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 ...

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...

It's opposites day here at Undivine Interventions. Usually, the artwork and title of book are way cooler than the actual book. Especially with all of the books of the 80s...how many times have you picked up a book with cover art that promises so much more than the book delivers? If you've been around the same block as me, quite a few hundred times. When Sean McDonough sent me a copy for review and I saw the title and artwork, frankly, I was dreading this book. I thought the title was hokey and the cover art was even worse. This was not going to be good. Incorrect. The age old "never judge a book by its cover" thing... I clearly need to subscribe to it more frequently. Rock and Roll Death Trip is a tongue-in-cheek, straight-to-video blast of a book. Notes of Troma, Near Dark and your favorite werewolf/shapeshifter movie, blended together into a sweet, bloody puree. I had a great time with this book, telling us the story of Jackie Galindo, a pretty corny Nu-M...

When we think about horror authors who tend to push the envelope on lurid subject matter that sometimes borders on distasteful, but remains well written, authors like Laymon, Lee and Ketchum tend to be the first names to pop up. I have read a lot of all of those authors, and of what I read, this here, Torture Tomb, knocks distasteful out of the park. In hindsight, I am reading a book called Torture Tomb. What the hell did I expect? I love gore and brutality in my horror novels, even more if they go that extra mile and turn it up to 11. But this, kinda just left me feeling... dirty. The story deals with a young woman searching for her sister, of whom she is having horrifying nightmares of being tortured. She seeks the help of a former lover turned novelist, who turns her on to a coven to help find the sibling. There's some supernatural interference, but they find her (chuckled a bit at the fact the sister's name is Bernice Sanders)...in the Torture Tomb, a man-made undergrou...