[GNS News] Newsletter No. 9

[GNS News] Newsletter No. 9
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Official Newsletter No. 9
Celebrating the Life and Works of Guy N Smith 1939-2020
Greetings Fans, Friends and Fiends!
Welcome! We have details of the imminent GNS Fan Convention 2025 (still
time
to sign up, the more the merrier) plus current and future projects by
Black Hill Books. We’ve been busy with re-releases and audio!
Recent highlights include the Night of the Crabs
audiobook and new
ebook/paperback editions of Crabs on the Rampage,
Crabs’
Moon, Crabs: The Human Sacrifice,
Werewolf by
Moonlight, Return of the Werewolf, and
Son of the
Werewolf. Don’t miss this newsletter’s heartwarming
Last Word
article by Chris Hall of DLS Reviews.
The Guy N. Smith Fan Convention 2025
Located at Knighton Community Centre, Powys, the GNS fan convention this
year, on Sunday September 7th, will begin at 12.30pm (doors open 12:15).
Highlights:
Win exclusive Smith-themed merchandise in
the raffle
Meet award-winning Welsh comedian
Bennett Arron (see below), who’ll lighten the
darkness with his take on our
world of crabbery and werewolfery
Listen to Mickey Lewis read from
Werewolf by Moonlight
Enjoy a reading from David Owain Hughes’
cannibal story Dacchus
Grab a signed limited edition of the Fan Con
chapbook
Test your knowledge in our Were-Crab
Quiz
Snack on a free buffet by Borders Bites
Watch a horribly ghoulish GNS-related film
clip…
Save with fan-con prices
(£8 each or three for £22)
Bid in our auction for GNS rarities
Forget your cares with blood, guts and
jump-scares!
Bennett Arron (writer, actor, award-winning comedian)
Bennett Arron is an award-winning writer, comedian and actor who starred
in
all four series of the Radio 4 Sitcom ALONE. He has written and
starred
in two radio series, Bennett Arron is Jewelsh, and
Bennett Arron Worries
About… both of which were nominated for the Celtic Media
Awards, and he
was a presenter on BBC Three Counties Radio. He has performed around the
UK and internationally (Italy, Australia, Germany, Poland, South Africa
and Hong Kong). Bennett
presented the BBC
documentary The Kosher Comedian and was BAFTA-shortlisted for
presenting and directing the Channel 4 documentary How To Steal An
Identity. He is a past winner of both the TAPS Comedy
Writer of the Year
Award and the BBC New Writer's Award and is a past finalist of the BBC
New Comedy Awards. However his proudest moment was coming third in an
International Disco Dancing Championship in Tenerife.
And now for a sneaky peek at some of the goodies…
You’ve got to be there to get something rare!
Latest Releases
Robin Ince – Crabs on the Rampage Foreword Writer
A multi award winning comedian, author, broadcaster, bibliomaniac and
populariser of scientific ideas, Robin Ince is perhaps best known as the
co-host and co-creator of the Sony Gold Award winning BBC Radio 4 series
The Infinite Monkey Cage with Professor Brian Cox. As a
stand-up, Robin
has toured the world and as an author he has written four acclaimed
books, including Bibliomaniac, which earned
him the prestigious Booksellers
Association Author of the Year award. His fifth, Normally Weird and
Weirdly Normal is published in May 2025. He co-created the
Cosmic
Shambles Network and created the groundbreaking science variety night
Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People which has been
adapted
worldwide. He has received an Honorary Fellowship of UCL, an honorary
doctorate from Royal Holloway College (University of London), and is a
fellow of the British Science Association.
Simon Clark – Crabs’ Moon Foreword Writer
Simon, born in Wakefield and a denizen of Yorkshire, adapted his
award-winning novel The Night of the Triffids as a two-hour
full-cast
audio drama for Big Finish, leading to BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcasting
the production in 2016. Simon is also the author of dozens of short
stories and more than thirty novels, including Vampyrrhic,
Blood Crazy,
and Darker, many of which have been published worldwide in
Japanese,
Italian, Greek, Estonian, Spanish, Czech, Polish, French, German and
Dutch. Recently, Simon co-scripted The Protos Experiment, a
dystopian
sci-fi/horror feature film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival
in 2024, and went on general release last summer.
