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Bloodshow
It the ruined castle in the Highlands is a blatant tourist trap, its dungeons stuffed with fake horrors. The Werewolf, the Cannibal, the Torturer, the Executioner, the Vampire … all are worked by electricity for cheap thrills. At first. But real evil has lurked for centuries beneath the vaults. Now the Laird of Benahee, Satan's undead henchman, rises to take his revenge, using tricks to inflict ultimate horror in all its forms. And in this domain of the damned even death is not the end …
- GenresHorror
208 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1987
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 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 15, 2017
ফালতু 😜 খুব বেশি ফালতু ✌
December 17, 2023
অনেকদিন হরর হয় না বলে রাত বারোটার দিকে নিয়ে বসেছিলাম। নামটা খুব আকর্ষণীয় ভূতের বলে মনে হচ্ছিল!!
কিন্তু পড়ে অনেকটাই হতাশ হতে হয়েছে। শুরুটা গৎবাঁধা মনে হলেও ভূত, খুন, প্রেতাত্মার অতীত রহস্য, ক্যাসলের বর্ণনা কিছুটা মনোযোগ ধরে রেখেছিল। যদিও শেষে গিয়ে তথৈবচ। .. খামোখা ভূতের সাথে ছোটাছুটি হলো! এদিকে সময়ও নষ্ট হলো। কিন্তু ভয়ে দাঁতে দাঁত বাড়ি খেল না...!
কিন্তু পড়ে অনেকটাই হতাশ হতে হয়েছে। শুরুটা গৎবাঁধা মনে হলেও ভূত, খুন, প্রেতাত্মার অতীত রহস্য, ক্যাসলের বর্ণনা কিছুটা মনোযোগ ধরে রেখেছিল। যদিও শেষে গিয়ে তথৈবচ। .. খামোখা ভূতের সাথে ছোটাছুটি হলো! এদিকে সময়ও নষ্ট হলো। কিন্তু ভয়ে দাঁতে দাঁত বাড়ি খেল না...!
September 25, 2020
God only knows why I keep doing this to myself. This is the third Guy N Smith book I’ve reviewed for Carry on Screaming and it’s probably the worst. The first Crabs book was bad but kind of fun, the second was less entertaining but at least had giant crabs. If you’ve ever read Smith, then you know what you’re going to get from his books. He is, at least, dependable. Dependably bad. What he isn’t is a particularly good horror writer. Or a good writer full stop.
‘Bloodshow’ is no exception. It plays very much like an episode of Scooby Doo, only with more gore and less wit and intelligence. A newly married couple, the groom a horror fan, spend their honeymoon in a remote Scottish hotel attached to a castle with a dark past. The venue is horror-themed, with grisly waxworks with dotted about it. Naturally, before too long people start dying horribly and it appears that the waxworks are responsible.
I’m not sure I could tell you the answer to the mystery of how the murders are happening. By the time it was revealed I’d lost whatever interest in the plot I might have had at the start. The setup is hokey, the characters are paper thin and the writing is weak. Obviously, the normal rules of literary criticism shouldn’t really apply to a book like this. No-one is going to pick it up expecting great literature, but there were so many other writers in the 80s who did this kind of pulp horror so much better than Smith that it’s hard to see how he managed to make a career for himself. I suspect the answer is simply endurance. He has written a lot of books (getting on for 100 if my count is correct) and the combination of the 80s horror revival and the ease of publishing in the modern world means he is still has books coming out in 2020.
To be fair to him, and to ‘Bloodshow’, the horror scenes are okay in a cheap and nasty kind of a way. The plot allows Smith to include a variety of monsters – vampire, werewolf, cannibal, torturer – and he makes the most of them, mixing up the gore as he goes along. The problem is that it never really feels like he’s enjoying himself. Compared to someone like Shaun Huston who usually seems to be either having a blast or getting some serious shit off his chest, Smith’s books too often feel like they were written to make a quick buck.
