Richard Laymon

ShaunHorton · Feb 3, 2015

So, I'm curious as to what some of my fellow author's opinions on him are. Supposedly he has a big cult following and he's well known as a horror author. One of the greats, I'm told.

Thing is, I just picked up his book Into the Dark for a group read on Goodreads.

I think it's absolutely horrible. Stereotypical cardboard characters jumping through plot hoops, random sexuality, no tension at all, and pointless animal cruelty.

Seriously, it goes into the trash can with some of the worst self-published junk I've ever picked up.

Is this what we're trying to be compared to? I can write a wet dream that closer to horror and better quality than this. And yet people hold him up on some kind of pedestal as one of the greats? What am I missing?

Feidb · Feb 4, 2015

I've read a couple of his books and they were okay. Many I skipped because they were first-person. Didn't really rock my boat all that much. I prefer early R. Karl Largent, Elizabeth Forrest, Bentley Little, Early Dean Koontz (before he got sappy), and a few others. Laymon was okay but just never had that "it factor" for me, or should I say "ick factor?"

Jcomp · Feb 4, 2015

Only book of his I finished was The Cellar. I didn't like it. I've read far more about him than I've read of him, so I don't know how fair it is for me to critique or offer an opinion.

That said, I think at least some of his cult popularity and status can be partly attributed--like many things in life--to timing. He got started in 1980, writing extreme "exploitative" kind of horror novels (see the aforementioned The Cellar) that helped kick off off 80's splatterpunk (along with others such as Ketchum's vastly superior, in my opinion, Off Season, written the same year) years before the term was even coined. The 80's had the big horror paperback boom, and a guy like Laymon, writing more extreme material could be seen as sort of "alternative horror" at the time.

In terms of whether or not we should be compared to him and whether he's one of the "greats," I'd say that opinions and standards are always prone to vary. His material isn't anything I'm interested in reading, but he did make an impact, so if someone's definition of "greatness" depends at least in part on general impact to the genre, I'd see how someone could make that argument. I would disagree, but I can at least see the perspective.

Unless a reader is exclusively into the "edgiest" of edgy splatterpunk novels, I doubt all they're looking at Laymon as someone for horror writers to be "compared to." No more so than I think the average horror film fan reasonably expects a new release to be Blood Feast or Cannibal Holocaust.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 4, 2015

I think you're going by your own personal taste, rather than using an objective viewpoint. His writing most certainly was NOT on par with any self-published junk. That's silly. He was a very good writer in every possible way. Some readers hate everything about any wrietr you can name, and say the same things you do about Layman, and it really is silly, whatever writer they're talking about.

If you can write anything better than Layman did, don't talk about it, do it. I'm willing to bet you can't. If you can, we won't have to wonder about it, because you'll be selling everything you write.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 4, 2015

Jcomp said:
Unless a reader is exclusively into the "edgiest" of edgy splatterpunk novels, I doubt all they're looking at Laymon as someone for horror writers to be "compared to." No more so than I think the average horror film fan reasonably expects a new release to be Blood Feast or Cannibal Holocaust.

Layman is someone editors routinely compare new writers to. The kind of books he wrote are a different issue, but any writer who can capture the style of Layman is going to get very fast and good attention from agents and editors.

Haggis · Feb 4, 2015

Jamesaritchie said:
I think you're going by your own personal taste, rather than using an objective viewpoint. His writing most certainly was NOT on par with any self-published junk. .

I'm assuming, James, that you're not calling all self-published books "junk." Because that would not only be disrespectful to a whole bunch of AW members, it would be disrespectful to a whole bunch of other writers too. It would also be wrong because, while there certainly is "junk" out there, there are also some pretty damn fine books as well.

Jackx · Feb 7, 2015

Laymon is not for everyone. Most of his books read like a 15 year old boy's fantasies while daydreaming in history class. They aren't meant to be great literature. They are meant to be shocking and fun, which they are. His stories are plot driven above all else, and that's not a bad thing if you go in with those expectations.

Laymon was a master at hooks and unfurling insane plots. His books gain speed as they go, and they never let up. He was actually a very good writer when he was writing mysteries and crime, and some of his books, like One Rainy Night, are very well written. He was a MUCH better writer than Lovecraft, who couldn't write a decent line of prose to save his life, but so what? Both authors were brilliant.

