In Laymon's Terms

A third of the way down, both pages of the manuscript were slit nearly from side to side. It was with a crazed surgeon’s precision that the review was cut, left dangling with barely an inch of margin keeping the pages connected.

Never had anything like this ever happened to me. I’m sure that at some time I had submitted something so wretched it deserved to be cut up, but it had never happened. I’m sure editors face the urge to chop up submitted manuscripts and return them to the writer all the time, but out of courtesy they do not act upon this urge, regardless of how scissor-worthy a particular submission may be.

At first, I did not know how to take this. Was this an attack on me, on my review? Was my write-up that horrible? Or was it an underhanded attack on Dick? Did they really despise his work and efforts that much? Surely these Fangoria guys did not hold that kind of psychotic grudge against someone just for expressing their opinion? (Maybe watching tons of horror movies all the time really can warp your mind!) Or, maybe it was a warning. But warning me of what? Warning me that there was to be no happy book reviews in Fangoria magazine?

I read what I had submitted to Fangoria a couple times, but could never pinpoint what THE EDITORS found so disturbing that their only reaction was to slice my manuscript nearly in half.

In a matter of minutes I went from shocked to scared to amused to pretty darn mad.

Who were these guys to cut up my manuscript? Was their magazine so conceited they would not accept favorable reviews on books written by authors they did not support? If it is like that, fine. But what was this cutting up stuff?

I sent a fresh copy to David Silva at Hellnotes. I had hoped he might have been able to use it, so then I could be vindicated a bit over the Fangoria mutilation. While Dave could not use the review, he offered his honest thoughts, but was also unable to find the reason for the mutilation.

Figuring I would just learn from the experience, I made a copy of the mutilated review (the paper slashed open like the jugular of a Friday the 13^th victim) and sent it to Dick with a letter detailing my efforts to spread the word.

In our correspondence I found that Dick was highly amused by the situation. He commented that it would seem that I was not too well-liked by the Fangoria folks either. So it ended up being a joke for two guys instead of ten or eleven. It was still worth it.

Honestly, I believe the manuscript mutilation of my A Writer’s Tale review could have simply been a mistake. Maybe someone was cutting an envelope open with a razor knife and my manuscript was underneath. It happens. But whoever did it never bothered to write “Sorry” or “Oops” on the cut pages to let me know it was nothing more than an accident, that it was nothing personal.

Since no attempt or effort was made to let me know it was just an accident, it is more fun to imagine THE EDITORS at Fangoria attacking my review with shiny scalpels and twisted grins.

I hope that one day A Writer’s Tale gets the attention it deserves, and is discovered by the battalions of aspiring writers it was written for and dedicated to.

Thanks, Dick, for a wonderful book that has helped many a mile down my own rigorous road. And thanks Fangoria, for a great story to tell.

Donn Gash

OME PEOPLE JUST don’t get it.

A while back, I was reading a review of a Richard Laymon novel. Which novel isn’t all that important. While I’m at it, I’ll leave out the name of the reviewer too. As much as he might deserve it, I’m not going to embarrass him. Besides, I can almost guarantee you’ve never heard of him.

It seems Mr. Reviewer had taken an extreme and personal disliking to this particular Laymon offering. Mr. Reviewer was offended. Hell, he had bypassed offended and gone straight to royally pissed. The novel in question wasn’t just bad in his estimation; it was a personal attack against himself, and any other reader of high moral character.

The review started off nasty and proceeded to get nastier. The first portion consisted mostly of vague gripes and non-specific moaning. As I read along, I wondered what was wrong with this guy. He wasn’t bashing Richard Laymon’s prose or style. He didn’t have anything nasty to say about the author’s technique. Most of his bitching seemed to be of the personal variety, aimed squarely at Laymon. I became more and more puzzled.

Finally, about halfway through the review, he spelled it out. His beef was with the behavior of the characters in the novel. Not just a few of the characters, mind you, but all of them. He had come to the conclusion that real people would never act the way these characters did. He illustrated his point by listing some of the characters’ offending behaviors. As he did so, I couldn’t help but smile.