Graham Holden (G. P. Nedloh) – Crabs: The Human Sacrifice Foreword
Writer
Graham (G. P. Nedloh) grew up in rural Sussex, and after some time away
finds
himself back in the county he is most fond of, with the Southdowns on
his doorstep. Inspired by the writing of Guy N. Smith he's taken the
plunge to attempt to do more writing. He recently published his first
novella The Woodlice, very much a 1980s British pulp-horror
inspiration, and is currently finishing an entirely different novella
called mindNet, a 1990s-inspired cyber-thriller that will have
an
accompanied music release.
Graham’s dog Pepper appears as Molly in The
Woodlice
Listen up! Night of the Crabs audiobook
Narrated by Pete Gold. Released May 2025, available on Spotify, Audible and
all well-known platforms. Killer Crabs audiobook is in
production…
Listen on Audible: Night
of the
Crabs (Audiobook)
Also available on Libro, Storytel, Audiobook, Booktopia, Chirp, Kobo,
Google Play and more.
More new releases: Return of the Werewolf, Son of the Werewolf
Following on from our new edition of Werewolf by Moonlight, we
have now
released Return of the Werewolf (with foreword by J.R. Park)
and Son of
the Werewolf (with foreword by Chris Elphick)!
J.R. Park – Return of the Werewolf Foreword Writer
J. R. Park is a horror author based in South Wales, UK. His works have
featured in Year's Best Hardcore Horror and the award-winning
Splatterpunk
Forever anthology. Described by Scream magazine as
having
“the darkest imagination in the universe,” his stories take the
pulp-horror template, twisting and mashing them
into new forms. As well
as his own books such as Upon Waking and Punch, Park
has co-authored
with extreme-horror maestro Matt Shaw (Postal) and even Guy
N. Smith himself (Beheaded). Park is honoured to write the
foreword to
Return of the Werewolf, himself a werewolf-fiction fan, penning
his own
lycanthropic book Mad Dog.
Chris Elphick – Son of the Werewolf Foreword Writer
Chris Elphick is a writer and photographer from South Wales. He has
published
nine pulp horror novels, along with several guidebooks celebrating the
Gower Peninsula—his beloved childhood playground. In addition, he
produces a range of photozines and has a second visitor's guide to
Glastonbury, Avalon, slated for publication in August 2025. A
lifelong
fan of Guy N. Smith, Chris has admired the horror author for nearly half
a century. Recently, he dedicated an entire year to reading and
exploring Smith's work. This deep dive inspired his first fan-based
zine, GNS – 50 Years of Pulp Horror, a personal and passionate
exploration of collecting Guy N. Smith books and ephemera, and
discovering new ways to celebrate the author’s wildly imaginative
legacy.
Chris Elphick is about to release his long-anticipated GNS zine Number
2! The
book contains several GNS-inspired shorts by author-fans of Our Great
Scribbler and also the introduction to Nightmares from the Black
Hill,
Guy’s London Mystery Selection short story anthology (2017),
and a
special republication of “The Mummy” from that publication. Available on
Amazon.
On the way: Cannibals
The re-release of Smith’s Cannibals ebook and paperback is now
in
production, timed to (nearly) coincide with author and GNS fan
David Owain Hughes’ special 10th anniversary limited edition of his
own cannibals-themed horror oeuvre, All the F*cks. The book
includes
a novel, a novella, a comic strip, two short stories, a foreword
by Guy’s daughter Tara and an introduction by Chris Hall of DLS Reviews!
In 2016, Hughes wrote a Smith-inspired short story called
Dacchas which picks up where Cannibals
stops, first published in Hell of
a Guy, a limited-edition tribute anthology to Smith,
compiled and edited
by J.R. Park and Chris Hall to mark the 25th Fan Convention. Dacchas is
in fact this year’s special Fan Con Chapbook, limited to just 100
numbered copies, published by Black Hill Books and illustrated by Tara.
