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The Cats
THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF CATS CRAZED WITH BLOODLUSTA giant Doberman pinscher--the most vicious and deadly of killer dogs—lay in a bloody heap, its unseeing eyes still glazed with astonished terror.A young dropout on an acid trip smiled at the animals that were ripping his flesh from his bones—until he realized that this was really happening.What was left of a kindly old lady lay beside the shattered saucer of milk she had intended to put on the ground.A powerfully built rapist in the midst of his outrage felt the claws on his back—and his lust turned to gibbering agony.All over the vast city it was happening and no one seemed able to stop them—the police, the army, the scientist. And cat after cat was infected by the ferocious fever that for the first time made them the masters of man…THE CATS
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
May 7, 2017
They didn't need all that napalm. They could have led those kitties out of London with a laser pointer or a helicopter dangling a nice bit of string. Overkill.
September 1, 2016
Ok, fair warning to anyone that reads this, I gave it 5 stars because of how entertaining I found it, i.e. how fantastically awful it was and how much it made me laugh. One dimensional characters and predictable plot aside, every horror trope and cliche is here and cheesed up to the max. Don't expect anything good out of this, but if you're looking for a fun read, check it out.
February 21, 2023
Not quite two stars, so maybe 1.5? Not one of the better animal-attack novels. Author’s later books improved. Full review:
http://toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot....
http://toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot....
April 13, 2009
First released back in 1977, Nick Sharman’s debut pulp horror novel “The Cats” was yet another book to try and cash in on the huge success of James Herbert’s 1974 splatterpunk masterpiece “The Rats”. Like in so many of these “animals vs mankind” horror novels, the storyline is simple with the plot quickly explained in some ridiculous and unlikely fashion early on in the tale. Once this is done, the story picks up speed, delivering some poorly written splatterpunk horror. Like with the work of Guy N. Smith and John Halkin, the sheer trashy nature of the novel is the joy of reading such a book. With such clumsy and badly thought out ideas, you can’t help but laugh at what is written.
The dramatic ending comes out of nowhere, as if the author just wanted to get the book over and done with. The characterization is flat and underdeveloped. But still, if like me you love to read these pulp/trash horror novels, then this is a must.
The books runs for a mere 160 pages and was released through the New English Library.
The dramatic ending comes out of nowhere, as if the author just wanted to get the book over and done with. The characterization is flat and underdeveloped. But still, if like me you love to read these pulp/trash horror novels, then this is a must.
The books runs for a mere 160 pages and was released through the New English Library.
March 25, 2018
A three star rating is about the highest praise a pulp escapism adventure horror like this deserves. But if you want a taste of what the paperback horror craze of the 70s and 80s was like, here is a fine example that will leave you satisfied. Written as an almost satirical answer to Herbert's wildly popular "The Rats," this absurd entry into the animals-running-amok genre of Horror that was very fashionable in its day is both a self-aware satire that is ahead of its time, and an unapologetic attempt to cash in on the hype. Read it when you are feeling brain -dead or stuck in bed with a cold if you want the equivalent of a B-movie in book form to distract you. It is short and very readable within a day, but packed with action, even if some of the sequences make you scratch your head at how stupid and unrealistic they are.
Perhaps the only thing that could have earned this piece of pulp a higher rating would have been a helicopter leading the cats away from London with a piece of string. But alas, it was not to be, so enjoy this book as it is--a fun romp into the world of 70s exploitation horror fiction at its peak.
Perhaps the only thing that could have earned this piece of pulp a higher rating would have been a helicopter leading the cats away from London with a piece of string. But alas, it was not to be, so enjoy this book as it is--a fun romp into the world of 70s exploitation horror fiction at its peak.
July 13, 2019
This review first appeared on scifiandscary.com
You can imagine the scene. The offices of publishers the New English Library in the late 1970s.
“That book about rats is an absolute farking smash,” says a sweaty publishing exec with a fag hanging out of his mouth, “but we need more, and Herbert can’t write them quickly enough.”
