Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
There is something almost devilish about insects and arachnids that awaken a primeval fear in millions of people around the world. The reader only has to think of the beast Shelob in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy of books to perhaps feel a shiver of disgust, of undiluted terror run smoothly down their spine to know how they feel about spiders, the revulsion at the cockroach, the abhorrence of a plague of wasps and despite marvelling at the ingenuity and might of the humble ant, to see thousands of them milling around you, climbing over you in search of food is enough to send Horror makers grin at the thought of celluloid gold.
For Doctor Who fans, insects, spiders, wasps, creatures of the night, have been staple fodder for generations, they have appeared in classic serials and great episodes and have dug deep at the heart at what scares us as human beings. We can gape in admiration at their achievements, the society they build, the works of art they inspire but woe betide a spider that hangs provocatively on a web in the corner of your room, it would soon feel the wrath of the vacuum cleaner.
Mike Tucker’s B.B.C. book The Crawling Terror sees the 12th incarnation of the Doctor and Clara Oswald arrive in a small village in Wiltshire, a place of tranquillity, of roving countryside, old pubs adorning ivy and military secrets that are long thought buried and they see a web of intrigue and a menace which could spell the end of Humanity.
The Crawling Terror is fast paced, its words empathise and mimics the way that a reader can suddenly be spooked by the shadow edging past the corner of the eye, the blackness and scrambling fear that accompanies it and asks you to confront your fears. As always it is in the eyes of the companion that the fear is raised. In Clara, the terror is magnified as she is placed in harm’s way as she becomes a little too close to the thoughts of the scientists involved and the creatures that have
Whether the spiders from Metabelis, the swarm of metal like creatures that fed off organic matter during The Planet of the Dead or a giant alien wasp threatening Agatha Christie, revulsion is a pretty intoxicating brew, it seeps at the soul and collects until you believe that all creatures are beneath you and worth exterminating, it is a dangerous road in which to go down. Fear never stops breeding and in The Crawling Terror, hate and distress go together like ants and a picnic basket.
Mike Tucker captures the very essence of what it feels like to have a phobia of such creatures, a very admirable story in which to make sure you don’t read at night when the glow of the fire sends shadows unfurling into the dark recesses; you never know what your mind will see.
Ian D. Hall