CRABS ON THE RAMPAGE

This fine volume by Guy N. Smith -- ISBN 0440200229 -- takes us back to England, where GIANT KILLER CRABS are attacking once again.  Driven up the mouths of rivers, then drawn ashore by forces nobody understands, they are PISSED AS HELL and NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.  They're not just attacking an isolated seaside village in Scotland this time, either -- they're surrounding the whole island.  We have apparently learned in previous episodes (I am reading them out of order) that they are vulnerable only to paraquat and nuclear weapons.  The hero -- he always makes me smile because his name is Cliff -- advises against using either one because they MIGHT create a safety hazard to other life forms, especially sea life, and hey, Britain depends on its fish.  YOU BETTER REMEMBER THAT, TOO, BUDDY.  Meanwhile, the crabs angrily tear down bridges, sink boats, and rip cars and featherless bipeds apart, all the while (ick!) OOZING PUS.  WILL ANYONE SURVIVE?


>> Crab anatomy has taken a detour into crazyland in this novel.  A man confronting a crab comments on its "fetid breath."  Um, hello?  Crabs breathe through gills.  Another notices their teeth.  (Crabs have teeth?  Since when?)  A third reacts in revulsion as a crab presses its rubbery lips against his -- wait, what!?


>> It's the humans I want you to notice, ladies.  THEY NEED KILLING.  THEY WANT KILLING.  THEY MUST.  BE.  KILLED.  Crabs, like our Shark and Bone-Eating Snotflower sisters, eat the dreck left behind by other species, and since the human race is itself pretty drecky, the crabs naturally focus on them in this story.  SMITH GETS THAT MUCH RIGHT.  Witness the human child in this story who can't even get out of his parents' car without breaking a leg.  I can only sit back in satisfaction as he gets torn limb from (broken) limb.  The whole species is pathetic.


>> It never occurs to ANYONE in this book that the Crabs are so upset because YOU TASTE SO BAD.  The species (never named) in this story apparently has quite a wide range of facial expressions -- MUCH LIKE CRABS IN REAL LIFE! -- and they leer, sneer, cringe, snarl, and even get scared DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY KNOW THEY ARE INDESTRUCTIBLE.  But why is there no revulsion for the horrid Hostess-Twinkie taste of a human carcass?  They even had a crab puke at one point in this story, and it didn't occur to anyone to ask WHY. 


YOU MAKE US SICK, THAT'S WHY.


This is one of those stories that reads one way to a human, and another, completely different way to a fish.  Take heart, ladies; THE FISH ARMY IS EVEN MORE INDESTRUCTIBLE THAN THEY THINK.