Laymon's books are very hit or miss. In the Dark was just ok… Try reading ISLAND, or Night in the Lonesome October, or The Traveling Vampire Show. All very good if you allow yourself to get swept away and don't focus on all the things that could be better. Keep in mind, you're reading the literary equivalent of a B Horror film. Enjoy the ridiculousness of it. If you do, I bet you'll get it.

I can write a wet dream that closer to horror and better quality than this.

It's easy to talk, much harder to do.

Have at it.

Rhoda Nightingale · Feb 8, 2015

Not a fan, for exactly the reasons you mentioned. He has a place in horror history for a reason, but it's a very icky place that a lot of us would like to MOVE PAST already. Y'know the type--cardboard red shirts, lots of pointless sex, lots of pointless gore, all the monsters do something rapey. The "writing" in and off itself isn't "bad," but the plot is the laziest type of goresploitation--substituting actual dread and tension for gross-out splatter and dismemberment.

When it comes to using sex/gore as a plot device in a way that it's actually creepy and comes across as tense and meaningful? Read Richard Matheson's Hell House instead. He's MUCH better at this sort of thing.

Calla Lily · Feb 8, 2015

^ Yes. All of this. Thanks, Rhoda.

KTC · Feb 8, 2015

Haggis said:
I'm assuming, James, that you're not calling all self-published books "junk." Because that would not only be disrespectful to a whole bunch of AW members, it would be disrespectful to a whole bunch of other writers too. It would also be wrong because, while there certainly is "junk" out there, there are also some pretty damn fine books as well.

He was using the words of the OP

KTC · Feb 8, 2015

I agree wholeheartedly with Rhoda's take.

ShaunHorton · Feb 8, 2015

There is a fair bit of self-published junk out there. Stuff that was never edited, and put out by people who have never heard the term 'beta readers'. Into the Dark may be a spotless manuscript in comparison to those, but in terms of just about everything else, its earned its spot at the bottom of the bucket as far as I'm concerned.

If Laymon is really that good, Into the Dark must be one of his worst books. There hasn't really been much gore, and what has feels like it was just dropped in to fill space. There's been a few scenes with decent tension, but that tension is almost immediately lost in the next scene of the MC's absurd reactions to everything or an almost random sexual interlude. The MC's reasoning for going through the events of the book are as flimsy as a sheet of tissue paper in a hurricane.

I made it up to 34% before I said I was going to quit and did up a review of it, but I'm actually going to finish it just to spite some of the people in my reading group that were vigorously defending it. Surprisingly, it hasn't gotten any better.

I read some of these bad books by supposedly great writers and generally, I shrug and figure everyone pops out a bad book once in a while. Maybe it's one of those situations where they're in a 3-books-in-3-years contract or something and they just pop one out to meet that last deadline. Dunno. I am curious to see if he can do better, but after this book, I'm rather loathe to spend the money or time on him.

I did read Hell House though. THAT was a great book.

Haggis · Feb 8, 2015

I don't much care for Laymon either, but it's been so long since I've read anything of his I can't even point out why exactly. I guess I'll have to ante up and buy another just to see if I still don't care for him or if I feel differently about it now.

I do understand that just because I don't like a particular writer doesn't mean that other readers shouldn't like what he puts out. Different strokes and all that.

williemeikle · Feb 8, 2015

Jackx said:
He was a MUCH better writer than Lovecraft, who couldn't write a decent line of prose to save his life,

On that point we'll have to disagree. Vehemently.

Calla Lily · Feb 8, 2015

^In agreement with willie.

Jackx · Feb 8, 2015

On that point we'll have to disagree. Vehemently.

Well, don't get me wrong. I adore Lovecraft's work. He had the most brilliant ideas of any Horror writer in history, and he provided Stephen King and others with a lifetime of material to steal from, but the guy was a truly horrible prose writer. I get that he was a pulp writer, but even by those low standards his work is clunky and repetitive and extremely overwritten. IMO.

williemeikle · Feb 8, 2015

Jackx said:
Well, don't get me wrong. I adore Lovecraft's work. He had the most brilliant ideas of any Horror writer in history, and he provided Stephen King and others with a lifetime of material to steal from, but the guy was a truly horrible prose writer. I get that he was a pulp writer, but even by those low standards his work is clunky and repetitive and extremely overwritten. IMO.

