Rating: 
Summary: Great story-A must read!
Review: I sat up until the early morning hours to read this book from cover to cover. This book is set in a time where teens could be teens. Dwight, Rusty & Slim have an adventure that will effect their lives forever. This book is wonderfully written. The plot doesn't make you go back to previous pages to understand the story. This a 5 star book. Enjoy it, I did.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: Richard Laymon definitely remembers what's it's like to be a teenager. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which is a great coming-of-age story. I also liked it because the horrors of small-town life seemed just as scary as the "true" horror - a vampire. I have read many Laymon books and haven't been disappointed yet...keep on writing, Richard!
Rating: 
Summary: COULDN'T PUT THIS BOOK DOWN
Review: The Traveling Vampire Show really puts a new twist on the vampire story. The characters (Slim, Rusty, Dwight) remind me of when I was a kid. The explanation of Dwight's character and his feelings toward Slim are very accurate as far as a 16 year old kid- at least from my personal experience. Slim's character as a tough tomboy yet very feminine girl is very real and very likeable. The character of Rusty is also very real although he is not as likeable as the other main characters in The Traveling Vampire Show.This story uses the power of suggestion to scare the reader. It also uses the power of anticipation from a 16 year old's point of view The Traveling Vampire Show takes place over a period of one day. The incredible description of events of this one day period is one aspect that makes this story extremely gripping. I really liked this book. In all, the characters are very true to life and the explanation of events are so real!! The ending of the story is a true climax and comes together without leaving the reader "hanging." These are the reasons why I finished The Traveling Vampire Show in one sitting!! The Traveling Vampire Show is the first novel that I read by Richard Laymon. I look forward to reading more books by him.
Rating:
Summary: Laymon's best
Review: It's sad to see so many readers completely missing the boat in their opinions of Richard Laymon's The Traveling Vampire Show. This wonderfully nostalgic book is a slice of life in a small town in the early 1960's where a "Traveling Vampire Show" comes to do a show. The story's focus is on a likable youth who is going through the terrifying and beautiful motions of leaving boyhood and entering manhood. Laymon's prose has never been clearer or more readable. Society wasn't perfect back then, but compared to the horrors that modern young people face, it was innocent and naive. Laymon, who passed away on Valentine's Day this year, never escaped the stigmata of generous sex and gory violence that was the essence of his writing. I, for one, am glad he didn't. This is HORROR FICTION after all. I felt that TTVS was filled with marvels and terrors and the lust and fury of growing up. The last section of the book had me at the edge of my seat. The imagery of the final confrontation between the protagonists and the "monsters" made a incredibly strong impression on my mind. I give this book my highest rating and recommend it wholeheartedly.
Rating:
Summary: Fans of Laymon Won't Be Disappointed
Review: Richard Laymon is one of those authors who manage remembers what it was like to be a kid, and I've noticed that I prefer his novels that focus on teenagers as the main characters, and this one did not disappoint. I thought that Laymon really captured the characters of the people in the book. I had no trouble believing in them--and if things happened that seemed unbelievable, well, this *is* fiction, right? I really liked the tension in the book, too. It kept me interested, so that instead of reading the book over a few nights as planned, I finished it all in one day.
Rating:
Summary: A Nostalgic Nightmare
Review: I suppose it is strange to feel a longing to be a part of a horror novel, but that is what 'Travelling Vampire Show' did for me. As in 'The Stake' the vampires play a rather minor role in the story. This is really a novel about the bittersweet adventures of adolescence. Laymon is able to capture the freedom and terror of being sixteen and keep the plot moving at a terrific speed. A wild, crazy and zestfully depraved novel
Rating: 
Summary: If you love horror stories. . . DON'T read this one
Review: I love a good vampire story, but this wasn't one of them. I was bored about a quarter of the way through, but I kept reading, thinking surely it will get better. No, it didn't. The characters were bizarre and completely unrealistic. You keep waiting for the climax, you are lead on to this incredible conclusion, but then all the action happens in about 5 pages and the story ends with. . . "Well, that's my story." And I say who cares! I wasted my time, don't waste yours.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Ludicrous
Review: It's 1963 and the Traveling Vampire Show comes to Nowhere, USA, and three characters ripped from the pages of other novels decide to go investigate. There's the Thoughtful And Intelligent Hero Who Ends Up Being A Writer Someday, through whose perspective the story is told. There's the Tomboyish Intelligent Girl With A Horrible Past Of Sexual Abuse That We Pray She Will Rise Above. And then there's The Fat Jerky Kid That Just Doesn't Get It. You know, cause we've never seen these three before. Not a horror novel by any stretch, and marketed as a coming of age novel, it's really soft core porn. On EVERY page our hero is removing clothing, or someone is removing clothing, or you can see through someone's clothing, or someone's thinking about removing their clothing, or someone is standing too close to someone, or someone gets just a flash of what's under someone's clothing, or, in the rare case, someone actually has sex. And the climactic "vampire" scene is nothing more than a cat fight, two women in a locked cage ripping each other clothing off. And while that's not normally something I object to, well, hardly worth all the nonsense waded through to get there. The characters are poorly written. While they are 16 in the novel, they think and act with the sexual innocence of 14 year olds through most of the novel, and then at other points demonstrate maturity and a worldliness that seems more in place with a 16 year old in 2001, not 1963. (Side note--is there a law somewhere that all coming of age stories have to take place in 1963??) About ten pages from the end the Tomboyish Intelligent Girl With A Horrible Past Of Sexual Abuse That We Pray She Will Rise Above slaughters about twenty people like a Navy SEAL and we're supposed to buy it. The novel is annoyingly composed of needless backstory that goes nowhere and contributes nothing, sepia toned summer flashbacks that do even less, and some actually bordering on creepy situations that are dismissed with an explanation only slightly less lame than "it was all a dream." That and ruminations on people's clothing, or their lack of clothing, or what might be under the clothing, etc, etc, etc. There's one scene, besides the cat fight at the end, that encapsulates the sheer ridiculousness of this entire novel: two hundred people get into a traffic jam in the mid fifties and "there were nineteen arrests, countless minor injuries, twelve people who needed to be hospitalized, eight rapes (multiple, in most cases), and four fatalities. One guy died of a heart attck, two were killed in knife-fights, and a six month old baby, dropped to the ground by its mother during the melee, got its head run over by a Volkswagen bug." Uh-huh. Sure. Want coming of age? Do yourself a favor, read IT or The Body by Stephen King and pass this one by.
Rating:
Summary: Lame, Sophomoric Crap
Review: Having loved Bradbury's "Something Wicked..." I was eager for a story in a similar vein (no pun intended). What I got instead was 400 pages of flat characters wandering about an anonymous town doing stupid things. Laymon even chickened out on the ending. If you're an adolescent with an overactive libido that needs release, go for it, but if you want plot, suspense, or characters to care about, read something else.
Rating:
Summary: LAYMON MASTERPIECES ROLL ON!
Review: This novel for me puts the likes of Stephen King and Dean Koontz in the shadow of Richard Laymon. The detail and the rollercoaster ride you take with these 3 charming main characters leave you in awe of what one single mind can imagine and put into words. The tale of Dwight, Slim and Rusty enthralls you and grabs you and makes you feel as though you went through every emotion with them and done everything they did. Another Laymon Novel which doesn't want to be put down and once you're on this rollercoaster you don't ever want it to stop. The only problem with this Laymon classic was that it ended, something you can't say about many books but this one a definate for many reasons. Take a look you won't regret it.
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