Slimer

A couple of years ago, I saw a positive review for Slimer on The Book Graveyard channel (HERE). Nick loved the book, and for the most part, I tend to agree with his appraisals (aside from that yucky Hawk series). It took a while, but I finally tracked the book down. It's a horror novel originally published in the UK in 1983 by Star Books. It was reprinted in the US in 1989 by Bart Books, then again in 2018 by Valancourt Books. The author is John Raymond Brosnan, using the pseudonym Harry Adam Knight. 

The setup is the obligatory horror jam – isolation, atmosphere, survival, gore. It unfolds like a cinematic slasher masterpiece as six young people are systematically hunted and killed in a confined space. There's sex and drugs, of course, and the clear-cut final men and women, the level-headed Boy Scout and his ambitious girlfriend.

After their yacht sinks in the North Sea, the six survivors find themselves hopelessly lost at sea. Upon their lifeboat, the group spots a seemingly abandoned oil rig. After making their way inside, the narrative expands into a search 'n investigate for people, food, and supplies. One of the most annoying characters, Alex, immediately becomes the persistent pervert. He's a horny drug dealer who's rejected by his girlfriend. His nemesis is the above-mentioned level-headed Boy Scout, Paul and a clingy junkie named Mark. This feuding dynamic is necessary to propel the story, but it made the dialogue recycle with the same insulting jabs.

After the investigation, and some gruesome findings, the group discovers that the facility isn't an oil rig at all, but a clandestine high-tech lab performing biological weapons testing. The fallout is a black, slime-like entity that has killed most of the lab workers. This entity can shape-shift and invade the minds of its victims while displaying immense predatory behavior. It is seemingly immortal, adaptive, and invasive – the ultimate killing machine.

Slimer is a serviceable horror novel that uses fear and isolation to affect the intimacy of the characters. The three couples find themselves at odds with each other as their sanity and physical limitations are placed in looping high-tension scenarios. There are guns, knives, pipes, and even flamethrowers at work as the group struggles every hour to outwit the slime-thing. In some ways, Slimer reminded me of some classic horror and science-fiction films, Alien and The Thing. The graphic sex and Alex's insistent need to get laid dampened the enjoyment, but overall, this was an engaging, fun little horror paperback. Recommended.

Get Slimer HERE.