Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome

‘When I first penned my Sunday Times Bestselling horror novel in three parts, Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome, Hodder and Stoughton (mainly Hodder, if I’m honest) refused to publish one of the stories, ‘Throttle & Bribes’, accusing it of being cruel, exploitative and potentially offensive to human life, as well as supposedly wrecking the magical ‘rule of three’. “A trilogy can’t be a trilogy if there are four stories included, Garth,” they said. “It can,” I counter-said, “and it will.” However, once the initial batch had been printed (with faux-pleather binding for the horrotically adventurous among you), Hodder & Stoughton (again, mainly Ken Hodder and not Melinda Stoughton, though she can be tricky) refused to distribute them and in fact ordered the entire batch to be pulped. I immediately took matters into my own hands and drove said batch in the back of a white rental van to a storage depot in Luton, where I’m happy to say most of the books, though not all, survived several major leaks. I now present to you, with full legal backing from a well-known firm of solicitors I have yet to consult, the full, unexpurgated version of Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome, a trilogy of horrifying tales now complete with their original missing story. Technically a ‘quadrilogy’, then, if that pleases Hodder. Which I doubt. Savour.’
– Garth Marenghi

ABOUT THIS SPECIAL EDITION

– Limited to 2,000 copies and signed by the author
– A new, exclusive short story from the Archduke of Darkdom himself
– Specially produced for this edition, bound in faux leather with exclusive ‘To Be Pulped’ sticker
– Garth’s originally excised ‘Fright Breaks’ – offensive to most readers’ sensibilities – now boldly reintegrated into the main text
– Exclusive leather bookmark

REVIEWS

‘Read if you dare, but know that not one bone in your body will remain unchilled’ – Financial Times

‘Books like TerrorTome – so dense with brilliant jokes that it cannot safely be read while drinking hot liquid – are rare indeed. It is clear that Holness loves horror; like the recent Ladybird books and BBC Two’s Philomena Cunk, this is a parody that knows and respects its source material. The result is something very bad – and very, very good’ – i

‘A delight, whether you’re a devotee of the shlocky 1980s horror genre or not. TerrorTome is a pitch-perfect parody of terrible genre writing, with overblown, clichéd prose and heavily signposted metaphor’ – Chortle

‘A new Garth Marenghi novel is like a new album by ZZ Top or Status Quo: you know what you’re going to get, but by heck you’ll love it’ – Buzz


ABOUT THE COLLECTOR’S EDITION


Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome, released to unanimous (nay, multiversal) acclaim in 2022, was not the original version of that work. Legend has it that there was an earlier text (Legend is correct, btw); one that contained a story so horrid, so gruesome, that Hodder’s initial printing was marked ‘To be Pulped’ and the manuscript subsequently revised to appeal to a weaker-minded and, frankly, staggeringly ill-informed general public.

Yet rumour has it (and rumour is also correct) that a limited number of these notorious TerrorTome first editions were stolen following a recent break-in at Hodder’s distribution centre.

The publisher therefore now feels duty-bound to issue a warning concerning these ‘wholly unacceptable and morally bankrupt editions’ bound in pleather for total reader satisfaction:

‘Do not buy a copy of this incredibly rare and limited edition of Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome – however tempted you may be to read Garth Marenghi’s exciting ‘lost’ tale of unimaginably shocking supernatural terror; however much you may crave an exclusive, cow-bound bookmark sporting a horrifying copyright-free image of a human skull, do not buy this book.’ Garth Marenghi