Body Rides - Richard Laymon

The central theme of body rides involves a magical ring that enables the wearer to enter the mind of another person and take a 'ride' in their body, seeing through their eyes and experiencing their thoughts. It is an original, well thought out idea. However, what lets this story down for me, is that the main character is married, and loves his wife, but then meeta another woman, who he also falls for. This in itself is not too hard to swallow, but when the two women meet, and he explains all, both are incredibly understanding, and of course he can love them both and not be made to choose. All three then begin to live happily together sharing just one bed. A ...

Body Rides is a good solid novel, and if you can suspend your disbelief, then you should enjoy it, but it's not one of Laymon's best. The central idea of the novel is a magical ring that allows the wearer to enter the mind of anyone else and not only hear their thoughts, but also see through their eyes and experience their senses. This is all fine, but my one gripe about the novel is that the main character never does any of the things that you or I would do if we owned the ring! He doesn't use it to find out what the President's thinking, or to see what celebrites get up to, or even to spy on all his friends. No, he uses it to try and catch a murderer. ...

Have you ever wondered what it would like to be able to enter another persons mind and know what they're thinking. Feel what they feel, Taste what they're eating and experience their emotions as if they were your own. Well Laymon must have because that's the central theme for his superb novel Body Rides. The books main character is Neal Darden who while returning a rented video back to a shop hears the cries of a young girl. After Neal plays the hero and saves the girl from the would be killer she rewards him by giving him a bracelet. Of course this item is no ordinary piece of jewellery, in fact it gives the wearer the ability to enter ...