triptych above that makes up Signet's 1978 three-fer of horror icons is a perfect example of Punchatz's style. A really great idea, melding those nightmare men into one terrifying visage!

Punchatz more often than not signed his illustrations, but for some reason not this distinctive cover for Michael McDowell's first book, the amazing Amulet, from 1979. I think Grady ID'd it for sure when we put together Paperbacks from Hell.

While not exactly a horror collection, the cover for this Roald Dahl 1975 Warner collection features an unsettling image that reveals Punchatz's clever playfulness.

Punchatz like giant Easter Island-style heads; this imagery appears in several of his works.

I really feel like Tim Burton had this 1974 August Derleth anthology on his bookshelf, don't you?

Peter Haining edited countless anthologies, but not all were published in the US. This one from Signet in 1973 boasts Punchatz really going for it...

Half-man, half-alligator, right? Nice work. Look how clearly Punchatz's signature stands out!

Dangerous Visions was an era-defining 1967 science fiction anthology, famously edited by Harlan Ellison. The book was huge, and later reprints divided it up into separate volumes. Punchatz's work was for the 1969 Berkley Medallion reprints.

I absolutely love this kitty cover for the 1979 animal-attack novel The Cats. On my to-read list for sure!

A germinal text of science-fiction horror, this 1967 reprint of The Body Snatchers has Punchatz's art capturing the novel's central idea perfectly.

Death Tour by David J. Michael (1978): Come On Along, Honey

It might look like a Halloween mask on the cover but it's got a New York Times Book Review blurb! How could you resist Death Tour? It's an alligators-in-the-sewers deal by David J. Michael (don't know anything about him) but I haven't read it. I was kinda surprised to find a handful of reviews on the novel. I even found something on the artist, one Ivan Punchatz. So now you can enjoy your holiday well-contented with horror fiction lore! You're welcome.

Ooh, hardcover!

The Amulet by Michael McDowell (1979): Better Believe Somebody's Gonna Get Hurt Tonight

Michael McDowell's first paperback original horror novel from Avon Books is, simply, a must-read for us horror fiction fans. Set in Alabama during the Vietnam War era, The Amulet begins with a devastating moment of violence on an army firing range and ends with a chill whisper as the circle closes. In between is an exquisitely drawn depiction of class and racial strife in small-town Southern life... and death. The first five or six chapters are told with little to no dialogue, just McDowell masterfully spinning a tapestry of the harsh realities of the unforgiving people and landscape of Pine Cone, Alabama.

But it could be said also that there is a great vitality in the mean-spiritedness of the town's inhabitants. Sometimes they are creatively cruel to one another, and there were seasons in which Pine Cone was an exciting place to live--if you were a spectator, and not a victim.

Original 1982 UK paperback

Twenty-year-old Sarah Howell works on the assembly line in the munitions factory, endlessly putting in three screws into the rifles that will go off to the boys fighting on the foreign front lines. Her husband Dean was to be one of them, but it's what happens to him in the prologue that sets the horrific events in motion. He isn't killed but he might as well be dead; his face is swathed in bandages and his brain has been nearly pulverized. Sarah and Dean's mother Jo care for him now in Jo's home, and Sarah bitterly realizes her permanent widowhood in which she must always bear her husband's corpse at her side.

1996 UK reprint

A word about Jo Howell: repulsive. She's Jabba the Hut in human form, an obese, ugly, lazy, hateful, petty, manipulative, bickering old bitch who makes Sarah's life hell... and with the titular piece of jewelry that she gives to an old friend of Dean's, she practically razes the town and the factory down to the very dirt that people strive so hard to rise above. She may profess ignorance of the powers of the amulet and its origins, but Sarah pieces together the evidence of Jo's outrage at Dean's condition and what made him that way, and the unbelievably violent and meaningless deaths of the innocent that tear through Pine Cone this hot summer of 1965.

Take a look at the cover image at top from Avon (thanks to the great fantasy illustrator Don Ivan Punchatz). You're getting exactly that! The amulet gets passed inadvertently from victim to victim; Sarah nearly goes out of her mind with fear trying to figure out just how that happens. With her superstitious next-door neighbor Becca, they try to track its path, but can never quite manage to stop the amulet's power. Effortlessly McDowell lets us into the minds of the people who wear it, and how it suddenly makes them commit the most horrible deeds - horrible deeds that seem all too rational to the people who perpetrate them: the mother who cannot stand her screaming children, the wife who realizes her husband is cheating on her, the teenage babysitter who just knows how to discipline an infant...

Yep, The Amulet is a near-perfect example of a paperback original horror novel—even its cover art is a great representation of the genre at the time. Author McDowell graces us with a truly despicable villain, a sympathetic heroine, a vivid and engaging sense of place and time, and yes, scenes of unsettling, inventive violence and horror and bloodshed. The innocent suffer, yet perhaps no one's hands are clean; the factory that creates mechanisms of death and employs so many in the town stands in for our complicity in the violence that stains not just faraway lives but those in our very own homes.

Obtain The Amulet by any means necessary.

Quite literally, The Amulet makes a great beach read!