David Owain Hughes
David Owain Hughes is an ink-slinger of sick, perverse horror and filth
who grew up on cheap beer, lewd ’80s horror, and sticky skin mags he’d
find in the woods behind his childhood home. The aforementioned porn was
usually always rescued from in between used, come-filled rubbers, broken
needles and shit-stained underwear. Hughes will tell you that Sybil
Danning awoke his sexuality, although, truth be told, it was probably
Danny DeVito. Hughes has had
multiple short stories published in various
online magazines and anthologies, along with articles, reviews and
interviews. He’s written for This Is Horror, Blood
Magazine, and Horror
Geeks Magazine, with a one-off review appearing in Rue
Morgue Magazine.
He is the author of six horror novels, four short story collections and
a plethora of novellas. When he’s not writing B movie-like rubbish and
daydreaming about Ingrid Pitt’s tits, he can be found penning crime
fiction, having carved out a superb series of crime/noir thrillers under
the umbrella title of South by Southwest Wales. Hughes is a
forty-something manchild who lives with an epic housemate and three cats
in the Rhondda Valleys, South Wales, Wales.
Thanking you kindly…
There’s always a touch of GNS in the industry – here are a couple of
instances we've spotted since the last newsletter. Thanks Justin and
Trevor!
1Phantasmogoria Issue #25 Winter 24/25, edited by Trevor Kennedy
Paperback Fanatic #50, edited by Justin Marriott
Fiends with Benefits (well, blogs…)
Guy’s stories have always thrived on word of mouth, whispered praise,
and
bloody good recommendations. Fortunately, there are fiends out there
spreading the gospel of pulp horror across the internet.
Here’s a selection of sites and blogs keeping the Great Scribbler alive:
Gavin
Kendall
Paul Ebbs on Facebook
Chris Hall / DLS
Reviews
Mike
Howlett
Hal C. F. Astell's The
Nameless Zine
Hal C. F. Astell's
Apocalypse Later Empire
The Monster Librarian Interview
With Guy N. Smith
Lord Sampers Library (@lordsamper on X)
Chris Elphick
Meet Guy N. Smith on Boing
Boing
And if you’re hunting physical treasures, our Official UK Seller, Paul
Evans,
keeps a stash of hard-to-find titles on AbeBooks.
Know of another den of horrors where Guy’s name is praised?
Send word to doom@guynsmith.com
and we’ll add it to the roll of honour.
Website
In the run-up to the Fan Convention 2025, our digital crypt at
guynsmith.com is growing fast!
It already holds past newsletters, Mystery Man Diary
instalments,
a biography of Guy, and a large slice of the back catalogue.
But the site is very much a work-in-progress. With more than
150 pages (and still not a complete list of Guy’s
books),
there are bound to be gaps and the occasional error. We’d love
fans to help us shape and expand it.
How you can help:
Submit reviews of your favourite GNS books or chapbooks
Spot a mistake? Let us know so we can correct it
Know of missing editions, cover art, or interviews? Send them in
Want to get hands-on? We’re even happy for fans to edit pages
directly
This is bigger than any one person’s project.
With the help of the community we can build the most complete,
living archive of the Great Scribbler’s work.
So please, drop by, browse, and contribute — your input keeps
Guy’s legacy alive online.
Guy N. Smith Patreon Membership
In October 2024 we opened a Patreon to help fund ongoing GNS
restoration, re-releases,
and community projects. For just $4/month you can keep
the Great
Scribbler’s legacy
alive — and get a little something back for your devotion.
Why join?
Sneak peeks at covers, layouts, and
works-in-progress before public release
Behind-the-scenes notes from the archive and
reprint process
Patron polls to help prioritise future re-releases
and features
Digital extras (e.g., hi-res artwork, desktop
wallpapers)
Shout-outs in the newsletter / site
(optional)
Every pledge goes directly into editing, typesetting, cover restoration,
audiobook
production,
and hosting costs. Cancel any time.
Become a Patron → patreon.com/greatscribbler
Amazon Author Page
Guy’s official Amazon page gathers together all available titles —
paperbacks, ebooks, and audiobooks — in one place.
By following the page, you’ll be notified when new reprints or
editions are released.
