Night of the Crabs
by Guy N. Smith
Blurb:
The Welsh coast basks in summer tranquility, then the drownings begin... Not until the monstrous crustaceans crawl ashore, their pincers poised for destruction, does the world understand the threat it faces....
My Reaction:
This was selected for the 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back podcast, and as usual, Donald and I read it together.
I was expecting this to be a slightly sillier version of Jaws. (I've never read the book, but I've seen the movie very many times.) It was even sillier than I'd expected—and surprisingly risqué. (Perhaps that aspect is less surprising when you read the author's biography and see the other types of "literature" in his bibliography.)
SPOILERS follow...
The marine biologist/renowned botanist/professor/very "with it" uncle of what's-his-name isn't quite as brilliant as he thinks he is, but then again, everyone in this book is kind of dumb!
There's an obvious hole in their first big plan to thwart the evil crabs, and everyone is SHOCKED when the plan doesn't work—but then they have another idea that seems so stupid it couldn't possibly work, so of course it does.
Except... There are no dead crabs under the sea or washing up on shore... And didn't they just go through a time when the crabs were nowhere to be seen... and everyone became complacent... until the crabs resurfaced and killed a whole bunch of people? Nah, I'm sure it'll be fine this time!
I don't care for creature-feature monsters that are too impervious to everything that should by rights kill them. Sure, they're big and armored, but I'm not buying that they're invulnerable to fire or that you can't, you know, aim for their eyes and blind them with good old-fashioned bullets.
We never do get a satisfying answer as to where they came from—and why only now. The whole scene with Cliff Davenport (full name, please) spying on the planes at the military base, being shut in "the hole" and then interrogated—leads nowhere! Very disappointing.
We never do get a satisfying answer as to where they came from—and why only now. The whole scene with Cliff Davenport (full name, please) spying on the planes at the military base, being shut in "the hole" and then interrogated—leads nowhere! Very disappointing.
The only part of the book that actually felt creepy was the poor train engineer (I guess?) who has had a prophetic recurring nightmare about his death that then comes true. I don't know why, but that gave me a genuine chill.
Oh well. The story ends with Cliff Davenport and Pat Benatar Benson heading off to London to marry and live happily ever after (or at least until they learn that the crabs survived, because this is the first of a series of 7—SEVEN!!—books).
