What do you think?
Rate this book
Crabs #8
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.
- GenresHorror
158 pages, paperback
Published June 22, 2019
9 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Guy N. Smith
176 books302 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
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 30, 2023
You just need to know 2 things:
1) it’s a Guy N Smith Crabs book
2) the crabs go up against a Russian sub
1) it’s a Guy N Smith Crabs book
2) the crabs go up against a Russian sub
May 24, 2020
'Night of the Crabs' was a favourite from my teenage years, in the hey-day of British pulp horror fiction, the 70's.
I went on to devour the whole unforgettable series. Full of scenes of weirdly timed sex scenes in sand dunes, bathers dismembered, tanks up-ended, and giant crabs (variously described as big as horse or cow) generally engaged in full on coastal mayhem.
This later instalment is a fast paced novella, is immersive and gripping with no pretension to be anything other than what it is. A fast paced pulp horror read.
Cliff Davenport, the Marine biologist hero of the earlier tales, is holed up in retirement with his wife Pat and plagued by terrible dreams of his earlier battles with the monster crustaceans. He hots on a scheme of visiting the Welsh coastal towns and scenes of these earlier horrors as a way of confronting these terrors and dispersing them. But of course, he arrives just as the crabs are beginning to again show a pincer, with a small number holed up in the titular catacomb of caves. Gathering their strength to breed and invade. There are some great set pieces; the grounding of a Russian sub, and a tense claustrophobic chase in underwater caves. Comparatively the deaths are few, but the pacing, storytelling and atmosphere are first class. Great fun.
I went on to devour the whole unforgettable series. Full of scenes of weirdly timed sex scenes in sand dunes, bathers dismembered, tanks up-ended, and giant crabs (variously described as big as horse or cow) generally engaged in full on coastal mayhem.
This later instalment is a fast paced novella, is immersive and gripping with no pretension to be anything other than what it is. A fast paced pulp horror read.
Cliff Davenport, the Marine biologist hero of the earlier tales, is holed up in retirement with his wife Pat and plagued by terrible dreams of his earlier battles with the monster crustaceans. He hots on a scheme of visiting the Welsh coastal towns and scenes of these earlier horrors as a way of confronting these terrors and dispersing them. But of course, he arrives just as the crabs are beginning to again show a pincer, with a small number holed up in the titular catacomb of caves. Gathering their strength to breed and invade. There are some great set pieces; the grounding of a Russian sub, and a tense claustrophobic chase in underwater caves. Comparatively the deaths are few, but the pacing, storytelling and atmosphere are first class. Great fun.
December 18, 2022
THE CHARNEL CAVES sees a small resurgence of the long thought extinct monster crabs following a spate of gruesome human deaths off the Welsh coast. However, whilst the crabs would prove to be the culprits, author Guy N Smith does his best to impress upon the reader a new threat! One more menacing than those pesky overgrown crabs (read the book to find out what)!
While the smoke and mirrors added a little something extra to the sea food broth, ultimately, THE CHARNEL CAVES is about those famous monster crabs and their never ending thirst for human flesh.
Kept largely to a small cave, the group of crabs manage to cause a lot of chaos. Enter Pat, a character from a previous installment (I think...) who had faced these monsters previously and lived to tell the tale. He's on the coast to conquer his fears, much to the chagrin of his partner. What was meant to be a form of therapy for Pat turns into warfare, as once, again, man verses beast in a final battle to determine who is the dominant species once and for all!
Spoiler - it's the humans.
THE CHARNEL CAVES is all killer, no filler. On the surface this seems like a good deal for readers, however both plot and character development suffer. Even the threat of world war three doesn't add much depth. It's almost as if THE CHARNEL CAVES was written for a graphic novel, in which case, the scrip and pace would've been perfect.
Overall, I still enjoyed popping my Crabs cherry with THE CHARNEL CAVES.
Full review on my site: https://justaguywholikes2read.blogspo...
While the smoke and mirrors added a little something extra to the sea food broth, ultimately, THE CHARNEL CAVES is about those famous monster crabs and their never ending thirst for human flesh.
Kept largely to a small cave, the group of crabs manage to cause a lot of chaos. Enter Pat, a character from a previous installment (I think...) who had faced these monsters previously and lived to tell the tale. He's on the coast to conquer his fears, much to the chagrin of his partner. What was meant to be a form of therapy for Pat turns into warfare, as once, again, man verses beast in a final battle to determine who is the dominant species once and for all!
Spoiler - it's the humans.
THE CHARNEL CAVES is all killer, no filler. On the surface this seems like a good deal for readers, however both plot and character development suffer. Even the threat of world war three doesn't add much depth. It's almost as if THE CHARNEL CAVES was written for a graphic novel, in which case, the scrip and pace would've been perfect.
Overall, I still enjoyed popping my Crabs cherry with THE CHARNEL CAVES.
Full review on my site: https://justaguywholikes2read.blogspo...
June 22, 2019
Look, at this point in his career, Guy N Smith has moved beyond criticism into his very own genre.
Charnel Caves is classic Smith, total nonsense, with a smattering of good ideas and great scenes amongst the rest of this fabulously ludicrous book.
If you’ve read Smith and enjoyed him in the past, you’ll enjoy this too. It’s not gonna convert nonbelievers, but who cares?
Charnel Caves is classic Smith, total nonsense, with a smattering of good ideas and great scenes amongst the rest of this fabulously ludicrous book.
If you’ve read Smith and enjoyed him in the past, you’ll enjoy this too. It’s not gonna convert nonbelievers, but who cares?
November 9, 2024
3,5 rounded up
Forty years after the first crab attacks, Cliff Davenport returns to Barmouth to convince himself the crabs are really gone.
Guess what...they're not gone :-)
Besides giant crabs there are giant jellyfish too.