‘Bloodshow’ is no exception. It plays very much like an episode of Scooby Doo, only with more gore and less wit and intelligence. A newly married couple, the groom a horror fan, spend their honeymoon in a remote Scottish hotel attached to a castle with a dark past. The venue is horror-themed, with grisly waxworks with dotted about it. Naturally, before too long people start dying horribly and it appears that the waxworks are responsible.
I’m not sure I could tell you the answer to the mystery of how the murders are happening. By the time it was revealed I’d lost whatever interest in the plot I might have had at the start. The setup is hokey, the characters are paper thin and the writing is weak. Obviously, the normal rules of literary criticism shouldn’t really apply to a book like this. No-one is going to pick it up expecting great literature, but there were so many other writers in the 80s who did this kind of pulp horror so much better than Smith that it’s hard to see how he managed to make a career for himself. I suspect the answer is simply endurance. He has written a lot of books (getting on for 100 if my count is correct) and the combination of the 80s horror revival and the ease of publishing in the modern world means he is still has books coming out in 2020.
To be fair to him, and to ‘Bloodshow’, the horror scenes are okay in a cheap and nasty kind of a way. The plot allows Smith to include a variety of monsters – vampire, werewolf, cannibal, torturer – and he makes the most of them, mixing up the gore as he goes along. The problem is that it never really feels like he’s enjoying himself. Compared to someone like Shaun Huston who usually seems to be either having a blast or getting some serious shit off his chest, Smith’s books too often feel like they were written to make a quick buck.
March 21, 2019
হাইল্যান্ডের একটি শতাব্দী প্রাচীণ প্রাসাদ পর্যটকদের অন্যতম আকর্ষণ। কাছেই একটি হোটেলে হানিমুনের উদ্দেশ্যে এসে ওঠে নতুন এক দম্পতি। প্রতি রাতে হোটেলে ভেসে আসে অমানুষিক চিৎকার। প্রাসাদ পর্যটনে গিয়ে তারা লাভ করে অনভিপ্রেত অভিজ্ঞতা। আমার পড়া ফালতু হরর বইগুলোর মধ্যে অন্যতম। শুনেছি গাই এন স্মিথ অনেক জনপ্রিয় একজন হরর লেখক। বইটা পড়ে চিন্তা করছিলাম এমন ফালতু প্লটের বই কীভাবে বিদেশে এত জনপ্রিয়তা পায়!
গাই এন স্মিথের লেখা এই বইটি অনুবাদ করেছেন অনীশ দাস অপু। তার অনুবাদ নিয়ে নতুন করে কিছু বলার নেই। নিজের কাজটা তিনি পূর্ণ মনোযোগ দিয়ে করেছেন। তবে ব্যক্তিগতভাবে আমি মনে করি, বই বাছাইয়ের ক্ষেত্রে তার আরও সতর্ক হওয়া প্রয়োজন।
গাই এন স্মিথের লেখা এই বইটি অনুবাদ করেছেন অনীশ দাস অপু। তার অনুবাদ নিয়ে নতুন করে কিছু বলার নেই। নিজের কাজটা তিনি পূর্ণ মনোযোগ দিয়ে করেছেন। তবে ব্যক্তিগতভাবে আমি মনে করি, বই বাছাইয়ের ক্ষেত্রে তার আরও সতর্ক হওয়া প্রয়োজন।
August 17, 2021
A honeymoon couple will stay at a hotel/castle which pays homage to scary monsters such as vampires, werewolves, cannibals made from plastic to illicit fear in the paying customers. Little do they know that the Lord of the castle was an evil prick who tortured and executed innocent folks centuries before. Now people will be killed by the Lord who made a deal with satan. Astral projection will try to rid the Lord of his evil powers. Bonkers as usual but really lacking in the gore/filth/sleaze part.
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August 7, 2019Recording that I read this in the late 70s or early 80s
February 7, 2025
Not the best Guy N Smith book I've read...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews