Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome: Dreamweaver, Doomsage, Sunday Times bestseller

A fun yet dark read. Worth it.

No sooner had i ordered this book , this great work, this opus magnifique if you will. No sooner had I pressed ‘buy now’ the portends were not good. In fact they were very un-good. It started small, When I left my front door cats would cross the road to avoid me, dogs also. Even people , yes people would cross the road instantly though that may have more to me living next to a busy set of traffic lights. Perhaps, or perhaps not………. Maybe. Is that all I hear you ask, no that is most definitely not all. There are far too many occurrences, unnerving events than I could list here so you were wrong to ask that. Bang wrong. Not only that which I just said but thoughts too. Who is Garth Marenghi and why is he inside my head? I granted him no access but there he is. Words ,sentences and even letters that were formally thought by my brain and given life by my mouth now were usurped by part mysterious force, part sinister force. Also part still my voice for low level tasks like simple conversation or tutting slowish drivers. Reading this book turned my stomach upside down so I quickly read it again , which luckily left it the right way up, but a third or any odd amount of times would be a great discomfort. So there it is, your choice. Engage with the greatest horror writer that ever lived and that continues to live, or don’t. A crossroads awaits you. A metaphorical crossroads of course, not like the one outside my house. Will you be ballsy, summon bravery and head in a northerly direction? Or will you carry along on your merry way? * Can a book drive you crazy? This may very well actually could do just that. *that would be east-west.

I initially struggled to find the sweet spot of the rhythm to his writing style which is hand-in-glove with the sardonic, sarcastic, at-times-puerile, clever humour utilised almost constantly. In my head, I was playing out developments as if part of a series of ‘Darkplace’, which made me smile a lot. Once embedded in the story and the narrative style of the main character, I couldn’t get enough! Admittedly, some of the descriptive passages felt tedious at times, but they support the hooks and the comebacks to a lot of ongoing jokes, as well as keeping the main characters present in your mind’s eye. My first GM book, and I’m sure it won’t be my last!

I have stared unblinking into the inky void of imagination and returned with many things, but never before have I been faced with a horror so banal, so mundane, and yet so crushing in its petty cruelty: a torn cover. This was to be a gift. Pristine, virginal, unblemished by the ravages of time or careless courier. But instead it arrived as though it had been pried from the clammy hands of a previous, long-dead owner; a bibliophilic gift that whispered: “second-hand… second-hand…” in the cold night air. I could not return it, for time - my eternal foe -stood against me. And yet… and yet… the words within remain pure, untainted. The dark prose still drips from each page like warm treacle. The kind of treacle you get in those cheap tins from Tesco. I urge you: buy this book. Buy it now. But perhaps, lest you too suffer this fate, seek a seller whose packaging has not been hexed by the demons of distribution.

Hilarious! Everything you’d expect from Garth Marenghi

What would happen if Guy N Smith, Shaun Hutson, James Herbert & sundry names that trip off the tongue, all fell into a meat grinder in the fog, on a desolate moor, near Scarfolk, just off the beaten track, and badly? What could be the outcome of Dark Place going viral, in ink, splashed over the white sheets of a publishers percale egyptian weave (more than paper) or thick twill with it's highly distinctive diagonal weave with parallel ribbing? This is what. People emulating the lunatic throes of Matthew Holness* in order to meta-meta understand his textual tension(s). Is any of it humourfilled? Highly amusing if you like that sort of thing, is the kind of thing someone would write of it. It (the book) is definitely an acquired taste. Like eating soil. Good soil. Including celebrity worms. *Comedian, director, writer.

Cheesy. Cliched. Over-written. Sexist. Egotistical. Gross in places, and deeply unkind to dugongs. In other words, everything you want from a Garth Marenghi book. For the confused, Garth Marenghi is a fictional bad writer of horror. In this real novel by the fictional author, he writes about the stories of Nick Steen, his fictional self's fictional self-insertion character. Brace yourself for terrible puns, great machismo and grammatical nitpicking! A hugely enjoyable book. (The TV series, Garth Marenghi's Dark Place, can still be found on streaming services, and is worth watching.)

This is bad, it’s so bad it’s devilishly good horror; if you catch my drift. I highly recommend the audiobook for the full immersive experience. The genius of horror master Garth Marenghi himself; narrates three dark tales from his extraordinary TerrorTome volume. A good friend said to me if you are interested in writing horror comedy, it’s worth checking out Garth Marenghi and we should go see him live! I decided to buy the audiobook and the physical book to prepare, and I must say the audiobook is the closest you will get to fully grasp the character’s side-splitting and often disorientating imagination. I realized I had in fact seen some of the episodes from the Darkplace series set in the 80s (aired in 2004). In comparison to the book, it is clear how much TerrorTome is influenced by the series. Not only this, l recognized the actors Richard Ayoade and Matt Berry, whom I loved from the IT Crowd series and who were also featured in Darkplace. To conclude it can seem quite lengthy and you may need to take a breather from the spiralling madness, but rest assured I believe it to be a part of the joke in itself!

If you like Garth Marenghi, you'll probably love this. Even more bonkers and brilliantly bad than 'Dark Place'. Terribly entertaining.

My husband and I have been fans of Garth Marenghi for 20 years. Needless to say we were ecstatic to see that he released a book! We bought the audiobook as well as the paperback. The audio is read by Garth himself and it elevates the reading experience tenfold! ie. a lot. If you are a fan of Darkplace you will love this book! I absolutely recommend buying both the audio and physical books!

The story contains many hilarious ideas and twists but it is also repetitive and thus somewhat boring. Didn't finish it because the story lost its spark halfway through the book.

I really liked the TV show "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace", so I was rather excited when I found out there'd be a book - I even preordered it. Too bad it's not funny or even interesting. What worked on TV doesn't work on paper. The hospital/hospital show setting grounded the absurdity of the series somewhat, but the novel is all over the place. I understand the premise is fiction written by a horribly bad writer. Too bad the result is - and I guess I shouldn't have been surprised here - just a bad book. On the plus side, the dust jacket looks nice.

I own all 400 of his books and this is the best one