Blood Games by Richard Laymon Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Blood Games
Book Review: Save your money - check this out at the library!
Summary: 2 Stars
This book is not worth your money; I wish I hadn't paid full price. I was expecting some fun, some chills, some scares and it really only gave me goosebumps thinking of the fact that I paid for this when I could have gotten something better to read for the price I paid.
Don't get me wrong it had some scary moments but was overall it was a flop. Much of it was boring - especially the flashbacks which went on for chapters. The ending felt forced and rushed.
And oh man did the women in the book run around naked a lot. C'mon even when you are being pursued by a madman you cover up! I don't want to speak ill of the dead (I read that Richard Laymon has died) but this just seemed like a weird fantasy playing out for him - all the naked and lesbian-suggestive moments.
Save your money.
Book Review: Skip This!
Summary: 2 Stars
This was a REAL letdown!How often do we have to read that the women's clothes were wet? Of COURSE they are when you get out of the water!
And pages go on and on and on with them swimming and you THINK something will happen...and NOTHING happens.
And those boring flashbacks -- skip them, they add NOTHING -- and why do the women wisecrack throughout the ordeal.
Ugh!
Book Review: Solid entry in the Laymon catalogue
Summary: 4 Stars
With the publication of Blood Games, Leisure Horror continues its tradition of releasing the finest of the lost Richard Laymon titles. Originally published by the U.K. publisher Headline Feature in 1992, Blood Games is a great example of the kind of quality horror thrillers Dick used to write in the early 90's that earned him a sizeable cult following in Britain, Australia and Canada but that were sadly unpublished and mostly ignored in his native country.The story centers around 5 old college friends; Abilene, Vivian, Cora, Finley and Helen. Now in their mid-twenties, these five woman now live in separate parts of the country but once a year they leave their loved ones temporarily behind and all get together for a week's adventure in a location that each year one of them must choose. This year, their third adventure, it's Helen's turn to choose. Helen, a fat girl with a taste for horror, chooses The Totem Pole Lodge in rural Vermont, an abandoned former vacation spot with a sinister past. As they settle into the lodge, the girls soon discover that the lodge and its surrounding grounds are not as deserted as they thought. For there is a maniac lurking in the woods behind the lodge. A maniac who salivates at the thought of plunging his knife into each one of these beautiful former co-eds. But not before having his fun with them first...
As with all Laymon books, this is an extremely fast read. The characters are so well drawn that you'll feel you know them by the end of the story. Throughout the novel, Laymon effectively employs the use of flashbacks as a device for the reader to become more familiar with each character and the history behind their friendship. We get to read about their initial meeting in a shower room during their freshman year of college and about their various mishaps all the way up to their senior years. We also get to read flashbacks about their first two yearly vacations, one of them in New York City, the other along the coast of Northern California where, in an unforgettable sequence a couple of the girls meet and seduce a lone traveling surfer. Although these flashbacks really have nothing to do with the denouement of the present-time story, they are simply fascinating nonetheless.
Blood Games is a book I would highly recommend. Although not a classic, it's a solid entry in the Laymon catalogue that serves as a reminder of how engaging a writer Dick really was. As far as the amount of sex and violence in the novel, it's only about a PG-13 by Laymon's standards. To a Laymon fan, that would usually be a disappointing thing but Blood Games is first and foremost a character study of 5 twenty-something women and how they react when faced with peril. Leisure Horror really is choosing well as far as which of the lost Laymons they are choosing to publish. Up next is "Body Rides" which I've heard is a hoot and a half.
Book Review: The Vengeance Squad
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a slightly different Laymon book. While it has many of the standard elements they are weighted differently in this one.
Five young women met as freshmen in college. Although all quite different, circumstances of their initial meeting bonded them together. One thing they all had in common was they did not like injustice and wrong-doing (particularly when aimed at one of themselves). During college they have a number of wild adventures where they dole out their own brand of justice. These stories are portrayed as flashbacks throughout the book.
Just after graduation they decide to get together once a year for new adventures. Each year a different one chooses where they will go and what they will do. This time Helen, a fan of horror movies, has chosen an abandoned hunting lodge where a slaughter took place many year earlier. But things quickly turn serious when they realize that the place is not completely abandoned. But it is when they decide to cut their visit short and leave the first day that things begin to go wrong. Now the ladies must pull together and use their skills in their most serious adventure.
Unlike many other Laymon books, we do not see characters become uncontrolled when the bonds of civilization are broken. This book really focuses on characters standing up for themselves and taking the law into their own hands. Also unlike many others, this one offers better explanations as to why the characters make the decisions they do and why the police are not an option. Definitely chilling in parts with great atmosphere. Things really do proceed right to the final page. A must for Laymon fans.
PS. Look for the author's cameo.
Book Review: The last Laymon novel I ever read
Summary: 1 Stars
Let me first state that I am a fan of the horror genre; I love thrillers, horror, all of it. Every blood drenched word.
Richard Laymon has never even spoken to a woman. Never, not in his entire life has he ever even observed how women interact with each other. I would bet he is an only child. His portrayal of five adventure seeking women is plastic and unbelievable. These are professional women, a model, a film major who records everything for posterity and works at Universal, a PE teacher, an English major with a PhD in Chaucer and a married woman with a college degree and an inheritance. None of them have been in prison or the military or in any other occupation to give them the skills to do what they decide to do after one of their numbers is killed by a "hillbilly" in the woods of Vermont. Do they spend time really searching for their lost friend? No. Do they spend time looking for the lost car keys, so they can get the heck out of there? No. Instead, they hike off into the woods convinced that Helen was kidnapped. When they are directed back to the lodge and do find Helen, naked, slaughtered with a knife still stuck in her belly do they find the missing car keys and leave? No. Do they put their clothing back on and hike out of the woods? No. They decide to hunt down the killer of Helen and "gut the bastard." For all these women know, the woods are teaming with backwoods people. What, do they plan to kill them all?
Not believable, not on any level. I am from a fairly street smart, rough, up bringing. I just don't buy a fashion model and an assistant film director, along with a Chaucer major suddenly getting a rabid desire to kill everyone in sight. None of them have enough testosterone to do the job. And the kink and weird sex that Laymon throws in must be his fantasy. These young, fairly nice looking, fairly prissy women running around in various states of nakedness carrying a tire iron, an old blunt knife and an old, stolen shot gun as weapons is laughable. The first thing they do is plug the shotgun barrels with mud and soak all the shotgun shells. I wouldn't pull the trigger, they'd be safer to use it as a club.
And the cat fights between these women! Why are they still friends? God, I'd have gladly gutted the wise cracking, pain in the butt, Finley by the end. Pure Hack, of no entertainment value, avoid it.
I will be avoiding his work in the future.
Half a star.