“I know!” ejaculates a keen underling, “what about if we got someone else to write something similar.”
“We’ve already got Smith doing crabs, you plum,” grumbles the exec.
“Yeah, but maybe that’s too subtle,” continues the junior. “I mean, giant crabs and rats are totally different.”
The exec takes a drag on his Benson & Hedges: “So what you’re saying is we need something that the public can’t help but realise is like ‘The Rats’”
“That’s right! I was thinking we could just change one letter….”
And so ‘The Cats’ was born (possibly) and the world is, I think, a better place for it.
It certainly makes an interesting companion piece to this month’s other book, ‘The Rage’. There’s an obvious similarity (both books are about killer animals), but aside from that they’re as different as, well, cats and dogs.
‘The Rage’ ended up feeling like the novelisation of a dull government safety film. ‘The Cats’ is far more honest about its origins and a lot more fun as a result. It’s nonsensical, fast paced and enjoyably gory, with enough of a 70s Britain vibe to make it feel very appropriate as a subject for this column.
The story is a straight Rats rip off with a couple of potentially interesting twists. Rather than the titular felines being motivated purely by their basic animal instincts, they’ve been infected with a virus by a twisted scientist. Everything has been fine with his experiments until the temperature rises during a heatwave and the animals become viciously psychotic. The young schoolboy who has been helping the scientist tend to them is similarly infected, giving the book a sympathetic human monster that ‘The Rats’ lacked.
From there things progress quickly. Really quickly. One minute the cats have escaped the lab and there have been a few attacks; the next the whole city is infected with a plague of vicious moggies.
Like Herbert, Nick Sharman uses short vignettes to introduce characters and kills them. He lacks his more famous counterpart’s talent for this, but the gore can be fun even if the characterisation is often lacking. There’s one particularly effective scene where a hippy on acid lets himself get eaten alive. It all builds up to some pretty impressive carnage at the end, with soldier, flame throwers, and lots of shouting.
The book is set in London, like ‘The Rats’, but it lacks the great sense of place that book had. It is more obviously topical though, with IRA bombings, race riots, unemployment and the welfare state all getting references. The heatwave element is topical too, readers in 1977 would no doubt well remember the record-breaking temperatures that scorched Britain the year before. There’s also a scene where one of the characters drives past the house I was living in at the time.
Ultimately, it falls into a middle ground between ‘The Rats’ and ‘Night of the Crabs’. It’s not nearly as good as the former, or as enjoyably bad as the latter. The main problem with it is that the cats completely lack the menace that Herbert managed to instil in his rats. They seem silly rather than threatening and result is a book that’s entertaining enough but never even remotely scary.
Still, as a cat rather than a dog person, I am pleased to report that it was way better than ‘The Rage’.
You can imagine the scene. The offices of publishers the New English Library in the late 1970s.
“That book about rats is an absolute farking smash,” says a sweaty publishing exec with a fag hanging out of his mouth, “but we need more, and Herbert can’t write them quickly enough.”
“I know!” ejaculates a keen underling, “what about if we got someone else to write something similar.”
“We’ve already got Smith doing crabs, you plum,” grumbles the exec.
“Yeah, but maybe that’s too subtle,” continues the junior. “I mean, giant crabs and rats are totally different.”
The exec takes a drag on his Benson & Hedges: “So what you’re saying is we need something that the public can’t help but realise is like ‘The Rats’”
“That’s right! I was thinking we could just change one letter….”
And so ‘The Cats’ was born (possibly) and the world is, I think, a better place for it.
It certainly makes an interesting companion piece to this month’s other book, ‘The Rage’. There’s an obvious similarity (both books are about killer animals), but aside from that they’re as different as, well, cats and dogs.
‘The Rage’ ended up feeling like the novelisation of a dull government safety film. ‘The Cats’ is far more honest about its origins and a lot more fun as a result. It’s nonsensical, fast paced and enjoyably gory, with enough of a 70s Britain vibe to make it feel very appropriate as a subject for this column.
