Phil Smith – The Incredible Melting Man

Phil Smith – The Incredible Melting Man (Nel, 1978)

Blurb:

Three astronauts had returned safely from the Mars landing. Two were dead and Steve West was on the run.

On the run from the quarantine hospital which had been treating him … from the authorities who had to conceal his escape at all costs … from his friend Ted Nelson … and from the dreadful organism which had taken possession of his flesh, turning him into a fiendish nightmare but leaving his mind intact to cringe from the murderous horror he had become.

“What unearthly offspring would grow from the jelly that was once his friend?”

An outrageous rip off of The First Man In Space via Quatermass. Steve West, the “jelly” in question, brutally destroys a nurse and flees the hospital so that he can turn to sludge in peace. Since his exposure to whatever radiation it was that has poisoned his cells, he’s developed a taste for human flesh and blood (unfortunate for him but very rewarding for us) and roams the woods killing people and leaving pools of mucous everywhere.

Naturally, General Parry over at Houston doesn’t want a word of this to come out as “Nothing must interfere with the next phase of the programme”, so Dr. Nelson is ordered to find his friend and return him to the Hospital without anybody finding out that the psycho-killer is not only a blob of slime but … their astronaut.

Joe Petagno

Thanks to Steve Goodwin for the cover scan (1978 edition: above)

Phil Smith – The Saxonbury Printout

Phil Smith – The Saxonbury Printout (New English Library, 1979)

Blurb:
Saxonbury is a pleasant English market town: medieval church, seventeenth-century town houses, a new estate, a gleaming, ultra-modern computer factory. But Liz Ambler senses what lies beneath its placid surface, as her interest in the romantic past draws her helplessly towards the deep-buried secrets of a crueller age.

While his wife is obsessed with the past, Roger Ambler is totally involved in the EKO 6 computer, the key to the future and the culmination of his research. Now EKO 6 is ready for trials, waiting for the vital pulse of the electrons to throb through its circuits and awaken – what?

Thanks to Killercrab for the cover scan and blurb

Phil Smith – The Resurrection Machine

Phil Smith – The Resurrection Machine (New English Library, 1978)

Blurb:

“There’s fire locked in yon hill, fire that you won’t find in your science books. Fire that burns in the heart of stones. Fire that can take human shape and dance across yon ridge. Fire that can burn inside a man’s soul and destroy his will. Hell fire!”

Ligginstones is an ancient burial ground, high on a remote Yorkshire moor. The local people fear and respect the stories and legends of strange happenings, and when the government builds a laser research transmitter there and an archaeologist opens up one of the round barrows, they forecast disaster.

But twentieth century reason disregards their instinctive understanding, and unwittingly releases the dark and terrible forces that lie beyond the grave.

Phil Smith – The Resurrection Machine

Phil Smith – The Resurrection Machine (Nel, 1978)

Phil Smith - The Resurrection Machine

Blurb:

“There’s fire locked in yon hill, fire that you won’t find in your science books. Fire that burns in the heart of stones. Fire that can take human shape and dance across yon ridge. Fire that can burn inside a man’s soul and destroy his will. Hell fire!”

Ligginstones is an ancient burial ground, high on a remote Yorkshire moor. The local people fear and respect the stories and legends of strange happenings, and when the government builds a laser research transmitter there and an archaeologist opens up one of the round barrows, they forecast disaster.
But twentieth-century reason disregards their instinctive understanding, and unwittingly releases the dark and terrible forces that lie beyond the grave.

Thanks to Steve Goodwin for providing the scan and blurb!