Clive Barker's books of blood - Softcover

Barker, Clive

4.04

25,833 ratings by Goodreads

9780722114124: Clive Barker's books of blood

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0722114125 ISBN 13: 9780722114124

Publisher: Sphere, 1984

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Six horror stories include "The Book of Blood," "The Midnight Meat Train," "The Yattering and Jack," "Pig Blood Blues," "Sex, Death, and Starshine," and "In the Hills, the Cities." Reprint.

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Review:

"Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red." For those who only know Clive Barker through his long multigenre novels, this one-volume edition of the Books of Blood is a welcome chance to acquire the 16 remarkable horror short stories with which he kicked off his career. For those who already know these tales, the poignant introduction is a window on the creator's mind. Reflecting back after 14 years, Barker writes:

I look at these pieces and I don't think the man who wrote them is alive in me anymore.... We are all our own graveyards I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived; and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present.

Reading these stories over, I feel a little of both. Some of the simple energies that made these words flow through my pen--that made the phrases felicitous and the ideas sing--have gone. I lost their maker a long time ago.

These enthusiastic tales are not ashamed of visceral horror, of blood splashing freely across the page: "The Midnight Meat Train," a grisly subway tale that surprises you with one twist after another; "The Yattering and Jack," about a hilarious demon who possesses a Christmas turkey; "In the Hills, the Cities," an unusual example of an original horror premise; "Dread," a harrowing non-supernatural tale about being forced to realize your worst nightmare; "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament," about a woman who kills men with her mind. Some of the tales are more successful than others, but all are distinguished by strikingly beautiful images of evil and destruction. No horror library is complete without them. --Fiona Webster

About the Author:

Born in Liverpool in 1952, Clive Barker has written and produced a number of Grand Guignol plays, including The History of the Devil and Frankenstein in Love. His volumes of short fiction, Books of Blood, earned him immediate praise from horror fans and literary critics alike. He won both the British and World Fantasy Awards, and was nominated for the coveted Booker Prize, Britain’s highest literary award. His bestselling novels include The Damnation Game, Imajica, The Thief of Always, The Great and Secret Show, and Everville. He also created the now-classic Hellraiser films, as well as Nightbreed, and Lord of Illusions.

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