The story is a straight Rats rip off with a couple of potentially interesting twists. Rather than the titular felines being motivated purely by their basic animal instincts, they’ve been infected with a virus by a twisted scientist. Everything has been fine with his experiments until the temperature rises during a heatwave and the animals become viciously psychotic. The young schoolboy who has been helping the scientist tend to them is similarly infected, giving the book a sympathetic human monster that ‘The Rats’ lacked.
From there things progress quickly. Really quickly. One minute the cats have escaped the lab and there have been a few attacks; the next the whole city is infected with a plague of vicious moggies.
Like Herbert, Nick Sharman uses short vignettes to introduce characters and kills them. He lacks his more famous counterpart’s talent for this, but the gore can be fun even if the characterisation is often lacking. There’s one particularly effective scene where a hippy on acid lets himself get eaten alive. It all builds up to some pretty impressive carnage at the end, with soldier, flame throwers, and lots of shouting.
The book is set in London, like ‘The Rats’, but it lacks the great sense of place that book had. It is more obviously topical though, with IRA bombings, race riots, unemployment and the welfare state all getting references. The heatwave element is topical too, readers in 1977 would no doubt well remember the record-breaking temperatures that scorched Britain the year before. There’s also a scene where one of the characters drives past the house I was living in at the time.
Ultimately, it falls into a middle ground between ‘The Rats’ and ‘Night of the Crabs’. It’s not nearly as good as the former, or as enjoyably bad as the latter. The main problem with it is that the cats completely lack the menace that Herbert managed to instil in his rats. They seem silly rather than threatening and result is a book that’s entertaining enough but never even remotely scary.
Still, as a cat rather than a dog person, I am pleased to report that it was way better than ‘The Rage’.
March 2, 2020
Mutated rats, mutated giant killer crabs, mutated giant Gila Monsters, mutated giant praying mantises, mutated giant cockroaches... All of these creatures I can accept as threats to humanity; plausibility be damned. Fluffy cats on the other hand, not so much. These creatures hypnotize then murderize their victims.
There is violence aplenty in the novel, but none of it crawls under the skin like the voracious gribblies in “The Nest”. It’s a domesticated version of “The Rats” by James Herbert. Who would want that?
I will say this, I did enjoy the army using flamethrowers on the feisty felines.
There is violence aplenty in the novel, but none of it crawls under the skin like the voracious gribblies in “The Nest”. It’s a domesticated version of “The Rats” by James Herbert. Who would want that?
I will say this, I did enjoy the army using flamethrowers on the feisty felines.
November 22, 2017
This gets four stars because it was just what I expected it to be. Cheese writing, with lots of murderous cats killing a ton of one dimensional characters.
December 10, 2019
This book was stupid as hell but I had fun with it.
March 15, 2018
And my slog through "when animals attack" novels continues. This has been the most painful thus far. I added an extra star just for the pure schlocky ridiculousness of the plot, but this is not a good read nor is it entertaining.
There's a moment in the film adaptation of Wonder Boys when Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) says of his writing students--and I'm paraphrasing--What can you do? You tell the ones who have it to keep going. You tell the ones who don't to keep going because that's the only way they'll get better.
Good advice, but I'd like to think that Prof. Tripp would just tell Sharman to put down his pen.
The prose stilted and dry. He has no clue what "show not tell" means, and his cardboard characters evoke no pathos from the reader. At the very least, with a tale this farfetched, a writer could turn the B-elements up to 11. Nope, not even.
The only good thing I can say is that, in clocking in just over 160 pages, it was mercifully brief.
Of course, even terrible books can be studied, and there's much to mine here for my larger scholarly project. That said, I'm glad I've got this one under my belt. I hope the highlights are enough that I won't need to revisit this any further. I don't think I could take it.
There's a moment in the film adaptation of Wonder Boys when Professor Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) says of his writing students--and I'm paraphrasing--What can you do? You tell the ones who have it to keep going. You tell the ones who don't to keep going because that's the only way they'll get better.
