Man, it took me forever to get through these five books!  I don't know.   Right now I'd rather be writing than reading.  (I am working on a new book currently!)  This time around I accidentally re-read two books (couldn't remember a thing about either when I started them and then hit certain scenes that triggered a foggy memory) and three movie tie-in books.  I'm also throwing in a sort of graphic novel because I enjoyed it so dang much.  Here goes.

Devour (1981), Paul Adams, Futura (U.K.)

This is one of those "nature run amok" books that were so popular in the U.K. from the late '70s to the early '80s.  Here we have toxic waste tainted Pike, a freshwater shark, running loose and eating every idiotic character dumb enough to jump in the local lake.  The first five or six chapters simply introduce characters who are fed to the freshwater monsters by the chapter's end.  My comments my not sound very flattering, but this is pretty much what I expect when I read one of these kinds of books.  A little sex, some pretty unbelievable characters and a nearly invincible menace.  One scene pushed the needle of my Bull Stuff meter to the end of the scale when the Pike jumped out of the lake during a rain storm only to squirm and splash on land from mud hole to mud hole to attack two lovers in a cabin.  It's the kind of stuff that makes you re-read a sentence or paragraph a couple times to make sure you're reading what you think you're reading.  It's certainly no The Rats, or even Killer Crabs or Slugs for that matter, but it'll do in a pinch.

Creature From the Black Lagoon  (1977),  Ramsey Campbell (writting as Carl Dreadstone), Berkley Medallion Book

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the Gillman's first filmatic foray.  Scientists find the remains of an amphibious humanoid in the Amazon and then encounter the real thing, a fish-man who attacks their expedition and takes the only female for miles to his Playboy Mansion-like grotto.  Well, I went into this book thinking it was going to be a standard novelization of the film.  The basic premise is the same, but here we have sadistic natives, graphic violence (including eyeballs popping from sockets and innards being fed to piranhas) and the main characters get some nookie after surviving one of the creature's attacks.  The creature is referred to as AA, which is short for "Advanced Amphibian".  Here the monster is 30 feet tall, pink, weighs 30 tons and has a long, whipping tail, as well as both male and female reproductive organs.  Now it's easy to understand why this is not a novelization but a novel "inspired" by the classic film.  It's a pretty wild trip.  Writting under the Dreadstone pen name, Campbell wrote a whole series of "inspired" novels based on the Universal Horror flicks.  The others include: The Mummy, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Werewolf of London, Dracula's Daughter and The Wolfman.  Once I got used to the fact that this was basically a "re-imagining" of the original story, I really got into it.  What I found most amusing was a stamp on the inside cover that said: Keystone Middle School.  (I wonder what those kids who read it thought?)

The Bride of Frankenstein  (1977),  Ramsey Campbell (writting as Carl Dreadstone), Berkley Medallion Book

This is a much closer adaptation of the original movie than "Dreadstone's" Creature "re-imagining".   Here we have a Frankenstein monster who does not miss an opportunity to stomp a person's head into a puddle of crunchy oatmeal or split somebody's noggin in two halves with an axe.  As you know, Dr. Pretorius comes to Henry Frankenstein and they make a female mate for the creature.  Thankfully, "Dreadstone" spares us the monster's bedroom antics and sticks to the original story with Franky's gal pal giving him the cold shoulder and having only eyes for Henry.  In Campbell's Foreword he says that the original version of Universal's The Bride of Frankenstein ran over 90 minutes and had an amusing scene of gratuitous Burgomastor snuffing.  Does anyone know the skinny on this cut scene?  (I guess I need to go back to my DVD and see if there's any mention of it in the extras.)  I really enjoyed this book.  It was sort of like the kind of Frankenstein flick Hammer would have made during the '80s gore and splatter era to compete with the slasher flicks of the time.  Inside the book was a stamp from the Center Grove Middle School Library.  It also had Robbie Little's name printed inside.  (I wonder if Robbie Little or any of the kids from Center Grove Middle School suffered nightmares after reading this novel?)  If you ever get a chance to check it out, give it a read.