And I think his choice of style was very deliberate, and indeed necessary to the effects he was creating in his prose. I don't find it clunky at all, nor do I find him a 'truly horrible prose writer'

And who said pulp writers have low standards? That's just the worst kind of elitism.

Calla Lily · Feb 8, 2015

Jackx said:
Well, don't get me wrong. I adore Lovecraft's work. He had the most brilliant ideas of any Horror writer in history, and he provided Stephen King and others with a lifetime of material to steal from, but the guy was a truly horrible prose writer. I get that he was a pulp writer, but even by those low standards his work is clunky and repetitive and extremely overwritten. IMO.

Jackx, we're always glad to see a new Horror Hound. However, please do take the time to read the Newbie Guide, particularly the part about RYFW.

Jackx · Feb 8, 2015

And who said pulp writers have low standards?

Pulp writers.

When you're knocking out entire novels or several stories a week in order to make money as fast as you possibly can, and you don't spend much time editing what you write, standards drop. Mentioning this fact isn't elitism at all, it's observation. The quality of their writing was a byproduct of the job they were doing.

I suppose if you want to believe that the journeymen writers of days past who lived by a penny a word were as concerned with every line they wrote as much as the authors who would spend years crafting their books, no one is going to stop you, but I do think you're kidding yourself.

Agree to disagree on Lovecraft's clunky prose.

williemeikle · Feb 8, 2015

Jackx said:
Pulp writers.

When you're knocking out entire novels or several stories a week in order to make money as fast as you possibly can, and you don't spend much time editing what you write, standards drop. Mentioning this fact isn't elitism at all, it's observation. The quality of their writing was a byproduct of the job they were doing.

I suppose if you want to believe that the journeymen writers of days past who lived by a penny a word were as concerned with every line they wrote as much as the authors who would spend years crafting their books, no one is going to stop you, but I do think you're kidding yourself.

Agree to disagree on Lovecraft's clunky prose.

I'm possibly kidding myself, but given that I self identify as a pulp writer, I'm again going to have to disagree with you.

Jackx · Feb 8, 2015

Jackx, we're always glad to see a new Horror Hound. However, please do take the time to read the Newbie Guide, particularly the part about RYFW.

Thanks, glad to be here… I read the post you mentioned, but I don't see anything in my posts that's remotely close to disrespectful. Can you point out the line that gave you pause?

Also, is good-natured debate frowned upon here? What's the point of a writers group if you can't be politely opinionated and passionate about your opinions when it comes to books?

williemeikle · Feb 8, 2015

Jackx said:
Thanks, glad to be here… I read the post you mentioned, but I don't see anything in my posts that's remotely close to disrespectful. Can you point out the line that gave you pause?

Also, is good-natured debate frowned upon here? What's the point of a writers group if you can't be politely opinionated and passionate about your opinions when it comes to books?

Accusing Stephen King of plagiarism is a bit disrespectful, don't you think?

Jackx · Feb 8, 2015

I self identify as a pulp writer, I'm again going to have to disagree with you.

Fair enough…

It has been interesting to watch the resurgence of pulp writing since Amazon brought self publishing back into the spotlight, and so many people started speed writing books to sell for $.99. A lot of people seem to hate that side of self publishing, but I think those books can be a lot of fun, and it's nice to see a new market for pulp writing.

Best of luck with what you do, and sorry if I ruffled feathers. I didn't realize the rules were so strict about what you could talk about here. It wasn't my intention to be insulting.

Jackx · Feb 8, 2015

Accusing Stephen King of plagiarism is a bit disrespectful, don't you think?

To who? To you or Steve? King has made no secret of the fact that he's borrowed liberally from Lovecraft, so it's not like I was revealing a well kept secret. I'd go so far as to say he's made his entire career rewriting Lovecraftian tropes and introducing them to a mass market audience who didn't have the patience to wade through Lovecraft's thick and hard to digest prose.

williemeikle · Feb 8, 2015

Jackx said:
Fair enough…

It has been interesting to watch the resurgence of pulp writing since Amazon brought self publishing back into the spotlight, and so many people started speed writing books to sell for $.99. A lot of people seem to hate that side of self publishing, but I think those books can be a lot of fun, and it's nice to see a new market for pulp writing.

Best of luck with what you do, and sorry if I ruffled feathers. I didn't realize the rules were so strict about what you could talk about here. It wasn't my intention to be insulting.

I'm not a self publisher though. What gave you that idea?

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