Blood Games [Mass Market Paperback]

Richard Laymon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2003

College friends Helen, Cora, Vivian, Finley and Abilene all meet up for one week every year. Helen has a taste for horror, and this year she has chosen the Totem Pole Lodge, a deserted hotel in the backwoods with a sinister past. But the girls soon find it is not as deserted as they thought.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the early 1990s, as the horror market bottomed in the U.S., several established American authors, including Laymon (To Wake the Dead, etc.), were unable to find domestic publishers for their work. Laymon continued to hit bestseller lists overseas during this period, though, and this is one of the novels he wrote during that time. Like so much of his mid-career work, it's a middling effort, and it's also a mixed bag-nearly literally, as it offers a present-day scenario interspersed with flashbacks that are, in effect, standalone short stories. In the present, five young alumni of Belmore University are on their annual get-together; this year, the choice of what to do has fallen to Helen, a horror buff, who arranges for the group to camp out at a deserted backwoods lodge where guests were slaughtered by locals several years back. In time, the group encounter various townsfolk, including a witch, whom they must fight for their lives, resulting in a characteristic Laymon bloodbath. The action here is fast but predictable. Of greater interest are the flashbacks, showing first how the gang got together, then detailing their various exploits-taking revenge on some frat guys by setting fire to their house, on a cruel dean by trashing her office, on a nasty homeowner on Halloween by destroying his living room; seducing a young male surfer during a foggy nighttime trip along the California coast, etc. It's in these scenes that Laymon displays some, but not much, of the surreal nightmarish sensibility that hallmarked his great later work (The Traveling Vampire Show, etc.). Overall, then, this is brisk but routine entertainment from the controversial author, who died in 2001.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 467 pages
• Publisher: Leisure Books (November 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0843951818
• ISBN-13: 978-0843951813
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #509,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Vengeance Squad, August 19, 2005

By 

Joshua Koppel (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blood Games (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richard Laymon?, January 22, 2006

By 

Jennifer K. Houston "Me, myself and I." (Richmond, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blood Games (Mass Market Paperback)

Before reading this book I'd never even heard of Richard Laymon. I picked this up at a book closeout store for $1 and figured for a buck it'd be an ok read. My expectations were far exceeded. It's been a LONG time since I've read something that captured my attention and had me so engrossed for hours. I didn't put the book down at all once I started reading! I've never found anyone besides Dean Koontz who gave me such an exciting read! I am running out tomorrow to look for more Richard Laymon books!

29 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The last Laymon novel I ever read, July 17, 2005

By 

L. Allison "Bibliophile" (The left coast) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blood Games (Mass Market Paperback)

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.