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The Cadaver
A spine-chilling tale from a master of horror - In a small Welsh town, a group of children, dressed for Halloween, gather outside the shabby house of the most feared and despised resident, Edward Kroll. After one of the trick-or-treating children is killed in a freak accident, Kroll disappears. It seems that he may have died in his bed. But Krolls vengeful spirit haunts the town from beyond the grave . . .
- GenresHorror
197 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
About the author
Guy N. Smith
176 books304 followersI was born on November 21, 1939, in the small village of Hopwas, near Tamworth, Staffordshire, England. My mother was a pre-war historical novelist (E. M. Weale) and she always encouraged me to write.
I was first published at the age of 12 in The Tettenhall Observer, a local weekly newspaper. Between 1952-57 I wrote 56 stories for them, many serialized. In 1990 I collated these into a book entitled Fifty Tales from the Fifties.
My father was a dedicated bank manager and I was destined for banking from birth. I accepted it but never found it very interesting. During the early years when I was working in Birmingham, I spent most of my lunch hours in the Birmingham gun quarter. I would have loved to have served an apprenticeship in the gun trade but my father would not hear of it.
Shooting (hunting) was my first love, and all my spare time was spent in this way. In 1961 I designed and made a 12-bore shotgun, intending to follow it up with six more, but I did not have the money to do this. I still use the Guy N. Smith short-barrelled magnum. During 1960-67 I operated a small shotgun cartridge loading business but this finished when my components suppliers closed down and I could no longer obtain components at competitive prices.
My writing in those days only concerned shooting. I wrote regularly for most of the sporting magazines, interspersed with fiction for such magazines as the legendary London Mystery Selection, a quarterly anthology for which I contributed 18 stories between 1972-82.
In 1972 I launched my second hand bookselling business which eventually became Black Hill Books. Originally my intention was to concentrate on this and maybe build it up to a full-time business which would enable me to leave banking. Although we still have this business, writing came along and this proved to be the vehicle which gave me my freedom.
I wrote a horror novel for the New English Library in 1974 entitled Werewolf by Moonlight. This was followed by a couple more, but it was Night of the Crabs in 1976 which really launched me as a writer. It was a bestseller, spawning five sequels, and was followed by another 60 or so horror novels through to the mid-1990's. Amicus bought the film rights to Crabs in 1976 and this gave me the chance to leave banking and by my own place, including my shoot, on the Black Hill.
The Guy N. Smith Fan Club was formed in 1990 and still has an active membership. We hold a convention every year at my home which is always well attended.
Around this time I became Poland's best-selling author. Phantom Press published two GNS books each month, mostly with print runs of around 100,000.
I have written much, much more than just horror; crime and mystery (as Gavin Newman), and children's animal novels (as Jonathan Guy). I have written a dozen or so shooting and countryside books, a book on Writing Horror Fiction (A. & C. Black). In 1997 my first full length western novel, The Pony Riders was published by Pinnacle in the States.
With 100-plus books to my credit, I was looking for new challenges. In 1999 I formed my own publishing company and began to publish my own books. They did rather well and gave me a lot of satisfaction. We plan to publish one or two every year.
Still regretting that I had not served an apprenticeship in the gun trade, the best job of my life dropped into my lap in 1999 when I was offered the post of Gun Editor of The Countryman's Weekly, a weekly magazine which covers all field sports. This entails my writing five illustrated feature articles a week on guns, cartridges, deer stalking, big game hunting etc.
Alongside this we have expanded our mail order second hand crime fiction business, still publish a few books, and I find as much time as possible for shooting.
Jean, my wife, helps with the business. Our four children, Rowan, Tara, Gavin and Angus have all moved away from home but they visit on a regular basis.
I would not want to live anywhere other than m
I was first published at the age of 12 in The Tettenhall Observer, a local weekly newspaper. Between 1952-57 I wrote 56 stories for them, many serialized. In 1990 I collated these into a book entitled Fifty Tales from the Fifties.
My father was a dedicated bank manager and I was destined for banking from birth. I accepted it but never found it very interesting. During the early years when I was working in Birmingham, I spent most of my lunch hours in the Birmingham gun quarter. I would have loved to have served an apprenticeship in the gun trade but my father would not hear of it.
Shooting (hunting) was my first love, and all my spare time was spent in this way. In 1961 I designed and made a 12-bore shotgun, intending to follow it up with six more, but I did not have the money to do this. I still use the Guy N. Smith short-barrelled magnum. During 1960-67 I operated a small shotgun cartridge loading business but this finished when my components suppliers closed down and I could no longer obtain components at competitive prices.