→ Follow Guy’s Amazon Author Page
Every follow helps boost Guy’s visibility on Amazon, keeping the
Great Scribbler in front of new readers — and ensuring the crabs,
werewolves, and pulp horrors never fade away.
Last Word by Chris Hall
Okay, so I first came across Guy N Smith’s work after picking up a copy
of
‘Satan’s Snowdrop’ from a second hand bookshop probably around 1996 –
1998. At the time I was churning through Barker, Hutson and Herbert
novels, but with a seemingly unquenchable thirst for more tales of
macabre. The stark and bold cover of ‘Snowdrop’ instantly grabbed my
attention, whilst reminding me of the cover for Herbert’s ‘The Survivor’
– so I absolutely had to add it to my TBR pile.
For some reason it was a little while before I read my next GNS book.
Probably a combination of spending my time gigging (I was in a grunge
rock band at the time) and heading off to uni, plus gurls, booze and all
the shenanigans life as a later teen offers.
Anyway, roll on a handful of years and I made friends with a fella at a
beer festival (Adrian Walsh) and for some reason we got talking about
Guy’s pulp horror. Turns out he was a big fan of Guy’s work. The next
thing I know, he’d lent me ‘Night of The Crabs’, ‘The Sucking Pit’ and a
whole host of other GNS titles. Over the next few weeks, I lapped up
each one like a proverbial pig with its nose in the trough. And from
that moment I was hooked.
Of course, this is still very much the early days of the internet, so
establishing quite how many GNS titles were actually out there, was a
tad tricky. As such, it became a mission of mine to try to unearth them
all. And so I began avidly collecting GNS books, constantly adding them
to my ever-increasing stack, and flaunting any new discoveries to the
aforementioned Adrian.
Over the next twenty or so years, GNS became a huge part of my life.
I’ve attended every annual GNS Fan Convention since 2010. Guy and his
wonderful family have also become good friends. I’ve also been lucky
enough to be killed at the claws of the giant crabs within the novella
‘Killer Crabs 2: The Return’. I’m the proud owner of a deer skull which
Guy found in the Blackhill woodland, which he swore blind was the result
of a Big Cat kill. For the GNS geeks out there, this exact skull
appeared on the covers for both Shane Agnew’s insanely informative
Bibliography, as well as the ‘Dangerous Wild Animals In Britain’
chapbook.
Following Guy’s sad passing, the annual GNS Fan Conventions have
continued,
organised by Guy’s hard-working daughter – Tara. If you’ve not attended
one before, then I strongly urge you to! Just being around so many
passionate fans, sharing in our love and admiration for Guy, is
something truly special. In fact, over the years I’ve formed so many
wonderful friendships which will undoubtedly last a lifetime.
So yeah, because of how special these conventions have always been, in
2016 Justin Park and I put together a (now highly sought-after)
anthology of GNS inspired fan fiction, which was presented to Guy at
that year’s Fan Convention, to celebrate 25 years of the conventions. A
wonderful chapter in the GNS world that I and all the contributors are
immensely proud of.
As anyone who spends five-minutes in my company will no doubt testify,
preserving the legacy of GNS is very important to me. To this day I’ve
continually done what I can to promote Guy’s work and document what was
published. My website – DLS Reviews – an openly verbose labour of love,
is where I continually add more in-depth reviews of GNS’s work, more to
provide an online reference for those wanting to find out more about
Guy’s back catalogue, than anything else.
Anyway, I love that we have these fan Newsletters. That we get to see
all the work Tara and numerous others are putting in, to keep Guy’s
legacy alive and well. I urge anyone who has found something special in
Guy’s books and his life, to continue to support the mission, in
whatever way you can. Whether it’s through monthly contributions to the
GNS Patreon account, through purchasing the rereleases that keep coming
out, through reviews, word of mouth, or from attending the Fan
Conventions.
And if you do come to a convention, please do come say hi to me. I love
chatting to fans and making new GNS friends. The GNS community is
amazing and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Chris Hall
(dlsreviews.com)
And Last But Not Least - “Mystery Man” Diary 1957
Here is the seventh instalment of Guy’s secret teenage diary, originally
handwritten, and published in our GNS newsletters for the first time.