Someone else describes this book as Sharknado but with crabs. It's nothing like that at all.
Yes, there's a storm. But no, not a storm with killer crabs in it.
You can tell this book is written many years after the first book, some things mentioned in this book are drones, climate change, plastic waste in the ocean / on the beach.
One character is fishing for shrimps and he's complaininh about all the plastic waste.
Unfortunately he didn't see it as a problem for the ocean and the animals living in it. No, plastic was a problem to him because he had to get the plastic out from between the shrimps in his net and throw the plastic back on the beach??? Omg
I thought Guy N Smith was going to teach the reader why plastic is bad, but no... hahha
I don't want to say too much about the story, to avoid spoilers.
The book is written from multiple POV's. At one point it's written from a crab's point of view, and it made me feel so bad for the crab, it was so sad.
It's not perfectly written, but it's entertaining.
Forty years after the first crab attacks, Cliff Davenport returns to Barmouth to convince himself the crabs are really gone.
Guess what...they're not gone :-)
Besides giant crabs there are giant jellyfish too.
Someone else describes this book as Sharknado but with crabs. It's nothing like that at all.
Yes, there's a storm. But no, not a storm with killer crabs in it.
You can tell this book is written many years after the first book, some things mentioned in this book are drones, climate change, plastic waste in the ocean / on the beach.
One character is fishing for shrimps and he's complaininh about all the plastic waste.
Unfortunately he didn't see it as a problem for the ocean and the animals living in it. No, plastic was a problem to him because he had to get the plastic out from between the shrimps in his net and throw the plastic back on the beach??? Omg
I thought Guy N Smith was going to teach the reader why plastic is bad, but no... hahha
I don't want to say too much about the story, to avoid spoilers.
The book is written from multiple POV's. At one point it's written from a crab's point of view, and it made me feel so bad for the crab, it was so sad.
It's not perfectly written, but it's entertaining.
January 13, 2026
“The Charnel Caves” is a late period Guy N. Smith story and the eighth and final instalment in the Crabs series. It sees the return of the main hero of the series, Cliff Davenport to Barmouth, the scene of the initial crab invasion, to try and overcome his crab-focussed nightmares. Of course, there is a colony of giant crabs hiding out in the local sea caves and Davenport gets caught up in the attempt to destroy them. “The Charnel Caves” is a sparse yarn at 100 or so pages, written with pulpy urgency using a structurally familiar escalation narrative. The characters, including Davenport, are barely there sketches with breakneck storytelling pace being Smith’s priority. The prose is functional, there is little narrative polish, and the plot is skimpy and wholly predictable. That said Smith does have an ability to conjure up some interesting rural folk horror atmosphere based around isolated coasts and suspicious locals. Overall, the “The Charnel Caves” feels rushed, underdeveloped and end abruptly. Enjoyable enough trash for what it is, but a hugely disappointing end to the classic Crab’s series.
December 30, 2022
Fun return of the crabs
Slight, even my Guy's standards, but fun entry into his giant crab series. Unfortunately the earlier entries seem to only be available second hand for vastly inflated prices, so for now this will have to do. Good pulpy fun.
Slight, even my Guy's standards, but fun entry into his giant crab series. Unfortunately the earlier entries seem to only be available second hand for vastly inflated prices, so for now this will have to do. Good pulpy fun.
July 12, 2023
"We’d better radio for help, get this poor lady ashore. The monster that did this has got to be found and destroyed before there’s another attack. And the sooner we’re away from here, the safer I’ll feel!"
February 14, 2023
If sharknado was about giant crabs.
September 27, 2023
Finished just as it was picking up pace.
June 30, 2024
Not very good but still sort of entertaining
May 5, 2025
Another good tale of the giant crabs!
December 20, 2019
Crusty
A fun novella better than the last couple of books, it rattles along and concludes the series in an abrupt manner.
A fun novella better than the last couple of books, it rattles along and concludes the series in an abrupt manner.
August 20, 2019
The latest novel in the series of killer Crabs, updated to the time it was written with modern references to 'Beast from the East' a cold wave that brought in extremely cold weather conditions to the UK. Plus Putin and a bit of cold war style politics. The series though exist in its own timeline and Guy N Smith always has one sentence references to his previous novels.
This novel returns to its origins in Wales. Even has our hero Davenport. We the reader has not been told his age although he was noted in Return of the Crabs he must be in his 80s or 90s.
We also have two different ways of continuing, 1 the crabs just return as normal 2 Jelly fish as the new enemy or a combination of the two. Think Guy N Smith just left a opening just in case. Although he may stop here as hinted in Crabs Omnibus. Only he knows.
So here i end my Killer Crabs adventures. I had fun, i must say thank you to Guy N Smith for helping me relax during a particular tough personal time. I come late to the party but its definitely got started.
Now i am going to read Heart of Darkness by J Conrad. Something to think about and get my brains into gear.
This novel returns to its origins in Wales. Even has our hero Davenport. We the reader has not been told his age although he was noted in Return of the Crabs he must be in his 80s or 90s.
We also have two different ways of continuing, 1 the crabs just return as normal 2 Jelly fish as the new enemy or a combination of the two. Think Guy N Smith just left a opening just in case. Although he may stop here as hinted in Crabs Omnibus. Only he knows.
So here i end my Killer Crabs adventures. I had fun, i must say thank you to Guy N Smith for helping me relax during a particular tough personal time. I come late to the party but its definitely got started.
Now i am going to read Heart of Darkness by J Conrad. Something to think about and get my brains into gear.
January 13, 2020
Given this 2 stars for being so unintentionally funny. In my mind I heard the whole thing in the voice of the guy narrating Belinda Blinked in My Dad Wrote a Porno because the writing style is so similar.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews