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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Who has that emasculated giant killer stick insect book?

08:10 / 08.03.03

I can't remember what the post was but someone mentioned a book about a man who's genitals are eaten by crocodiles, he spends 50 pages talking about how he will have his revenge, and then he trains killer stick insects. I remember the poster wasn't impressed. So, if you still have it, can I have it? I'll pay shipping.

14:46 / 08.03.03

My brother owns it.

Whether he wants to keep it or not, I don't know, but I'll email him and hopefully at least get the name, author and publication details for you.

It's a really nasty book though, and not in a good way, despite the cool premise.

05:12 / 09.03.03

Thanks.

18:30 / 09.03.03

It is with bitter regret and shame that I must state that I believe the title to be 'Eat them alive'. A mainstay of English seaside bookshops (the kind that double as a newsagent) for many years in the 1970s, it is occasionally still sighted in the less fashionable branches of Help the Aged. It is, indeed, fucking terrible.

14:14 / 10.03.03

OK, can now confirm via my brother that it is indeed;

>- 'Eat them alive!' by Pierce
>Nace.
>
>"His thirst for revenge was unquenchable until he
>stumbled on the terrifying monsters of Malpelo
>island."
>
>-The front cover description reads:
>
>"The blood became a way of life."
>
>-The publishers proclaim boldly on the reverse:
>
>"The image of revenge lay just outside his grasp until
>that fateful day that Malpelo island split open and
>the creatures emerged. Suddenly Dyke was faced with a
>new and terrifying way to strike back at those who had
>ripped away his manhood and crippled his body.
> "But as his fearful plan began to work and his
>monstrous legions of crawling things wreaked their
>terror he was faced with a new struggle... would the
>blood destroy him before his enemies?"
>

I realise posting that isn't exactly helping my case for it being awful. Sounds like a laugh riot..

And a castrated central character called 'Dyke'! You'd think things would be set up for a knuckle-draggingly obvious trick ending, or at least some fucking terrible jokes, but no such luck..

14:34 / 10.03.03

Lovely page about this masterwork of modern literature

"Pierce Nace" was apparently a pseudonym for one Scott Gronmark, who also writes as Nick Sharman. Whether it had any connection to Nez Perce—"pierced nose," the name given to a North American Indian tribe—remains unclear.

15:57 / 10.03.03

"Remember me now, Pete? Or shall I take off my pants and let my castration jog your memory?"

If there is more of this then I'd happily shell out cash for this book.

19:49 / 10.03.03

My god, the old lore of the forest must be true; once a stick insect has tasted blood, it'll be a maneater for life.
I'm sure much of the novel features various low life types sitting round suspiciously eyeing fallen trees and logs. Our victim turns away for a second and that hunk of deadwood sidles a little closer...

Just imagine how much this theme would have improved 'The Ghost and the Darkness'.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:59 / 11.03.03

I am so gonna have to read this.

nedrichards is confused

23:44 / 11.03.03

To be fair that page does have a footnote where Scott Gronmark comes out of hiding to deny attribution, as well he might. I can only echo the thoughts further up the thread. Must. find. copy.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:06 / 12.03.03

God bless New English Library.

Foust is SO authentic

02:30 / 12.03.03

All right... I have to read that book.

Those who say it's horrible in a bad way - how can you argue with writing like,

"But now I've got something to live for, because I LOVE watching a man being eaten by a monster! Maybe it's a substitute for my lost virility, I don't know"

or,

"God, he's out! He'll kill this scum and me too! Nobody will have a chance against him. He'll kill everything in this whole jungle, animals and men and women and kids! Nobody'll be safe from him!"

How on earth could this be anything less than a riot? Does the Trash City link misrepresent it that badly?

14:03 / 12.03.03

Well, um, those bits are funny, yeah, but on the whole it's extremely repetitive, gives 'doggeral' a bad name and nothing much actually happens.. It's like an overlong English assignment written by a sadistic, retarded 12 year old..

There's something really, I dunno, childlike about the way there's loads of silly, slobbering intestine eating and stuff, but sex and genitals are written about in a really polite, old-fashioned manner, as if the author's secretly obsessed with them but hasn't quite figured out how they work yet.. as the page linked above points out, it's all about his "private parts" and his "inability to make love", between bouts of crazy insect sadism.

In that sense, it's all quite disturbing, and if, as I suspect, the author was neither a)a child or b)deliberately taking the piss, I hope he found some psychiatric help..

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:55 / 13.03.03

Yeah, but Riz, surely "bouts of crazy insect sadism" are worth ploughing through any amount of shit for...