It's a rare Guy N. Smith novel, whether horror or not, that doesn't touch on issues affecting people who live in the British countryside. Perhaps second only to city folk moving into country towns and villages without understanding country ways is the concept of change. Time changes everything, a truth that Guy often tackles not only from the standpoint of nostalgia, things always being better in the old days, but from the standpoint of value being lost. Every change bringing something new also loses something old and that can be a problem.

Here, in a sequel to 'The Sucking Pit', Guy's second novel, he tackles this head on. 'The Sucking Pit' was outrageous fiction but it was set in a real place, Hopwas Woods, outside Tamworth, and it's a frequent location in Guy's nonfiction as well as his fiction. When Chris Latimer, ditched boyfriend of the newly nymphomaniac witch girl, Jenny Lawson, in the first book, returns to Hopwas Woods after ten years to see what's changed, I saw Guy himself, who wrote a nonfiction article with very much the same effect. However, while Guy was only seeing the whittling away of a special place to his childhood self, Chris has actual danger to worry about.

Put simply, he sold the wood to a timber company, who harvested it for money and then sold it on to a housing development firm. The area is no longer classified as green belt, courtesy of another bribed planning officer—there are few occupations less respected in Guy N. Smith novels than the planning officer—so Ralph Grafton is going to build fifty houses on the land. Knowing the evil that lurks in the Sucking Pit, which is still buried when Latimer wanders through the woods, he's highly concerned that people are going to die. Take a wild stab as to whether he's proven correct!

What was most telling to me was that Hopwas Woods isn't the only thing that has changed in this book in the ten years of in story time since the events of 'The Sucking Pit'. Guy's writing changed in many ways too in the nine years, our time, since 'The Sucking Pit' was published, so this is a wildly different read to its predecessor. It doesn't feel out of place in company with the previous bunch of Smith books, published in 1983 and 1984. However, it has very little stylistically in common with the book that its story aims to continue.

'The Sucking Pit' was purest pulp horror, full of outrageous dialogue, ridiculous character arcs and glorious showcase moments, few of which make any sense at all but which are nonetheless hugely entertaining. 'The Walking Dead' is much more grounded, with better-drawn characters and more realistic dialogue. It feels like it's about something, a snapshot of English country life at a crucial moment in time, whereas its predecessor felt like it was only ever pulp horror. And it feels a little lost trying to emulate that original, leading to possibly the worst ending in a Smith book thus far. Just as the countryside of ten years earlier has gone, never to return, Smith's particular brand of seventies pulp horror was also gone and trying to revisit it was doomed to failure.

That's not to say that there isn't value here. There are some notable death scenes, starting with a JCB driver, Mick Treadman, who's just doing his job on this new development, only to become the Sucking Pit's first victim in a long time, providing it with enough energy to manifest itself afresh. There's a rabble of bikers, who aren't initially as violent as the similar bunch in 'Manitou Doll' but who, through the Pit's evil influence, emulate them closely, right down to a certain decapitation scene. There's even the unusual inclusion of a country and western singer, Carl Wickers, drawn to the Pit because it's apparently aching for his music. That's weird but I can dig it.

Mostly, though, the value is in looking at change, both in country life at the time and in the genre of horror. In most respects, this is a better written book than 'The Sucking Pit', but it's not close to as entertaining. That focus on change in country life makes the outlook a little depressing. We're always on the side of the locals, never the timber companies or the housing developers, and so we find ourselves fighting a losing battle. In fact, Latimer pretty much comprises our side and he sold the wood to begin with. Maybe Smith should have written in a local committee like in 'Doomflight' or 'The Pluto Pact'. At least in those books people fought, even if they lost. Here, everyone's given up before we begin and inevitability takes care of the rest.

To me, that inevitability is a real problem. Talking of change, the only thing that didn't change in the first book was the Sucking Pit itself, which was something truly timeless, no doubt on account of having a supernatural element. Sure, it got filled in, but we know it's still there, that evil under the ground waiting to be released, and it's released here through the assimilation of the soul of Mick Treadman, but I never bought into its return to its old form. It had to do that, of course, and it had to work its evil magic to entice people in to give it energy, but it changes physically here for no reason that ever made sense to me. The scenes where that happened simply didn't work and I don't tend to see that in Smith's work often. It's almost 'The Ten Commandments' level, without a god to prompt it.

I'm a huge fan of 'The Sucking Pit', regardless of its obvious flaws. It's a true guilty pleasure and I always feel better after having read it, even as recently as 2016, when I revisited it last. However, I hadn't read this sequel since the nineties, possibly the eighties, and it hasn't aged well. Guy was on one of his sequel kicks, having recently knocked out the four Mark Sabat books and then taken care of 1984 with two sequels, one to his famous 'Crabs' series and the other to 'The Sucking Pit'. I liked 'Crabs' Moon' and never had any doubt that there would be another 'Crabs' book on the way at some point, but this felt like a nail in the Sucking Pit's coffin.

Smith wouldn't return to sequels until 1987 when he knocked out three in five months, to 'Thirst', 'Deathbell' and, as always, to the 'Crabs' series. This book is probably why. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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