My writing in those days only concerned shooting. I wrote regularly for most of the sporting magazines, interspersed with fiction for such magazines as the legendary London Mystery Selection, a quarterly anthology for which I contributed 18 stories between 1972-82.
In 1972 I launched my second hand bookselling business which eventually became Black Hill Books. Originally my intention was to concentrate on this and maybe build it up to a full-time business which would enable me to leave banking. Although we still have this business, writing came along and this proved to be the vehicle which gave me my freedom.
I wrote a horror novel for the New English Library in 1974 entitled Werewolf by Moonlight. This was followed by a couple more, but it was Night of the Crabs in 1976 which really launched me as a writer. It was a bestseller, spawning five sequels, and was followed by another 60 or so horror novels through to the mid-1990's. Amicus bought the film rights to Crabs in 1976 and this gave me the chance to leave banking and by my own place, including my shoot, on the Black Hill.
The Guy N. Smith Fan Club was formed in 1990 and still has an active membership. We hold a convention every year at my home which is always well attended.
Around this time I became Poland's best-selling author. Phantom Press published two GNS books each month, mostly with print runs of around 100,000.
I have written much, much more than just horror; crime and mystery (as Gavin Newman), and children's animal novels (as Jonathan Guy). I have written a dozen or so shooting and countryside books, a book on Writing Horror Fiction (A. & C. Black). In 1997 my first full length western novel, The Pony Riders was published by Pinnacle in the States.
With 100-plus books to my credit, I was looking for new challenges. In 1999 I formed my own publishing company and began to publish my own books. They did rather well and gave me a lot of satisfaction. We plan to publish one or two every year.
Still regretting that I had not served an apprenticeship in the gun trade, the best job of my life dropped into my lap in 1999 when I was offered the post of Gun Editor of The Countryman's Weekly, a weekly magazine which covers all field sports. This entails my writing five illustrated feature articles a week on guns, cartridges, deer stalking, big game hunting etc.
Alongside this we have expanded our mail order second hand crime fiction business, still publish a few books, and I find as much time as possible for shooting.
Jean, my wife, helps with the business. Our four children, Rowan, Tara, Gavin and Angus have all moved away from home but they visit on a regular basis.
I would not want to live anywhere other than m
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 17, 2016
Der alte einsiedlerische Kroll läßt sich im Dorf nur selten sehen, und das ist den Bewohnern des walisischen Örtchens Knighton ganz recht, denn nicht nur die Kinder haben Angst vor dem Widerling. Ihn zu Halloween mit einem Apfel zu bewerfen könnte sich als die dümmste Idee seit Erfindung des Dschungelcamps erweisen, auch wenn der Alte kurz darauf stirbt. Denn wie heißt es bei Lovecraft so treffend: Es ist nicht tot, was ewig liegt, bis dass die Zeit den Tod besiegt...
Aber auch wenn Kroll bei Nacht und Nebel - der sich sehr stimmungsvoll einfach nicht lichten will - Schrecken verbreitet und sich schon zu Lebzeiten als Kotzbrocken erwiesen hat, eine gute Tat begeht er nach seiner Wiederkehr (oder wie immer man es nennen will, wenn ein Toter, der in seinem Sarg liegen sollte, wie selbstverständlich durchs Gemeinwesen wandelt) doch:
Einen Antiquar, der aus der Stadt herbeigerufen wurde, um den Wert der Bücher des - so hofft man - Verschiedenen zu schätzen, die alles in Krolls Haus bedecken, bringt er ums Lebens. Und das ist gut so, denn an den Büchern eines anderen darf man sich nie, nie vergreifen, selbst wenn er scheinbar tot ist:
“Dull as ditchwater, boring to read and a complete waste of time. Haven´t you yet discovered the delights of boys´ adventure stories, doctor? My own collection of books goes from Biggles back to Ranger Gull. The story papers are the finest example of this type of yarn, though. Adventure, Hotspur, Rover, Wizard, Champion and as far back as the early Boys´ Own and Detective Weekly. And if you wish to read more deeply, try the pulps, pre-war era, naturally. I have amassed complete runs of some titles. I´m really surprised that, as a man of learning, you haven´t yet discovered these. Medical books are only fit for salvage, most biographies are uninteresting, with the odd exception, of course. H.P. Lovecraft springs to mind” - das hat Kroll früher zum Doktor gesagt, und wer sich mit solch einem Sammler anlegt, muss nicht nur mit allem rechnen, sondern hat nichts weniger als den Tod verdient, und das ist die Lektion, die CADAVER uns lehrt!