Guy would have been just 18 years old when he wrote it and was already
working in the Midland Bank. Enjoy!
Thursday April 4th
We were bit slacker today. Mum & Grandma came to
B’ham & got me a new raincoat. I went down to Powell’s & got a box of
cartridges. I had a hectic race up Corporation St & Bull St to get the
bus. Just caught it at Grey’s. I walked home from Mile Oak. I weeded a
path & had a short chat with Billy. Helen Brewster came & gave me a
book-keeping lesson.
Friday April 5th
Just a normal routine day. We were moderately busy though. When i came
up the road tonight. I
saw Billy was watering his front garden with the hose so I stopped &
gave him a hand. He said,
“Give him a penny rattle and he’ll play for hours.” Rev. Shufflebottom
called to see Dad &
interrupted the last 10 minutes of “Dragnet.”
Saturday April 6th
Felt ill when I got up. Went to the office. I felt sick & dizzy most of
the morning but was O.K.
by lunchtime. I walked back from Mile Oak. I did a lot of gardening. I
went to see Billy &
Nellie. He wants me to put a notice up outside Coles saying “No Refuse.
Offenders will be
prosecuted. Penalty £5.” I went shooting but didn’t get anything. Very
tired. Went to bed early.
Sunday April 7th
Went to church in the morning. A man fainted at the altar & had to be
left there for the rest of
the service. I did a lot of gardening today & I have now only the front
drive & I have now only
the front drive to weed & then I’ve finished. I saw Billy & Nellie.
Tonight I did that notice
for him. Mum says he can put it up himself. I felt much better today.
Monday April 8th
A busy day. I got the 5.40pm bus home. We lost the batch sheets. I hope
I didn’t put them in the
Head Office Sack! I put a bucket and a half of lime on the garden
tonight. I finished off the
notice I was making to fool old Dale. It Reads “NO REFUSE (red).
OFFENDERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
(black). BY ORDER (silver).” What a laugh.
Tuesday April 9th
Quite a good day. Got the 5.15 train home. I went down to Grandma & sat
on an “invisible chair.”
Very humiliating. Went up to Mrs Winfield’s with Sam Loughead. I got
plenty of dancing if not
anything else. I’d got my eye on one dame & I thought of asking her in
the last waltz but she
said she was hoping her ex-boyfriend was going to make it up with her.
Wednesday April 10th
Another good day. I came back on the bus (5.5pm) with Mr & Mrs Davis. He
is out of Burntwood now
& getting better. I weeded the drive tonight. There was a meeting at our
house tonight of Dad,
Mr. Price & the Vicar of Tamworth. The reason was the Vicar was trying
to claim the collection
at Hopwas on Easter Sunday for himself while the priest-in-charge should
really have it. Dad and
Mr. Price talked him round and made him see reason.
Thursday April 11th
I got the 4.42 train back but it was late & didn’t get into Tamworth
until 5.15pm. I went & had
a chat to Jack Marriott & got the 5.40pm bus up. I finished weeding the
drive. When I took the
dog for a walk down the road last thing, I met P.C. Windsor. I
introduced myself & we had a
friendly chat. He seems a decent sort of chap.
Friday April 12th
We had a nasty £10 difference in the ‘Midland’ listing tonight. A cheque
was finally discovered
for that amount stuck in the Recordak. I got the 5.50pm bus home. Walked
from Mile Oak. Home at
7 o/c. I did not do any gardening. Jack Marriott got my record of Victor
Silvester playing
“Alabama Jubilee.” A reasonable “Dragnet” on T.V.
Saturday April 13th
Back home at 2pm. I limed the fruit trees, put weedkiller on the paths &
cut & edged the front
lawn. Had a cup of tea & a chat with Billy & Nellie. I went shooting in
Hopwas wood. Had a bit
of trouble with Tregaskiss again. He was narked because I was down by
Pearce’s when I “had been
told” to keep to the top plantation.
Newsletter written and compiled by Tara Paulsson. Black
Hill Books would like to say a big thank you to all our
guest contributors.
©️2024 Black Hill Books Ltd.