The Brain Eaters (Uk: Hamlyn Books, 1985)
Tagline: "An Eruption of Death-Lust Beyond the
Bounds of Horror."
When I started Guilty Pleasures, I knew I had to get
to this one sooner or later. I read it back in the '80's
and it sort of stuck in my head...much like the little
horrors in the book itself. The U.S. Fawcett
paperback had a pretty good cover, but nothing like
this one from good old horrible Hamlyn which pretty
nicely sums up the guts of this novel. Man, what a
face! And what a fun tagline: absolute pulp
melodrama. Sometimes I wonder who wrote those.
Tagline: "An Eruption of Death-Lust Beyond the
Bounds of Horror."
When I started Guilty Pleasures, I knew I had to get
to this one sooner or later. I read it back in the '80's
and it sort of stuck in my head...much like the little
horrors in the book itself. The U.S. Fawcett
paperback had a pretty good cover, but nothing like
this one from good old horrible Hamlyn which pretty
nicely sums up the guts of this novel. Man, what a
face! And what a fun tagline: absolute pulp
melodrama. Sometimes I wonder who wrote those.
Great work if you can get it. Gary Brandner wrote quite a few horror novels
from the late 1970's through the 1990's (Walkers, Floater, Carrion), but is best
known for The Howling (1977) which was turned into a movie by Joe Dante and
spawned no less than six sequels, though none of them seem to have much to
do with his original novel or the two novels that followed--Return of the Howling
and The Howling III: Echoes. The first book was once called 'Salem's Lot with
werewolves by one unflattering reviewer, but the novels bear little if any
resemblance. 'Salem's Lot is a meaty Gothic horror manifesto on vampires
spreading like germs, a re-telling (in some ways) of Dracula with heavy shades
of I Am Legend, while The Howling is, essentially, a slim, fast pulp horror novel.
But on to The Brain Eaters. Basically, the plot concerns a species of
microscopic parasite that gets into the brain and, as you may have guessed,
begins to eat it, causing episodic psychotic behavior in the host as they go
insane with agony. The parasites themselves are nearly microscopic, appearing
as black specks in the gray matter. Under the microscope, we learn, they
appear as tiny segmented worms with teeth that tunnel holes through the
cerebral cortex and lay eggs. Lots of eggs. A wonderfully appalling concept.
The eggs enter the host through any break in the skin, any cut or abrasion, and
go to work. And, as the eggs hatch, the larva not only eat the brain but travel
through the bloodstream into the tiny capillaries of the face causing swelling
nodules that burst, spreading the parasites in every which direction. "Like a
seedpod," as one of the characters point out. And in the process, giving its
victims the look of the fellow on the cover:
"Red blotches formed on the rough skin across Hank's cheekbones. The
blotches spread across his broken nose, up to the creased forehead, and down
around his mouth. They darkened and coalesced into shiny pustules as Vic
watched, his stomach turning over. The pustules broke like ripe boils,
discharging a gooey liquid."
Yuck. At which point, of course, our character above goes on a mad spree of
violence and killing. But how did any of this come to be? It seems a biotech
company called Biotron was experimenting with a new pesticide in its lab near
Appleton, Wisconsin. Some cannisters were switched and instead of harmless
dye began sprayed, out came the parasites in a fine mist...right near a busy
highway. As people across the country go insane, a burned out Milwaukee
journalist named Corey Macklin sniffs out the story and with the help of a sexy
Biotron biochemist, Dena Falkner, traces it to its source. But is it too late as the
brain eaters infest the country? The fate of the world rests in the hands of a
rogue Russian biologist who has just escaped his KGB entourage. Only he has
the answer...
Pros: Brandner is a very capable writer of the Richard Laymon school, in that he
writes very slim paragraphs and keeps the ball rolling with a minimum of
description. The characters are sound, the plot good. A very readable story.
Cons: My biggest beef with this book is that it's simply too dry. A story like this
demands gore and bloody mayhem and therefore fails on the Ghastly,
Gruesome, and Gor-ifying scale. One other thing I did not like is that some of
the nastiest scenes in the book were simply referred to after the fact, only told
and not shown.
Overall: A good read, but far too reserved for a nasty. The cover makes you
expect things and, unfortunately, you just don't get them.
Three bloody skulls out of five.
Next month, a trip out to the farm:
"Where Gut-Crunching, Bone-Grinding Horror is the Only Crop."
from the late 1970's through the 1990's (Walkers, Floater, Carrion), but is best
known for The Howling (1977) which was turned into a movie by Joe Dante and
spawned no less than six sequels, though none of them seem to have much to
do with his original novel or the two novels that followed--Return of the Howling
and The Howling III: Echoes. The first book was once called 'Salem's Lot with
werewolves by one unflattering reviewer, but the novels bear little if any
resemblance. 'Salem's Lot is a meaty Gothic horror manifesto on vampires
spreading like germs, a re-telling (in some ways) of Dracula with heavy shades
of I Am Legend, while The Howling is, essentially, a slim, fast pulp horror novel.
But on to The Brain Eaters. Basically, the plot concerns a species of
microscopic parasite that gets into the brain and, as you may have guessed,
begins to eat it, causing episodic psychotic behavior in the host as they go
insane with agony. The parasites themselves are nearly microscopic, appearing
as black specks in the gray matter. Under the microscope, we learn, they
appear as tiny segmented worms with teeth that tunnel holes through the
cerebral cortex and lay eggs. Lots of eggs. A wonderfully appalling concept.
The eggs enter the host through any break in the skin, any cut or abrasion, and
go to work. And, as the eggs hatch, the larva not only eat the brain but travel
through the bloodstream into the tiny capillaries of the face causing swelling
nodules that burst, spreading the parasites in every which direction. "Like a
seedpod," as one of the characters point out. And in the process, giving its
victims the look of the fellow on the cover:
"Red blotches formed on the rough skin across Hank's cheekbones. The
blotches spread across his broken nose, up to the creased forehead, and down
around his mouth. They darkened and coalesced into shiny pustules as Vic
watched, his stomach turning over. The pustules broke like ripe boils,
discharging a gooey liquid."
Yuck. At which point, of course, our character above goes on a mad spree of
violence and killing. But how did any of this come to be? It seems a biotech
company called Biotron was experimenting with a new pesticide in its lab near
Appleton, Wisconsin. Some cannisters were switched and instead of harmless
dye began sprayed, out came the parasites in a fine mist...right near a busy
highway. As people across the country go insane, a burned out Milwaukee
journalist named Corey Macklin sniffs out the story and with the help of a sexy
Biotron biochemist, Dena Falkner, traces it to its source. But is it too late as the
brain eaters infest the country? The fate of the world rests in the hands of a
rogue Russian biologist who has just escaped his KGB entourage. Only he has
the answer...
Pros: Brandner is a very capable writer of the Richard Laymon school, in that he
writes very slim paragraphs and keeps the ball rolling with a minimum of
description. The characters are sound, the plot good. A very readable story.
Cons: My biggest beef with this book is that it's simply too dry. A story like this
demands gore and bloody mayhem and therefore fails on the Ghastly,
Gruesome, and Gor-ifying scale. One other thing I did not like is that some of
the nastiest scenes in the book were simply referred to after the fact, only told
and not shown.
Overall: A good read, but far too reserved for a nasty. The cover makes you
expect things and, unfortunately, you just don't get them.
Three bloody skulls out of five.
Next month, a trip out to the farm:
"Where Gut-Crunching, Bone-Grinding Horror is the Only Crop."