Happy Halloween! A Review of R. Patrick Gates' Fear, The winner of the Halloween giveaway and Things To Come!!!

My favorite day of my favorite month means I'm feeling particularly ambitious this evening. And so, for the final blog of October, I'm going to go pretty big.

A whole bunch of stuff.

First, let's talk about the blog, up to this point. I'm just saying, thus far, I am so proud of the small, but engaged audience it's garnering. I am doing about a hundred hits a day, getting comments from authors many of us idolize, and just had my first post that surpassed 1000 views. It's pretty flattering to have people consider my opinion on these books when deciding on whether to read something or not. My opinion is purely that, an opinion. We've all got 'em and for mine to have an audience is just amazing. So thank you, faithful readers. I appreciate every view, comment, share and follow.

Next, November is in just a few hours. For some reason, I have selected November to be my first themed month here at Undivine Interventions. That theme being RICHARD LAYMON MONTH!!! Laymon is my all around favorite author, for a variety of reasons, but generally speaking, he was an incredibly consistent writer who at his best delivered a tense, nasty blazingly paced read. He has his stinkers, but by and large, his books are my favorites, in that they read like a VHS rental from 1987 that you might have missed in the Horror aisle at your local mom-and-pop. And they were probably in one of those oversized boxes on the top or bottom shelf. And so, for November, I will read and review as much Laymon as I can. Some will be first time reads, some re-reads(to see if they hold up), all will be a decent read...unless it's Night Show...which we will never discuss again. So yes! November is Richard Laymon month!

Third, The Halloween contest winner!!! The winner was selected completely at random, the old fashioned way...names in a hat. Ha! And I even let the unbiased, beautiful hand of my wife do the choosing.

Anyway...

The winner is....drum roll please!!!!

Jason Knecht!!!

Congratulations!!!

Please shoot me an email or Facebook message to claim your prize!

And last, but certainly not least, some Ancient Horror History Unearthed!!! Fear by R. Patrick Gates, straight outta 1988!

Fear came to me, via suggestion. Actually, not even for this book. Several readers recommended I check out his sophomore effort, the semi-cult classic, Grimm Memorials. I am yet to read that, but I ordered it months ago. I wanted some foundation for the authors work prior to jumping into what is arguably his best known work. So, I started with this, his first published novel, originally published by Onyx in October 1988.

Copies of this thing are pretty expensive, as it's been long out-of-print, so when I found a copy for a reasonable cost, I was pretty excited. Much more excited when the book arrived...an added surprise was that it was actually signed by the writer!! AND dated November, 1988!! This thing was signed by Gates himself a month after the book's initial release! Definitely a prized possession on my shelf.

Thankfully, the book is equally as prized to me. I can't wait to crack into Grimm Memorials after this. It's quite a ways out on my to-be-read list, but it's coming sooner than later, because I just have gotta read more by Gates after this fantastic time.

I've read mixed reviews and I can totally understand the negative perspective, to be frank. This is a novel where you have to completely suspend disbelief. It's also not a novel with some highly involved plot. There's not a whole bunch of story here, a relatively standard tale of a town overtaken by otherworldly evil driving people mad and to unspeakable acts of violence. You've probably read a very similar book before. But not quite like this.

Fear takes its tried-and-true formula, throws it in a blender and sets it to 10, then runs the resulting puree down a funhouse mirror, having an over-sugared 12 year old jump up and down in front of it, pointing and screaming "LOOK AT THIS! LOOK AT THIS!!".

Point blank-Fear is wild. It's borderline feral reading.

This is quite honestly, what I was hoping for when I first read Johnstone. It's what I wished Johnstone would be.

The kitchen sink approach is just ludicrous, in all the right ways. Everything you'd want to read as a fan of loud, obnoxious horror reading is here. Pages and pages of gore, stomach turning moments, insanely bizarre thought processes and actions on behalf of the books characters, and a pace that is to be reckoned with.

This is a relentless dark ride, unhinged in all the right ways. The book reads like a funhouse, throwing endless gags and nasty bits in your face in such a non-stop way. And it spares none.

Children are brutally discarded in vivid detail, little old ladies are ripped to shreds and in one of my favorite moments in the book, the 12 year old psychic hero just decimates his abusive, alcoholic mother who is melting. Over pages of the book. It's an entire scene, unfliching from every gruesome detail. Other writers would turn away, protecting their readers from the nastiest moments, but Gates forces you to stare at it, with your eyelids taped open.

This isn't perfect reading for everyone, but I'll be absolutely damned if it's not perfect reading for me. Sure, it's a thin tale. It's a ridiculous tale. And it's not very well written, a lot of repetition here.

But I simply don't care. I love this book. It's like reading a carnival attraction designed to make you queasy. It's everything I want from a late 80s horror paperback.

And this is his FIRST BOOK!!! I can't wait to read everything Gates has published.

I give it a 5/5. If you're into the disgusting, it's for you all the way. If you're into brainless, over-the-top-of-tops action, it's for you. If you want insanity, done in all the right ways, while tying in all of the standard 80s horror tropes...look no further.

An absolutely putrid great time.

As always, thank you for reading!

Congratulations to Jason Knecht and Happy Halloween to all!

Look out for Richard Laymon month...