Good advice, but I'd like to think that Prof. Tripp would just tell Sharman to put down his pen.
The prose stilted and dry. He has no clue what "show not tell" means, and his cardboard characters evoke no pathos from the reader. At the very least, with a tale this farfetched, a writer could turn the B-elements up to 11. Nope, not even.
The only good thing I can say is that, in clocking in just over 160 pages, it was mercifully brief.
Of course, even terrible books can be studied, and there's much to mine here for my larger scholarly project. That said, I'm glad I've got this one under my belt. I hope the highlights are enough that I won't need to revisit this any further. I don't think I could take it.
December 1, 2018
While visiting the local used paperback horror shop, Things Left Behind, I found this gem published by Signet in 1977. My review...
The Cats by Nick Sharman presents a warm fuzzy ripping good time. The story begins with an isolated deadly strain of bacteria that becomes a major experiment. Choosing a select species of animal culminating in five-fold strength and a heighten intelligence, an unstoppable diabolical ploy is set into motion. The author serves a special plater of writing talent consisting of viscous animals, claws and writhing bodies keeping the reader on track for a nonstop ride of exotic raw terror. His combination of freshly ground meat horror and vintage noir type of tension delivers a 70’s retro feel. Defining a structure only a die hearted B-Movie horror addict would enjoy, this book ensures many enjoyable endless nights of sleep.
April 5, 2020
Gosh, I liked it! But then, I also liked the film Galaxina. I love the idea of Felix Domestica finally giving up all pretense that they like us humans. In the book, elderly "cat women" finally get the reward that they should have known was coming, when their cherished loved ones see them as the food they are and always were. When the fur starts to fly, it's human hair flying and not cat hair. I confess that when cats started eating human babies I cheered.
August 24, 2017
An older book, with an interesting plot, I found it very satisfying. It had the scientist who wasn't trying to do evil, random people dying after we learn just a bit about them, and of course killer cats. We never really get to understand what happened in the lab to make them this way, but it was a fun read.
March 5, 2021
This one doesn't let up. From the moment when one of our heroes appears driving at 80mph while drinking lager, to the final pitched battle in Hyde Park in just over 150 pages.
A secret biotech lab on Bayswater Road has infected the local cats with super intelligence, and they only have thoughts of revenge on the puny humans of London town. All that can save us is the team of no-nonsense womanising detective Billy Crowther and flash American scientist John Inglis (assisted by the occasional "och" from whisky drinking Scotsman "Jock" Campbell. I don't think the author likes writing female characters, as there are none in this book). They organise the resistance and tear into the cats, pausing only to throw around a few needless racial slurs.
I've never read anything quite like this, it's as if the editor kept telling the writer "get rid of the quiet bits" until only the running cat battles remain. None of those sections in horror where dread builds while characters don't take the threat seriously, just a lot of throat ripping.
A secret biotech lab on Bayswater Road has infected the local cats with super intelligence, and they only have thoughts of revenge on the puny humans of London town. All that can save us is the team of no-nonsense womanising detective Billy Crowther and flash American scientist John Inglis (assisted by the occasional "och" from whisky drinking Scotsman "Jock" Campbell. I don't think the author likes writing female characters, as there are none in this book). They organise the resistance and tear into the cats, pausing only to throw around a few needless racial slurs.
I've never read anything quite like this, it's as if the editor kept telling the writer "get rid of the quiet bits" until only the running cat battles remain. None of those sections in horror where dread builds while characters don't take the threat seriously, just a lot of throat ripping.
March 20, 2022
Really goofy and kind of dumb.
July 9, 2020
This book was an attempt to capitalize on the success of The Rats (which is a masterpiece if you're into that kinda thing), and it really is a lot like The Rats, right down to all the characters who are introduced only to be brutally slaughtered a page or two later. And when are people going to learn that when the government comes in with their schemes to solve a big problem, it always goes horribly wrong? Hasn't anyone seen Die Hard? Or current reality?
