Line #2 Literature/TheSlimeBeast


1	[[quoteright:240:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/slimebeast.jpg]]
2	''The Slime Beast'' is a 1975 horror novel written by Creator/GuyNSmith (''Literature/NightOfTheCrabs'', ''Literature/TheFestering''). An expedition led by Professor John Lowson is searching for [[UsefulNotes/KingJohnOfEngland King John]]'s treasure in "the Wash," an estuary at the north-west corner of East Anglia on the East coast of England, where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire. Accompanying him are his niece Liz Beck and assistant curator of the British Museum Gavin Royle. The trio find more than they bargained for, both in the form of hostile locals from the nearby town of Sutton who believe the treasure ought to remain where it is, and a ferocious amphibian monster covered in slime which the expedition unearths and which wants to do its darnedest to kill everyone it runs into.
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4	Smith wrote a sequel, ''[[Literature/SpawnOfTheSlimeBeast Spawn of the Slime Beast]]''.
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7	!!Tropes used in this novel:
8	* AngryMob: The people of Sutton, egged on by pub owner Thomas Southgate, believe the archaeological team are responsible for unleashing the Slime Beast (and they're [[JerkassHasAPoint not entirely wrong]]).
9	* AntagonistTitle: The Slime Beast is the primary threat.
10	* BigDamnHeroes: All seems lost for Gavin, Liz and Professor Lowson... until Mallard Glover emerges from the shadows and fills the AngryMob's leader full of buckshot.
11	* CloseKnitCommunity: The people of Sutton are a pretty tight-knit little group and would very much like the archaeologists to go away, thank you very much.
12	* CoitusInterruptus: Twice: first when the Slime Beast kills Mallard Glover as he's attempting to rape Liz, and then later when it kills a soldier and a local woman who are having sex.
13	* EvilSmellsBad: It's made very clear that the monsters really stink.
14	* FaceHeelTurn: Lowson basically becomes an outright villain by the end of the first book, whilst Glover the wildfowler, despite having saved the expedition from an untimely death at the hands of the AngryMob, ends up [[spoiler:attempting to rape Liz out of nowhere]].
15	* ForScience: Lowson wants to capture the Slime Beast alive. Because reasons. [[spoiler:His effort to communicate with the thing gets him [[OffWithHisHead decapitated]].]]
16	* GloryHound: The sergeant commanding the troops sent to kill the Slime Beast. He hopes killing the creature will earn him a promotion. He even refuses to call for reinforcements for this reason.
17	* GuttedLikeAFish: Happens to [[spoiler:Mallard Glover]].
18	* HopeSpot: A photographer who is attacked by the Slime Beast on its way to Sutton near the end is one of the few people to survive a direct encounter with the thing, and he considers himself extremely lucky. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, he has a second run-in with the beast as it's leaving Sutton following its rampage there, and he isn't as fortunate the second time.]]
19	* InsufferableGenius: John Lowson is just about the most annoying and punchable example of an arrogant scientist ever to exist in written form. He comes off as a rather lazy {{Expy}} of Professor Challenger from ''[[Literature/TheLostWorld1912 The Lost World]]'', with none of Challenger's redeeming qualities.
20	* ImmuneToBullets: Gavin (somehow) knows the Slime Beast can't be hurt by gunfire. And indeed it shrugs every form of conventional weaponry, including a [[BeyondTheImpossible direct hit]] from a British Army [[TanksForNothing tank]]!
21	* JerkassHasAPoint: Thomas Southgate may be a thoroughly despicable excuse for a human being, but he ''is'' right that Lowson's expedition is responsible for the Slime Beast; after all, they're the ones who dug the thing up.
22	* KarmicDeath: Glover, who tries to rape Liz, gets killed by the Slime Beast after failing to have his way with her.
23	* KillItWithFire: This turns out to be the only way to kill the Slime Beast. [[spoiler:Gavin fries it with a flamethrower.]]
24	* UsefulNotes/KingJohnOfEngland: The expedition starts out searching for his lost treasure.
25	* LocalHangout: The Bull, a pub owned by Thomas Southgate.
26	* MildlyMilitary: Except for their GloryHound sergeant, the soldiers sent to deal with the monster aren't terribly professional, and seem more interested in boozing it up with the locals than in doing anything proactive. [[spoiler:Their dereliction of duty allows the Slime Beast to get the drop on them.]]
