Undivine Interventions: Reviews of Horror Novels, Past and Present.

So, I forfeited Richard Laymon month. Then I forfeited another book. Then I decided to read this. I don't know if it's work stress, life stress, the weather change in New England, cheesy Horror overload or what....but I've been pretty unimpressed with much of anything I've read lately. I mean, The Summoned was fine. Just fine. Lots of gore and sex and a pretty cool story-format. It just was so...like everything else? By 1991, when the book was released to minimal fanfare, this tale had been well worn ad naseum. And that's okay in 2017...I don't think any of us are really expecting a groundbreaking horror tale from close to 30 years ago that noone has heard of. I might just be spoiled at this point, but this thing was just not particularly engaging on the story front. It was a lot of flashy gimmick and not enough intriguing moments. But good enough to read to completion, I suppose. Anyway, The Summoned plays a bit like three novellas all tied together by the

It's official. I think I've burned myself out on Laymon. Or over outgrown him or...I don't really know. Laymon month is really doing a number on me and my relationship with what I thought was my favorite author. I think some of that notion, the "favorite author" thing comes from a place of nostalgia and comfortable familiarity. He was the first author I collected, the first I felt I just had to read and own all of his stuff. But as I delve further into horror fiction and get older...I start realize his shortcomings more than ever before. And the things I initially discovered and loved Laymon for, all those years ago...well, there's just so many authors I have learned of, discovered and loved that may just do all the things attributed to Laymon better than Laymon did himself. This isn't to takeaway anything from him and what he did for horror fiction... I personally feel he's the originator of bringing a purely cinematic quality to genre literature.

After coming of the just barely luke-warm Allhallow's Eve, I needed something to guarantee me a good time...a reminder of why Laymon is my favorite author, something that illustrates the talent the author had to turn out books that zipped by; no nonsense b-movies in prose format with the blood, guts and bizarro factor blaring at top notch. A reason why I'm doing a Richard Laymon month in the first place. Midnight's Lair is one of the first books I read by the author, borrowing it from my local library in high school under the pen name, Richard Kelly. I didn't even know who Laymon was at that point, much less that he wrote it. 15 year old me thought this book was the bee's knees, thinking it was all I had ever wanted in a book. And to my chagrin, I couldn't find another Richard Kelly book in the library, nor did I care that much...let's be honest, I was in high school. As much as I dug books then, the 15 year old conscience was far more concerned with more

And so it begins! The first book of as-many-as-I-can for the month of November, written by my all around favorite author. I chose to either re-read books I haven't read in a very, VERY long time or read some things I had never gotten around to reading. This is the latter of the two, a book untouched by thine hands. Well, not really, because my copy is part of the Richard Laymon collection that Headline Books, out of the UK, released in the mid 2000s. These serve as an omnibus of his work, containing two and sometimes three of his books in one affordable package. Worth a purchase if you're looking to beef up your collection without spending much. The other book here is Night Show, which is probably my least favorite Laymon. It's boring and bland, rushed in it's climax and far too similar to the marginally better Out Are The Lights, written shortly before it. Now reading Allhallow's Eve, I think Laymon was simply in a rut. These three books were written around