Predictably, the writing here isn't great. But this gets extra points for the fun absurdity of the premise, which includes the military fighting cats and possessed children with flamethrowers.
Predictably, the writing here isn't great. But this gets extra points for the fun absurdity of the premise, which includes the military fighting cats and possessed children with flamethrowers.
October 5, 2020
Very entertaining. That's it. It is predictable, unoriginal, and doesn't brings nothing to the table. Doesn't surprise anybody. But it's a cool weekend read.
June 26, 2023
So Nick Sharman was the pseudonym for an author named Scott Gronmark, who died in 2020. He was born in Norway and lived there for six years before moving to England, where he mostly lived in London it appears. He worked mostly as a TV producer and editor but did write a number of horror novels, at least 7 according to Fantastic Fiction. This was apparently his first. I read it in a rerelease from Macabre Ink, an imprint of Crossroad Press. It's a nice package with decent sized print that's pretty easy to read. The original was published in 1977. I'm not sure when the rerelease was published.
The direct influence here would appear to be The Rats, by James Herbert, which was published in 1974. Herbert was also a British author so I can imagine that Sharman/Gronmark was familiar with his work. I liked The Rats better, particularly in the characters and the gut-wrenching quality of the tale. The Cats is a decent book, well-written and fairly gory. I didn't personally find it all that captivating. It may have been my mood but I think part of it is that cats are much less innately horrifying. Of course, an individual cat is much more dangerously endowed than a rat but they just aren't as disgusting and hideous to most humans, which gives Herbert's book a jump start on this one.
I was recommended this one by someone who really liked it so, again, it might be partly my mood in going into it. It's a short book and a quick read so you may want to try it yourself. And the published package is a good one.
The direct influence here would appear to be The Rats, by James Herbert, which was published in 1974. Herbert was also a British author so I can imagine that Sharman/Gronmark was familiar with his work. I liked The Rats better, particularly in the characters and the gut-wrenching quality of the tale. The Cats is a decent book, well-written and fairly gory. I didn't personally find it all that captivating. It may have been my mood but I think part of it is that cats are much less innately horrifying. Of course, an individual cat is much more dangerously endowed than a rat but they just aren't as disgusting and hideous to most humans, which gives Herbert's book a jump start on this one.
I was recommended this one by someone who really liked it so, again, it might be partly my mood in going into it. It's a short book and a quick read so you may want to try it yourself. And the published package is a good one.
September 12, 2023
I initially became familiar with this novel having seen it on a shelf in the used section of a book shop when I was a child. The lurid cover, which showed a cat with a skull face licking up blood, stuck in my memory even though I never got around to buying it. Seeing it available as a cheap Kindle ebook, I figured a book about killer cats would at least be a fun read.
I could not have been more wrong.
The book itself is frankly tedious, an unforgivable sin in this type of pulp horror work. There are only two major cat attack scenes in the whole book, with most of the plot focusing on the idiot who unwittingly created the killer cats by recreated his Cambridge professor's biological warfare experiments for the lols. Furthermore, the author, Nick Sharman, who worked as a journalist, has an annoying tendency of interjecting his political viewpoints into the narrative. We get it Nick, you don't like Socialist politicians. Now less commentary and more bloodthirsty cats!
To make things worse, the attack scenes are poorly handled. The characters killed are for the most part cannon fodder. Sharman appears to be trying to replicate the James Herbert formula of introducing single-chapter characters to be killed off, but fails to appreciate Herbert's approach of briefly developing those characters so that we actually care about them or at least hate them. The gore is perfunctory, eliminating one of the main thrills of this type of novel.
The main positive of this book is that it is a very short read and will not waste too much of your time. Still, it is best avoided.
I could not have been more wrong.
