# Guts

*A Comedy of Manners*

By David Langford & John Grant

Profile: https://hahafiction.com/books/guts-67029958/

Hapless scientists and a journalist who is remarkably hard to kill populate this deliberately excessive send-up of horror fiction. Langford and Grant take the familiar machinery of a gruesome thriller and push its bad taste as far as they can.

## What makes it funny?

The joke includes the writing itself: inflated prose and horror fights that keep going long after anyone ought to survive them. Christian Sauvé singles out one extravagantly bloody battle as a parody of that implausible endurance.

### The comedy at work

Familiar horror shortcuts become the targets. The authors exaggerate stock characters and grisly confrontations until the conventions are as conspicuous as the monsters.

### Try this if…

Readers who enjoy British genre spoofs and can take their parody with copious gore have the clearest reason to pick this up.

### Good to know

Expect graphic violence and deliberately offensive humor. The subtitle, A Comedy of Manners, is no promise of polite entertainment.

## What to expect

- Genre: Horror
- Kind of humor: Parody
- Format: Novel
- Length: 173 pages
- Published: 2001

## A few distinguishing details

- Horror parody that mocks the prose as well as the plot

## Sources & further reading

- Author commentary: [David Langford's Guts page for Guts: A Comedy of Manners by David Langford and John Grant](https://ansible.uk/books/guts.html)
- Review: [Christian Sauvé review](https://www.christian-sauve.com/2004/11/guts-david-langford-john-grant)
- Author commentary: [Author](https://ansible.uk/books/guts.html)
- Publisher: [Publisher](https://ae.ansible.uk/?t=guts)