The Slime Beast

Novel by Guy N Smith (England) 1975.

Professor Lowson is searching the Wash for King John's lost treasure. Instead he awakes a reptilian creature buried in the mud, which seems to have arrived on this planet in a meteorite. It starts wandering around, killing and eating anybody it comes across. Lowson wants to capture it alive, his companions want to kill it before it kills anyone else, and the local barman couldn't care less as long as it keeps his pub selling more in a day than it usually does in a year.

Written in the back of a bullion van, this isn't as tacky as Guy Smith's previous offering The Sucking Pit - which would, of course, be almost impossible - but it's not far off. Highly unoriginal, very short and not particularly well written, especially when compared to some of Guy Smith's subsequent work like Fiend or Abomination. But somehow it just doesn't seem quite as bad as that sounds, and it's certainly fun to read. Just so long as you don't expect a literary masterpiece!