The book itself is frankly tedious, an unforgivable sin in this type of pulp horror work. There are only two major cat attack scenes in the whole book, with most of the plot focusing on the idiot who unwittingly created the killer cats by recreated his Cambridge professor's biological warfare experiments for the lols. Furthermore, the author, Nick Sharman, who worked as a journalist, has an annoying tendency of interjecting his political viewpoints into the narrative. We get it Nick, you don't like Socialist politicians. Now less commentary and more bloodthirsty cats!
To make things worse, the attack scenes are poorly handled. The characters killed are for the most part cannon fodder. Sharman appears to be trying to replicate the James Herbert formula of introducing single-chapter characters to be killed off, but fails to appreciate Herbert's approach of briefly developing those characters so that we actually care about them or at least hate them. The gore is perfunctory, eliminating one of the main thrills of this type of novel.
The main positive of this book is that it is a very short read and will not waste too much of your time. Still, it is best avoided.
August 1, 2023
I remember reading somewhere that Nick Sharman wrote this book because nobody else seemed to be doing it. After Herbert's The Rats influenced a wave of animal attack books, The Cats was such an obvious idea that Sharman was shocked nobody had done it yet. He felt he was obligated to write this novel.
And it does feel like a novel spawned from obligation, not from any strong desire to tell a particular story. In fact, Sharman rushes through the novel as quickly as possible - characters are cookie-cutter, events are yadda-yadda'd. In trying to make the story stand out from The Rats, Sharman introduces a few twists that are shockingly underdeveloped and only serve to leave you wondering: Why bother?
And it does feel like a novel spawned from obligation, not from any strong desire to tell a particular story. In fact, Sharman rushes through the novel as quickly as possible - characters are cookie-cutter, events are yadda-yadda'd. In trying to make the story stand out from The Rats, Sharman introduces a few twists that are shockingly underdeveloped and only serve to leave you wondering: Why bother?
April 2, 2023
Since I was a boy I have been a 'cat person' as well as as a HUGE aficionado of all things spooky. In my early days of reading I always looked for cat books in multiple genres. I came across this sometime in the early 80s and man of man. I was not disappointment. This was a part of the slew of horror books cranked out from c. `75-88 in the wake of Jaws and I absolutely LOVED it. Mine has the earlier cover with a cat's head with a human skull face licking a spot of blood from its wrist. Utterly awesome. It's pure horror pulp but so in my haunted house.
April 27, 2021
A fun pulpy read. It's really pretty ridiculous, but honestly, pulp horror should be as such. I honestly enjoyed it simply because it was fast-paced, had easy character development, and had a few twists and turns that kept me interested. I do recommend it for something to read when you need an entertainment break!
October 27, 2023
This really dragged for a novella. I was hoping it would be interesting, but there was too much science speak and then the flow was pretty bad. I kept skimming after a while because the story was getting very very boring. I was here for murderous cats, and there felt like too much other stuff was getting crammed in. That said, I did like the ending.
I read this for Horror Aficionados "Cats."
I read this for Horror Aficionados "Cats."
January 25, 2022
Fun in a mindless, pulp horror kind of way. Reads easily, but equally easily forgotten. The set pieces are effective as are the descriptions of gore and violence. If you like books like Herbert’s ‘The Rats’ you’ll enjoy this, though it’s not as good as that classic.
October 9, 2022
Dumb. Entertaining but dumb. Worth it if you want to give your brain a break. There is no thinking involved in reading this book. None. Nada. The entire plot is SCIENCE! causes cats to become a more effective invading force than the Russian army and the characters wander around a bit wondering what is going on and what they should do while hundreds of people are mauled to death. And then flamethrowers. The end. Don't expect clever characters to use science to solve the problem. Don't expect clever characters.
Want to read
March 16, 2022
April 2, 2023
Boring read with hillariously bad plot and brain dead characters.
July 8, 2023
Fun concept, some great scenes.
October 21, 2023
Ludicrous book. I liked the part where the President of the USA forced a cat to drink a bottle of acid.
December 15, 2023
2.5 rounded up for GR
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews