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Guy N. Smith

Guy Newman Smith (born 1939, Hopwas, Staffordshire) is a prolific English writer best known for his pulp fiction-style horror fiction.

Smith wrote his first horror book, Werewolf by Moonlight in 1974. It spawned two direct sequels. He is probably best known for a series of six Crabs books, the first of which, Night of the Crabs, was published in 1976. The series chronicles invasions by giant, man-eating crabs of various areas of British coastline. In 1980 a film adaptation Island Claws came out.

The pulpish nature of Smith's concepts and writing are legendary in the horror fiction world, and have been spoofed by the award winning comedian and writer Matthew Holness in his Garth Marenghi persona.

Smith has had over a thousand short stories and magazine articles published. He has written a series of children's books under the pseudonym Jonathon Guy, two thrillers under the name Gavin Newman and a dozen non-fiction books on countryside matters. However, he is best known for his 70 or so horror books. The Penguin Enclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural considers that Smith's horror novels were "endearing, imbued with lively storytelling and the tacky brilliance of the horror and science fiction cinema of the 1950's".

Smith's work mixes sex, violence, gore and self-conscious humour. Despite his reputation in some quarters as being a hack writer, Smith's novels enjoyed considerable popularity in Poland in the early 1990s, having been cheaply translated and published as pocket editions by the Amber publishing house.

A lifelong pipe smoker, he won the British pipe smoking championship in 2003. He collects pipes and smoking ephemera and has also written a book on tobacco - Tobacco Culture: A DIY Guide. He is also an active pro-smoking campaigner. He is married to Jean and they have four adult children.