'The Charnel Caves: A Crabs Novel' – Guy N. Smith (Sinister Horror Company)

For loads of reasons (up to and including, 'that book has a really cool cover, I'm reading it RIGHT NOW'), I've been pretty awful at keeping to my vague promises of reading particular series this year. And you know what? That's ok. There are far more important things going on than whether you finish reading a series or not, don't beat yourself up over it. So long as you're getting something out of whatever you read, I think that's the main thing this year.

Having said that though, I would like to finish at least one 'series read through', before the end of the year, and it wasn't going to be the 'Elric' books (more on that another time, maybe) so it had to be Guy N. Smith's 'Crabs' books, it just had to.

If you've been following my reviews of this series, you'll know that I got more and more frustrated with a series that felt like it was going through the motions 'but look, there are giant crabs so that makes everything better!' Well, that's what I thought anyway so I decided to take a break sometime back in September (I think). There are only two books left in the series and it felt like the right time to dive back in (it's Christmas and my brain is tired...) so here goes, lets head into 'The Charnel Caves'...

In 1975 an army of gigantic crabs, the result of an underwater nuclear experiment, attacked the Welsh coastline. The battle was bloody, many lives were lost until the crustacean invaders were defeated.

Over the ensuing years they turned up in the oceans of the World with further terrible slaughter of humans. Finally, though, it was believed that these monsters from the deep had been eradicated. Only memories of their invasions of land remained with the older inhabitants, tales of their depredations on mankind were whispered but often ridiculed by the modern generations.
Until a few of the survivors returned to the Welsh coast and began breeding secretly in a maze of caverns beneath the cliffs, preparing for a further attack on mankind.

'The Charnel Caves' is only a hundred pages long so made for a very quick read, over my lunch hour, yesterday. Okay... A little more than my lunch hour but it was still a 'polish off in one sitting' kind of book and that made for a really welcome change after the last few books in the series. It's not a perfect read but 'The Charnel Caves' is a very engaging read and that's all I'm really after from these books in particular.

The length of 'The Charnel Caves' really works for it as Smith has to keep things tight and to the point. He still has a slightly irritating habit of marking women out by their physical attributes, which adds nothing to the story, but on the whole, 'The Charnel Caves' does a very good job of hitting the reader with surprise crab attacks and then leaving you hanging until the next one happens. There's a nice variety of these, ranging from 'Dumb Surfer' to 'Giant Crab vs Submarine', which keeps things fresh and adds to the urgency of the plot. It's not just that either, Smith does a great job of detailing the cramped tunnels under the cliff (I felt claustrophobic) and encounters between divers and crabs that have to be read.

In the spirit of 'going back to basics', it's also good to see Cliff Davenport back again and trying to rid himself of 'crab nightmares' by visiting Barmouth at exactly the wrong time (nice timing Cliff) and getting roped into 'crab consultancy' again. I'm not sure if the timeline is being strictly adhered to though... If it has been forty years since the initial attack, that has to make Davenport seventy, at the very least, and he doesn't come across as someone who's lost a limb either... This might be down to my reading of the book though, I'll have to double check and that's not exactly a chore.

'The Charnel Caves' ended up being a lot of fun and that's all I want from a Guy N. Smith 'Crabs' book, giant crabs and grisly deaths. I'm already halfway through the last book, 'Crabs Omnibus' and that should tell you all you need to know about 'The Charnel Caves' and how good a job it did. I've got my groove back and the end of the series is in sight...