Home - The Last Page Bookshop - The Horror Reviews | Mail Hal C F Astell - Site Map |
Novel by Guy N Smith (England) 1985.
In another Guy N Smith disaster novel, we find much of the populace of the western world reverting to primitivism, in body as well as mind. The product of some form of biological warfare, we don't know which power caused it. Russia? Iraq? The CIA? But we do know that Jackie Quinn has grown hair and muscle and reverted to savagery, whilst her husband Jon and his mistress Sylvia, safe from the biological agents in the nuclear shelter on the Quinn's organic farm, haven't. Whilst Jackie fights the reversion and regains some semblance of humanity, Jon and Sylvia are fighting to stay alive amidst the chaos that the country has become.
Though in appearance an amalgam of Gary Brandner's The Brain Eaters and Paddy Chayefsky's Altered States, this is at heart the story of marital breakup and recovery. The Quinns are an estranged couple, as are Sylvia and her husband, but in a country in turmoil, both couples find some form of reconciliation. Though a product of the above two books, this still has some originality, and written in Smith's patented rollercoaster style, it proves to be a pretty good read. Fans of Smith will love it, his detractors will hate it, but for those on neither side, it is a worthy if undemanding read. Professor Brian Newman, hero of the author's Bats Out of Hell, reappears briefly as a surviving scientist working on a cure for the reversion.
Home - The Last Page Bookshop - The Horror Reviews | Mail Hal C F Astell - Site Map |