27	* MultipleChoicePast: Lowson theorizes that the title creature is from outer space due to the fact they found some unidentifiable metal buried in the mud with it. There's also talk of a meteorite having landed on the Wash the night before the expedition digs the creature up. Another notion floated is that it is of prehistoric origin (Lowson dismisses this as nonsense for some reason, probably because ''[[InsufferableGenius he]]'' didn't think of it first). Harborne thinks it got [[BringItBackAlive brought back]] [[Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon from]] [[Film/RevengeOfTheCreature the Amazon]] [[Film/TheCreatureWalksAmongUs by scientists]]. It may even be some kind of EldritchAbomination (one of Thomas Southgate's patrons claims it is "not of this world"). Liz and Gavin do more or less accept Lowson's notion that it's an alien (even if only for lack of a different explanation).
28	* NonIndicativeName: The title aside, the Slime Beast isn't a BlobMonster or anything like that. It's really more of an ersatz Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon covered in a thin sheen of translucent goo.
29	* MonsterIsAMommy: [[spoiler:A {{Retcon}} in ''Spawn of the Slime Beast'' turns the first monster into a female whose offspring terrorizes the town of Sutton forty years later in the sequel. ''That'' Slime Beast ends up being female, as well; the book suggests the Slime Beasts are a SingleGenderRace and reproduce asexually.]]
30	* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Quite a lot of the action in the book is told secondhand, including many encounters with the Slime Beast. In particular, the death of Manton Haywood is related to the main characters by the police.
31	* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler:The Slime Beast pulls Professor Lowson's head off.]]
32	* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Despite supposedly being an archaeologist, the second the group encounters the monster, Lowson becomes an expert on it, even though he's never mentioned as having any kind of zoological expertise. He abandons his quest for King John's treasure and begins obsessively attempting to capture the Slime Beast ForScience
33	* PoliceAreUseless: Par for the course in a story about a rampaging lizard monster. Chief-Inspector Harborne and his partner Detective-Inspector Borg do little more than twiddle their thumbs, and Sutton's PC Thorpe isn't any better.
34	* PunnyName: The local wildfowler in the first book is named ''Mallard'' Glover.
35	* TheQuietOne: Detective-Inspector Borg doesn't say much.
36	* QuicksandSucks: The Wash is said to be littered with quicksand pits. We never actually see any, although the AngryMob does plan to throw the Lowson expedition into them after capturing them.
37	* RabbleRouser: Thomas Southgate. He ''really'' hates the interloping archaeologists and tries to turn the denizens of Sutton against them.
38	* RapeAsDrama: Wildfowler Mallard Glover attempts to rape Liz for... some reason, only to be interrupted and torn to bits by the Slime Beast. It's even flat-out stated earlier that the AngryMob wants to rape Liz before throwing her into the quicksand with Gavin and her uncle.
39	* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Gavin Royle is the sensitive one, while John Lowson is the manly one. This is an interesting reversal of how it usually is; you'd think the younger (twentysomething) Gavin would be the manly one, being TheHero and all, with Lowson (somewhat bookish and in his fifties) the sensitive guy, but it's the opposite.
40	* ShamingTheMob: Mallard Glover shames/threatens the torch-wielding mob of drunken jerks with a few carefully chosen insults and ample use of his [[Film/ArmyOfDarkness boomstick]].
41	* TanksForNothing: Despite the fact the Slime Beast is little bigger than the average human, the tank which the Army uses against it does jack-diddly to even ''hurt'' it.
42	* TooDumbToLive: The sergeant refuses to send for reinforcements because he wants to kill the Slime Beast himself for a promotion.
43	* TwentyMinutesWithJerks: Except for perhaps Liz and Gavin (and even ''they'' have their moments), nearly everyone in the story is a thoroughly unpleasant excuse for a human being. Professor Lowson is a borderline MadScientist who schemes to [[MurderIsTheBestSolution murder]] his colleagues (including his own niece!) in order to hog the credit for the discovery of the Slime Beast, the residents of Sutton are backwards idiots and attempted rapists who'll form an AngryMob with TorchesAndPitchforks at the drop of a hat and the British Army are [[MildlyMilitary unprofessional louts]] led by a selfish GloryHound, etc.
44	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Lowson's expedition digging the Slime Beast up.

Context Literature / TheSlimeBeast