The Return of Swamp Thing (1989), Peter David, Jove

There are great movie novelizations that add a great deal to the plot and flesh out their cinematic stories (The Funhouse, Dead & Buried, Halloween), some that follow the story, adding little bits here and there, and deliver an enjoyable read (Halloween II, Halloween III, The Fog, Videodrome, the Friday the 13th novelizations), the so-so ones that seem like little more than the script (the A Nightmare on Elm Street I-V novelizations, The Blob) and then some that read like they were written by a little kid with a crayon (Final Exam, The Lost Boys).  The Return of Swamp Thing novelization falls between the great ones and the enjoyable to read ones.  While it adds more to the characters' backgrounds, it unfolds quickly and gets to all the monster battles from the movie.  It also adds new characters, such as the mysterious British man Alan who runs the Wein Motel.  The story is pretty simple.  Dr. Arcane needs the blood of his stepdaughter to perfect his anti-aging serum.  When Abigail Arcane comes to visit, she is soon on the run from Dr. Arcane's henchmen.  Fleeing into the swamps, she encounters and falls in love with Dr. Alex Holland, who is now the hulking Swamp Thing.  (He is a man made of mud and vines and roots and everything else found in the swamp.)  This is a fun comic book romp that adds much more violence than what the PG-13 movie showed.  Anyone familiar with the movie will immediately notice where some of the flick's classic lines are spoken by different characters in the book.  Peter David has written a ton of science fiction books.  Give it a read.

Nightmare Journey (1975), Dean Koontz, Berkley Medallion Book

Jask Zinn is a human with psi powers pursued by The General and his Pure soldiers for extermination.  In the future world, after countless wars, people live in protected enclaves.  Some, from the Artificial Wombs, are mutants and have animal features and psi powers.  Fleeing the enclave with the mutant Tedesco (who resembles a giant bear), the two flee into the Wildlands in search of The Dark Presence.  Obviously inspired by the pulp science fiction adventures Koontz read in his youth, Nightmare Journey is light-weight fluff that is like your favorite junk food- You know it's not good for you, but you just can't stop eating it.  Until they enter a maze of caves created from colored bacteria, I didn't remember a thing about this book.  For years it has been sitting patiently in my To Be Read pile and never once do I remember cracking it open and reading it.  It's that kind of book.  I imagine in another ten or fifteen years I will have completely forgotten that I've read it twice already and will pick it up and read it again.  I doubt Koontz will ever want to re-write and re-release this one, so if you find it for a reasonable price from a book dealer, pick it up.

Extra Book 

Gene Simmons HOUSE OF HORRORS  (2008), various writers, Simmons Comic Group/IDW Publishing

Not really a book, or even a graphic novel, this is a reprinting of the first three issues of the Gene Simmons House of Horrors comic book.  I really loved this collection because most are written by guys who, while they probably didn't grow up reading the EC Comics of the '50s, they obviously grew up reading the black & white Warren Comic Magazines like Eerie and Creepy in the '70s and '80s.  Here, the four color stories cover every kind of horror imaginable.  My favorite story was Nymph, written by Sean Taylor and drawn by Jon Alderink; it outdoes what M. Night Shyamalan attempted to do with The Happening in twelve lean, mean, gut-wrenching pages.  Other favorite stories include Crude (written by Tom Waltz, drawn by Esteve Polls), Circle Seven (written by Chris Ryall, drawn by Steph Stamb), Wings Of The Deep (written by Jason Henderson, drawn by German Torres), Acid Rock (written by Mike Baron, drawn by Gabe Eltaeb), Last Meal (written by Ivan Brandon, drawn by Jeffrey Zornow) and Chicken Warrior (by Tom Waltz, drawn by Ricardo Arreola), to name a few.  Each issue includes an introduction by Simmons as well as a short terror tale from his offspring, Nick Simmons.  If you dig horror comics and have missed this comic, seek out this handsome, gruesome collection for some bloody chills.