The Traveling Vampire Show
by Richard Laymon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Richard LaymonEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-03
ISBN: 0843948507
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Leisure Books
Book Reviews of The Traveling Vampire Show
Book Review: "T" as in "Tedium"
Summary: 2 Stars
Oh, the devil is in the details. And often the details are devilishly mundane. For instance, I had smoked sausage and a tossed salad for lunch, I held my fork in my right hand and drank a glass of water with my left, and I chewed on a toothpick before a quaint belch provided gaseous relief.
But who the heck cares? So why should readers care about the trivial, insignificant, trite, and boring actions of Richard Laymon's characters in his "horror" novel, THE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW? The author's obsession with the mundane is excruciating as Laymon takes the reader over the course of one day. . .hour by hour. . .minute by minute. . .hackneyed action by hackneyed action. Three teenage pals plot and conspire to attend a traveling vampire show at midnight, and as the humid summer day drones on some unsettling things take place while the trio goes back and forth to four different houses. I was literally writhing in my recliner, begging the author to show mercy by telling me something even remotely interesting. And my just reward was the vampire show--featuring the exotic and erotic Valeria.
Sorry, Valeria. After plodding through 300-plus pages of mundane mediocrity, Valeria's antics couldn't salvage the story; in fact, Valeria transformed the plot from boring to absurd. (Yeah, I know, it's horror. But I want to be scared--not embarrassed.) And unfortunately, the climatic "horror" scene was a howler; Laymon's two-page ending an incomplete afterthought; and the author's characters, all of them, were taken out of the oven before they were completely cooked. Throw in a copy editor in desperate need of a career change, coupled with the author's rather unhealthy preoccupation with clothes being ripped off of chicks, and THE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW works as well as a two-legged stool. But at least sitting on such a stool would be interesting.
--D. Mikels, Author, WALK-ON
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