Dass er allerdings für die gesamte Dorfschaft eine Bedrohung darstellt und sie in Angst und Schrecken versetzt, das läßt sich freilich nicht schönreden.
THE CADAVER ist eine eher klassische Horrorstory, die ordentlich erzählt ist, aber trotzdem nur wenig Fahrt aufnimmt. Die für Smith typischen Pulp-Elemente kommen hier kaum vor, Sex und massives Blutvergiessen spielen kaum eine Rolle, lediglich das Motiv der Jagd taucht wie üblich auf. Mit den Jahren gibt sich Smith als Autor seriöser, reicht aber weder an Poe, Lovecraft noch King heran. Trotzdem ist auch THE CADAVER ein unterhaltsamer kurzer Roman, der als Zwischenmahlzeit nicht zu verachten ist (wenn auch nicht so trashig wie die Crabs-Serie zu lesen).
Aber auch wenn Kroll bei Nacht und Nebel - der sich sehr stimmungsvoll einfach nicht lichten will - Schrecken verbreitet und sich schon zu Lebzeiten als Kotzbrocken erwiesen hat, eine gute Tat begeht er nach seiner Wiederkehr (oder wie immer man es nennen will, wenn ein Toter, der in seinem Sarg liegen sollte, wie selbstverständlich durchs Gemeinwesen wandelt) doch:
Einen Antiquar, der aus der Stadt herbeigerufen wurde, um den Wert der Bücher des - so hofft man - Verschiedenen zu schätzen, die alles in Krolls Haus bedecken, bringt er ums Lebens. Und das ist gut so, denn an den Büchern eines anderen darf man sich nie, nie vergreifen, selbst wenn er scheinbar tot ist:
“Dull as ditchwater, boring to read and a complete waste of time. Haven´t you yet discovered the delights of boys´ adventure stories, doctor? My own collection of books goes from Biggles back to Ranger Gull. The story papers are the finest example of this type of yarn, though. Adventure, Hotspur, Rover, Wizard, Champion and as far back as the early Boys´ Own and Detective Weekly. And if you wish to read more deeply, try the pulps, pre-war era, naturally. I have amassed complete runs of some titles. I´m really surprised that, as a man of learning, you haven´t yet discovered these. Medical books are only fit for salvage, most biographies are uninteresting, with the odd exception, of course. H.P. Lovecraft springs to mind” - das hat Kroll früher zum Doktor gesagt, und wer sich mit solch einem Sammler anlegt, muss nicht nur mit allem rechnen, sondern hat nichts weniger als den Tod verdient, und das ist die Lektion, die CADAVER uns lehrt!
Dass er allerdings für die gesamte Dorfschaft eine Bedrohung darstellt und sie in Angst und Schrecken versetzt, das läßt sich freilich nicht schönreden.
THE CADAVER ist eine eher klassische Horrorstory, die ordentlich erzählt ist, aber trotzdem nur wenig Fahrt aufnimmt. Die für Smith typischen Pulp-Elemente kommen hier kaum vor, Sex und massives Blutvergiessen spielen kaum eine Rolle, lediglich das Motiv der Jagd taucht wie üblich auf. Mit den Jahren gibt sich Smith als Autor seriöser, reicht aber weder an Poe, Lovecraft noch King heran. Trotzdem ist auch THE CADAVER ein unterhaltsamer kurzer Roman, der als Zwischenmahlzeit nicht zu verachten ist (wenn auch nicht so trashig wie die Crabs-Serie zu lesen).
September 23, 2011
I wasn't sure when I started to read this whether it would be up there with Mr Smith's best. Not sure why, maybe a bit of a slow start, maybe my mood at the time, maybe because the small town/young people mix reminded me of my least favourite Stephen King books? Thankfully I was wrong to doubt it. Once the story had gripped me, as they always do with Guy N Smith books, I really enjoyed it and it is a book deserving of a sequel. I can't help feeling there's still more to tell of this character. If, like me, you struggle a little at the beginning, bear with it - you won't be disappointed.
November 23, 2010
A very underrated Guy N Smith novel. This one has atmosphere by the bag load. This one should be on everyones reading list.
April 27, 2009
Before he died, Edward Kroll was bad. He had bad table manners, bad hygiene, and a bad temper. He even collected comic books, that's how bad he was. Then he came back to life and things got a little worse. There are some creepy moments and some oddball characters here, but as a horror novel, The Cadaver isn't exactly the scariest book on the slab.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews