Clive Barker's books of blood

Despite being very gross, it just didn't provide a good scare. No suspense, just gross-out. Felt like a moody college student's final paper in a creative writing class where he would have received a C-. It was a total flop at our book club, and we are a group that enjoys Stephen King, Joe Hill, science fiction and the like.

I purchased this upon the reviews which I had read about this book. Having been a H.P. Lovecraft fan almost since I could read and reading favorable comparisons between Barker's work and Lovecraft I expected more of a comparison. However, I was highly disappointed. Read some of his works in an anthology before you buy this book. I cannot recommend this particular work of his.

My wife was very disappointed with this one. There are no new stories in this book! Repeat, There are no new stories in this book!!! My wife is an avid reader, fan, and collector of Mr. Barker. This is nothing but a compilation of previously released books that we already own. What a rip. This is a money grab, period.

I've always loved Clyde Baker, but have never been one to read short stories, even though I write them and I have always enjoyed horror but this just wasn't the kind of book that interested me. I put it on my book shelf though and shall give it another try one of these days.

In many ways, this book has come to define American horror (or at least the way Hollywood perceives it), and has influenced countless others to look at horror from a different angle. It ensured the sharpest & bloodiest break that one can imagine, with the images of horror invoked by Fontana Book of Ghost Stories, while also veering away from the increasingly contemplative style of Stephen King & Peter Straub. So, in a sense, this book was epoch-making. But as far as my opinion is concerned, it is not so good, if not outright bad. This book had compelled me to go back to M.R. James, just to reclaim my sanity. Even the "comte cruel" stories of Pan Book of Horror were not such mind-numbingly graphic & gross, compared to the stuff that has been dished out through the stories in this book. The saddest part is that none of my 3 favourite Barker stories are to be found in this collection, and they are all in Stephen Jones' anthologies. Read at your own risk, is you are a fan of slasher movies; otherwise, stay away.

I am SHOCKED at the overwhelming positive feedback Book of Bloods is accredited with. I put this book down 169 pages in. I have never previously set a book down. If you have seen "Black Mirror" on Netflix, it's truly the counterpart. The collection of stories are just so dimwitted. At least you'd be expecting the gore and blood, eh? Not here. Clive Barker doesn't hold Stephen King's jockstrap. He is almost too "diplomatic". I feel like he's so politically correct. I've seen other reviews refer to him more like a genius with his ability to think beyond the box. Sorry, not impressed. The stories are pointless, never leave you wanting more and never put a nerve in my spine. Not once.

From a sow possessed by a douche bag teenage punk, to a meat train delivering a buffet to the dead of the big city, this was a major D"dislike".

I really hate being that 1 star "guy" because I wanted to LOVE this short story collection, but it's kind of like being the only person who seems to think "Open Water" sucked.

Woooo!

That was unexpectedly great. And gory. And transgressive as hell. Reading this book made it clear to me why Clive Barker (who I hadn't read before) is considered an iconic writer. The man is not only a master stylist, but he has this narrative obsession with tearing reality apart. Sometimes a form of religion or systematic afterlife is involved like in The Midnight Meat Train or Hell's Event. Other time, it's just off the wall wild and imaginative like In the Hills, the Cities. My favorite stories from the collection were Pig Blood Blues, Dread and the weirdo-Lynchian Son of Celluloid. Luxuriant, consistant, transgressive...my first experience with Clive Barker is a rather transforming one.

Get on that, people and lose your mind. I didn't have so much fun with a book in quite some time.Woooo!

That was unexpectedly great. And gory. And transgressive as hell. Reading this book made it clear to me why Clive Barker (who I hadn't read before) is considered an iconic writer. The man is not only a master stylist, but he has this narrative obsession with tearing reality apart. Sometimes a form of religion or systematic afterlife is involved like in The Midnight Meat Train or Hell's Event. Other time, it's just off the wall wild and imaginative like In the Hills, the Cities. My favorite stories from the collection were Pig Blood Blues, Dread and the weirdo-Lynchian Son of Celluloid. Luxuriant, consistant, transgressive...my first experience with Clive Barker is a rather transforming one.

Get on that, people and lose your mind. I didn't have so much fun with a book in quite some time.

For a long time, every Clive Barker book came stamped with Stephen King’s approval, in the form of a pretty stellar endorsement: “I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker.” But over the years, that stamp came to mean less and less; Barker mellowed with age, and seemed less interested in the horrors of his early books and instead focused on visually astonishing fantasy worlds (Imajica and Abarat being the obvious go-tos here). Beyond that, Barker’s health has kept him from being as prolific as he once was; as a result, his once iconic presence in the genre has faded over the years, to the point where many these days haven’t even read a Barker work at all.

And yet, when you go back to Books of Blood, the short story collection that put Barker on the map, what you’ll find is that they’re every bit as horrifying, as groundbreaking, as unclassifiable, as astonishing – in other words, every bit as great – today as they were when they first burst onto the scene. And even now, nearly thirty years after they were first published, the tales in Books of Blood have lost none of their punch – they’re still terrifying; they’re still surreal and nightmarish; they still feel like nothing written before them, and almost nothing written after them.

Books of Blood is often hailed as the starting point for the “splatterpunk” movement, and that holds true; it’s hard to think of another short story collection, much less a debut, that’s this bloody, violent, and relentlessly disturbing. But more than simply collecting violence, Barker’s astonishing imagination pushes you into places you can’t imagine, and creates worlds that succeed from the way they push reality to its breaking point. The murderer stalking the subways in “The Midnight Meat Train,” for instance, is undeniably terrifying and brutal, but he pales in comparison to the horrors waiting at the end of the train line. The deceptively simple ghost story “Sex, Death, and Starshine” gives way to a ghoulish, horrific tableau by the end; similarly, the uneasy prison horrors of “Pig Blood Blues” are just an appetizer to the bizarre visions waiting at the end.

Indeed, the biggest takeaway from Books of Blood is the awe that Barker’s imagination inspires. In some ways, it’s clear that Barker works in the tradition of Lovecraft – there’s a healthy dose of fantasy and surrealism in his horror – but even that comparison falls short from the fantastical, surreal visions he brings to bear in his stories. The disturbing parade of “The Skins of the Fathers,” the title monster of “Rawhead Rex,” and maybe best of all, the truly nightmarish battle of “In the Hills, the Cities” – all of these defy any sort of description or classification. They’re undeniably horrific visions, but these aren’t easily categorized into zombies or vampires or even Lovecraftian nightmares. No, in Barker’s mind, we mix religious imagery, deeply sexual notions, astonishing theatricality of the Guignol tradition, and so much more, all into something wholly new. And Barker’s incredible, breathtaking prose brings it all to life, putting to lie Lovecraft’s idea that certain things simply aren’t describable. No, Barker describes it all, and even seeing some of these things through prose is enough to bring the reader to the edge of madness.

But even beyond the (horrific) violence and nightmarish, boundary-pushing visions, much of what makes Books of Blood so incredible is the thematic richness of each of the stories. It’s not enough for Barker to settle for simply scaring you. No, his stories illuminate real-world ideas, using his gory theater as a way of exploring bigger ideas. From allegories for societal conflict (“In the Hills, the Cities”) or the sacrifices of civilization (“The Midnight Meat Train”), from feminists seizing power (“Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament”) or communities of outcasts bonding together (“The Skins of the Fathers”), from the appeal of film and escapism (“Son of Celluloid”) or the fear of primal religions (“Rawhead Rex”), Barker’s stories work on levels beyond the visceral terror and horror they bring to bear. Indeed, with Barker’s outspoken sexual politics (I can’t imagine what reading something this outspokenly gay was like in the early 80’s), fascinating views of society, and rich political ideas, Books of Blood works as much as social commentary as horror.

That being said, make no mistake: this is a horror collection, period. And to put it very simply, I think it’s one of the best – if not the best – short story horror collections ever written. These stories defy your expectations, your rules, your boundaries; they are written with a visual richness that cannot be overstated; they have imagination and sights unlike anything I’ve ever read; they are genuinely terrifying, wholly disturbing, darkly comic, surprisingly heartfelt, and nightmarishly gory. They will terrify you, they will break your brain, and they will expand what you thought horror could contain. They are every bit as good now as they ever were, and an absolute essential for any serious fan of horror fiction, period.

Oh my. If anyone is looking for a true representation of Clive Barker's work it is here in his Books of Blood collection. Few things tap into that spring well of creativity quite like short stories. There's a certain affordability to experiment bound to the limits such as shorter fiction. And there was a good amount of experimentation taking place here. From haunted men to strange otherworldly clans of walking talking beasts. I think my favorite was the Meat Train one, so oddly captivating and it had this really dark cultish conclusion. There are many others here, none were flops in my estimation. A great collection to own and to read

Some of these stories were a bit difficult for me to read and it got a little taxing for me to finish the entire book. However all-in-all the stories were what I expected from Barker. Very dark, otherworldly and sexual. Very entertaining. A good read. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves Barker and/or horror.

Clive Barker, the multi-talented Liverpudlian, supposedly was to be "the future of horror" (so said no less an authority than Stephen King) with the release of these first three "Books of Blood" way back in 1984. Turned out, however, that with his finely-honed pen, his gift for odd details, locales, and the powerful image, his penchant for mordant wit, the ambiguity with which he infused his stories (are there ever clear demarcations between those hoary old cliches Good & Evil in these tales?) and the sheer glee he took in subverting the genre turned off readers looking for a slice of American Gothic, a la Anne Dean Koontz, John Saul, and even King himself.
I say, leave those authors for the housewives and dilettantes; Barker is the real thing, a writer whose work doesn't comfort, but disturbs. How could readers looking for the traditional horror fiction formula react to stories like "In the Hills, the Cities," "Sex, Death, & Starshine," or "The Last Will & Testament of Jacqueline Ess"? He doesn't want to frighten you so much as radically alter your perception of the world. The horror genre is too often reactionary as it tries to banish the monster, the alien, the seemingly terrifying. Barker wants transformation; his characters confront the darkness, and find themselves changed, often times for the better, when they embrace it (literally, in the climax of "Jacqueline Ess").
Rather than recommend this to conventional horror fans, I say readers who like to challenge themselves should check these out--perhaps readers of Martin Amis or Julian Barnes or Jeanette Winterson, or Jorge Luis Borges, or Italo Calvino. Then again, maybe I'm wrong--Barker's work is graphically blood-drenched, which gained him a reputation in the mid-80s as a splatterpunk, which of course anyone who has read later, more mature works like "Weaveworld," "Sacrament" or "Imajica" will realize how inaccurate that is.
I think Barker is nearly a poet of horror in these stories, with prose as elegant and vivid as any of those writers mentioned above, and I think he deserves a wider readership. Here, in this new trade paperback, he has written a great introduction, one in which he reveals how he has changed over the years since he wrote the "Books of Blood." It's a thoughtful, perceptive, funny, vulgar essay, classic Barker, and the visions you'll find within are no less wonderful.
"Future of horror"? Thankfully not. Clive Barker transcends any genre, and remains untouchable.

Originally published as 3 separate bus stop paperbacks, the Books of Blood are at long last together in one compendium...Actually I am lying as there is also books 4 through 6... So this is half a compendium, but it is nothing short of 100 percent sheer horror and madness. There are about 15 stories in this book, most of which made me want to re-read them right after I was done. Standouts include the famous Rawhead Rex - Where a monster was buried under a large rock in a farmer's field hundreds of years ago, but mankind has since forgotten why the monolith was erected in the first place. They decide to remove the stone, resulting in unholy consequences.

The Yattering and Jack is a great story about a demon trying to torment Jack, but he is oblivious and immune to the tricks of the demon. And finally a standout story "Dread" should be mentioned as it is a predecessor of the "Saw" movies, where a lunatic locks a vegetarian girl in a room with nothing to eat but a piece of rotting meat. As time goes by, her hunger grows, but so do the maggots in the animal flesh.

Anyhow, Barker delivers with this collection, and you should remember when reading it, that everybody is a book of blood - when we are opened up, we are red.

Relic113

With Volume One of Books of Blood, Clive Barker burst upon the horror scene like a giant supernova exploding in space, mixing an obvious love for the more gruesome aspects of the dark literary arts with a vision and power all but unheard of. Stephen King said that the very future of horror was named Clive Barker. With that endorsement, such an eye-catching title, and a wonderfully horror-laden cover image (much better than the reprints of recent years), I simply had to have this book. An introduction by horror maestro Ramsey Campbell further fuelled my fires of interest. I was still rather new to the horror scene at that time, and while I knew even then that Barker was constructing stories unlike any I had ever read, it was several years later that I truly realized the astounding originality and creativeness of this man's genius.
The initial offering, The Book of Blood, stands out as a unique ghost story in its own right, but it also serves as a provocative abstract for everything Barker sought to accomplish with these stories (and I should note that he originally wanted all of the volumes of Books of Blood to be published together in one book). After this enticing introductory tale, we head below the streets of New York to sneak a ride on The Midnight Meat Train. This story is vintage Clive Barker. While it is full of blood and gore, it is clearly not a case of gore for gore's sake. Barker isn't trying to drown the reader in blood as a means to hide any lack of skill on his part because the skill is undeniably there for all to see. This is a story that you will not soon forget.
Barker really changes his line of attack in the next story, The Yattering and Jack. The Yattering is a demon sent to torment and destroy the sanity of a little nobody named Jack. In this dark comedy farce, the poor Yattering does everything he can think of to make the unshakeable Jack miserable, driving himself almost mad in the process. I think of The Yattering and Jack as an amusing sort of Barker bedtime story. Pig Blood Blues forces the casual reader to once again don hip hugger boots for a trek into gore and depravity. At a certain school for wayward boys, a monster resides in a pig sty on the campus farm, a menacing sow who thinks that pigs are more equal than humans; in this place, the other white meat is not pork. Sex, Death and Starshine is a good story, but it alone among these offerings seems to be lacking a certain oomph. The idea behind the story is fantastic, however, as it touches upon the needs of the dead to be entertained every once in a while.
Easily, the most impressive story told in these pages is In the Hills, the Cities. The impact of this pioneering, bold, brilliant story is akin to that of Shirley Jackson's unforgettable tale The Lottery. Two male lovers touring the hidden sights of Yugoslavia become the reluctant witnesses to a sight few men could ever even conceive of when a unique traditional battle between the citizens of two adjacent towns takes an unexpected and ever-so-destructive turn. If you want to know what the big deal about Clive Barker is, this is the story you need to read.
This first volume of Barker's horror-laden creations left no doubt in the minds of most horror fans that fresh blood had arrived to increase the vitality and further the maturing process of a genre always failing to win the widespread respect it deserves. While Barker's dark visions will not suit the taste of even some traditional horror fans, he more than deserves a choice seat at the table of the horror gods.

These stories serve as an introduction to Clive Barker. These were his first published works. Prior to this, he was writing stage plays. As a first effort of a writer, they are great. They evoke images, such as "In the Hills, the Cities", that stay with you for days. In the 80's, when these books were written, they were breaking new ground. Mr. Barker is able to conjure up horrific images without covering you in blood, for the most part.
I think that these stories will whet your appetite for the more mature works of Mr. Barker, such as The Great and Secret Show, and Everville.
As with many writers, some of the movie adaptations of these stories leave much to be desired. The best actually had Clive Barker involved, such as the original Hellraiser (the Hellbound Heart), Nightbreed (based on Cabal).
New readers, that have become jaded on the raw, in your face horror of the current writers, may miss out on some of the more subtle nuances in this freshman outing by Mr. Barker. He attempts, and mostly succeeds, in taking an everyday situation with ordinary people and sending out into the world of the horrific. Horror does not equal blood an gore but that feeling of dreading to turn the page to find out what happens next. Barker succeeds in this with these short stories.

Clive Barker here brings us an excellent collection of short fantasy and horror stories. In this book Barker shows us why he stands above his peers in terms of sheer imagination. You will not find any cheesy re-hashes of old themes in this collection, no vampires or conventional ghost tales. Barker obviously figures that if a story is worth the time invested to write, then it is worthwhile taking the time to do something new, something original.

As others have said here, the best of the bunch is 'In the hills, the Cities'. Once read, you will never forget this tale, it works as a standalone straightforward story, but also works allegorically. It carries you along as you wonder at the spectacles described in the story, you can almost hear the crunching noise as one of the Cities falls to the ground. The ending is one of the greatest things about this story, one of the main characters decide that after having viewed the spectacle of the walking city he might as well travel with it, and give up on life, knowing that no matter how long he lives he will never see anything remotely as interesting again. It is especially poignant that no matter how terrible the imagery of the falling city, it will never compete with the real horror that would descend on the balkans (which is were the story is set) a few years after it was written, the setting adds to the story's weirdness and credibility.

Another gem is the truly despicable Rawhead Rex, this tale is about a sleeping child eating giant accidentally released from it's imprisonment beneath the earth, which goes on a rampage in a small English town boasts some great writing. Barker shows his ability at conjuring up the most vivid of imagery with his deft use of words. Barker clearly takes a demented delight in subverting cherished norms in his stories, so here we have female genitalia replacing the cross as the most potent ward against the beast and we also have a priest converting to the worship of the beast as he takes his holy communion which comes in the form of a shower of the beast's urine.

Other particularly good stories include the Yattering And Jack, Sex Death and Starshine, Dread and The Skins Of The Fathers. Each of the tales in this book offer something different, something interesting and bizarre. If you like short stories (you do not even have to be a huge horror fan) i would strongly recommend this book to you.

When originally released as three seperate works during the 1980's, these short stories were widely considered to be the beginning of something revolutionary in horror fiction. Barker was a fresh and promising look at what the genre could become when placed in the hands of thoughtful, intelligent, and (above all) imaginative writers. Stephen King would even make a very vocal statement supporting Barker, calling him the "future of horror." Clive Barker's Books of Blood trilogy were spellbinding, inspiring, and terrifying entries into the stale and used up world of occult horror. He was a breath of much needed fresh air.

Now looking back on these works about twenty years later, and surveying the massive and impressive body of work that Clive has sustained for himself, it's a very different "future" than the one Stephen King had imagined. Clive Barker has written some of the best and most daring fantasy works of the twentieth century; grand in scope, epic in length, philosophical in depth, and hopeful at heart. Weaveworld, the Great and Secret Show, Sacrament, Galilee... all of these books are great tales written by a master craftsman, and none of them carry the baggage of having to fit into the horror genre. In fact, besides perhaps the Damnation Game, I'd say that the Books of Blood (volumes 1-6) are the only works that Barker actually made that fall into the horror category. All works that follow are in a league all their own entirely.

Barker's work never made the splash in horror fiction that Stephen King was predicting. Sure, Barker has been a massively successful author, and has been able to create a wonderful tapestry of fiction by adhering to his own set of rules ( a very admirable quality in an author), but to claim that he writes horror fiction is to inaccurately label his beautiful style and prose. It seems now the name Barker has all but faded from the minds of casual horror readers. It's far more likely that you will find a room full of people who've read a Stephen King novel, than you will find a room full of people who've even heard of Clive Barker.

But for the devoted ones who have latched onto Barker's books, this is all very trivial and unimportant. The talent of an author is not meausred by the ammount of books sold (and he has sold millions), nor is it gauged by the familiarity of his name. For the fans, like myself, Barker's work is liberating. Reading his books set the imagination free and give you the uninhibited feeling of life. The feeling that all things are possible, if not probable. It's almost spiritual. No author has given me as much as Clive barker has. His ability to tap into the things that disturb yet fascinate us as well as the things that drive us and confound us in uncanny.

Clive Barker has said that the Clive Barker that wrote these Books of Blood is not the Clive Barker writing today. He is no longer as interested in shocking or disturbing his readers as he once was. He's matured as an author, and life has taken him in a different direction. So, reading these short stories of terror now, it's interesting to see the Barker of twenty years ago creating a world of repulsion and beauty, digging under your skin and finding the things that shake you to your core. "The Midnight Meat Train", is an exercise in graphic violence and lurking evil, "Dread" is the human mind breaking in two as it is forced to confront that which terrifies it beyond repair, "Skins of the Fathers" is an interesting precursor to the ideas explored in Cabal. The young Barker strikes some very vital chords here, and he made a brief, but very potent impact on horror fiction.

If you've never read Barker before, and you enjoy this sort of genre, this is a fabulous place to begin. If you enjoy these stories, pick up another Barker book, approach it with an open mind, and he'll take you places you never thought you would go.

It's too bad that Barker pretty much abandoned Horror fiction very quickly. I haven't really read hardly any of his non-horror stuff, but even if that's excellent I can't help but suspect he had more than a few first-rate horror stories left in him. Still, this is very good stuff. It's got a few too many weaker stories for me to give the full 5 to it, but it's pretty amazing at it's best. Barker is also a beautiful, poetic writer, which jibes surprisingly well with his gruesome subject matter.(And, he doesn't overdo it here, as he's does sometimes.) I'll break it down book by book

I- The titular story is the shortest thing here. There's not too much to it, but Barker's excellent prose carries the day. 'Sex, Death and Starshine' is one of the weakest story in this whole collection. It ain't bad, but it's not that hot and definitely not substantiative enough to justify it's length. 'The Yattering and Jack' is another weaker one. Fairly amusing, but not truly memorable, as is generally true of the less serious material. There's some great stuff here, however, particularly 'In the Hills, The Cities'. This isn't really a horror story, but is just a remarkable, original tale. I don't dare say anything specific. It's best just to read it. 'The Midnight Meat Train' is a gruesome, nasty piece combining gruesome serial murder with Lovecraftian themes. 'Pig Blood Blues' is another fine one, gruesome and oppressive, and with a nicely developed, likable main character. (A rarity in short fiction)

2- 'Dread' is a great psychological horror tale with some interesting concepts and a cruel, inhuman and yet believable antagonist. 'Hell's Event' is another semi-comic one. Fairly entertaining, but not on the level of his straight work. 'Jacqueline Ess...' is the weakest story in the collection. It has some interesting ideas but it doesn't really take them anywhere and is rather redundant. 'The Skins of the Fathers' is awesome, however. Another Lovecraftian tale, but moved to the desolate American southwest. 'New Murders in the Rue Morgue' is a Poe homage, obviously. Again, a relatively weak story, but different enough from everything else in this collection to be worthwhile anyway.

3- 'Son of Celluloid' is very, very strange. It takes a whacky premise and plays it straight enough that we buy into it. 'Rawhead Rex' is probably my favorite story here. It's a fairly conventional monster story, but brutal and compelling with a first-rate monstrosity. 'Confessions of a (Pornographers) Shround' is another very weird tale, this time of revenge from beyond the grave via, yes, a possessed sheet. Again, not fantastic, but interesting. 'Scape-Goats' is another excellent one, one of the subtlest, moodiest works here and with a really creepy ending. 'Human Remains' is another relatively character driven work, and surprisingly sad and touching, in its way.

I notice that I said that such and such a story was relatively weak surprisingly often. Remember, this is more a reflection on just how good the very best stories here are. Overall this a just an interesting, original collection with a number of truly great stories.

It is impossible de cover all these long short stories. They are all absolutely mesmerizing. Barker goes beyond the logic of life but by pushing this very logic one iota beyond sanity. This is done without any gross language or images. Barker wants to terrorize his audience, not make them retch. Among all these stories I will retain one as going a lot further than the others in the vision of reality, society, life, our life. It is « Son of Celluloid ». The cinema is an art and this art reproduces life (with twenty five dead stills per second) or a fictitious vision of life. Nothing to say about that. People love this entertainment and it is better to see human sacrifice on the screen, as an illusion, than in reality in the form of televised death penalty or televised war or televised real human sacrifice, always covered up as thr result of a decision of justice. But the story takes people who are fans of the cinema, who live in the cinema, who work in a cinema and one night they get haunted by the cinema. This is complete alienation to a fictitious world. And of course John Wayne and western films appear, and of course many other films appear, the film each subject considers as the best. The cinema becomes a house of ranting and raving panicky people. This is a perfect illustration of the danger of what some call post-modern civilization where simulacra becomes more vivid and alive than the real thing. We live in a dream that covers up reality and helps us bear the ugliness of reality in which decay and death is necessarily the ultimate objective. We are a living species that feeds on illusion and at times illusion feeds itself on us. Clive Barker is one of the greatest authors in the genre that can shift from reality to horror without us even knowing it because horror is just the natural looking extension of real reality. In other words for him illusion is reality, even if only virtual, which means even more real than real reality, because virtual reality lives in our minds and our minds control our visions of the world.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Université Paris Dauphine, Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne

These stories represent Clive Barker's first published work; written back before he had developed the poetic writing style which is seen today. Instand in these older works he uses more visceral, carnal imagery, and in horror stories like these it's very effective.
The Book of Blood -- This is the short little compulsory opening thing, not quite a story, but to big to be called an introduction. It sets up the premise for the rest of the Books of Blood.
The Midnight Meat Train -- A very good story, it sets a good standard for the rest of the stories in the series. Quickly readable, not to long, with enough blood-letting, gruesome images, awesome spectacles and powerful imagery for anyone.
The Yattering and Jack -- This personaly is my favorite story in the volume, though I'm not quite sure why. Straying more towards comedy, it's an entertaining story about a lower demon assigned to drive a man insane. The only problem is that he is so seemingly oblivious to what's going on, the Yattering doesn't know what to do. Fun, funny, light, amusing, interesting. A great story.
Pig Blood Blues -- This one doesn't have any monsters in the classic sense, it's not a slasher story, but it is the most disturbing, scary story in the collection. UGGHH! I don't get nightmares, but I can imagine recieving one from this story.
Sex, Death, and Starshine -- This is an overlong, pointless, boring story filled with sex, profanity, and little else. Maybe I'll like it better when I get older. Time will tell, but at this point, it's worthless. It should have been the closing story, for two reasons. 1) It left me completely uninspired to read the last one, and 2) It had a good last-line-in-a-book type ending.
In the Hills, the Cities -- This is a fun enjoyable story that doesn't work out if you think about it, but if you just accept it and try to visualize it it's pretty darn cool.
Overall, this is a very good book, marred by the second to last story, and the relatively short length. If you like horror stories, I recommend it, but for a better deal buy the collection of the first three books of blood.

This book is where mr Barker makes his debut,earning him a permanent place in the horror world.

As good as this book is,it is at times elaborate and some of the points of each story are sometimes vague,but nevertheless it gives you the motivation to keep reading.It is very bloody and nasty sometimes.

1)The book of blood

2)The midnight meat train

3)The yattering and Jack

4)Pig blood blues

5)Sex,death and starshine

6)In the hills,the cities.

1)The book of blood is too short to be considered a short story but too long to be an introduction.It gives a basic idea of what is to come,of the terror waiting to be unleashed in the forthcoming pages.

2)The name says it all!This tale is quite bloody.A strange race of people who were living long before the New York people existed,lives on human flesh.They have people working on a special train,killing selected people,to satisfy their unsatisfiable hunger.A very amazing story...

3)A low ranked demon(The Yattering)has a job to send a man(Jack) insane.But Jack is all to aware of the Yattering's plan and when the Yattering fails(at the end of the story)his job,he becomes Jack's slave.(note:before becoming Jack's slave,The Yattering was a slave of "The lord of the flies")

4)A possessed pig seeks human flesh!(this story is a bit elaborate,and confusing at the ending)But it is difficult to stop reading because it is highly suspenseful.

5)Death is not he end of life,but the beginning.

In this story,people die and their body,after undergoing a change,continues to "live".

In this story we see the dead rising from graves only to live again!(I know,it sounds ridiculous,but it happens,at least in Clive Barker's world).

In the beginning of the story,the main characters were literally alive(like us)but in the ending,we see,how they are after death.

Their main purpose then is to blend in with the living without being noticed.

I know this story sounds dumb,but it is highly fascinating.And there is a lot of sex and romance in it.Not too much though,but enough to flavour the story.This story is my favourite,and it is also the one with the most dialogue!Therefore is very easy to follow.

6)A gay couple sets out for their honeymoon.But they are caught between a battle between two cities.

Let me explain this war...It happens every ten years.And it involves two unique cities.It also involves not only men,but women,children,old and young alike!

The people of each city are connected by ropes etc,to form one huge "giant".And I literally mean a giant!So,the cities battle each other in the form of giants.(each giant is shaped in the form of a man,a sexless,ugly man).

Now,this gay couple,not knowing what is going on,is caught up in the hills.(where the battle is taking place).

So,the story gets its name"In the hills,the cities"

Great,Huh?

Well,I hope that this review was most helpful.I tried to keep it as short as possible...enjoy...Nigel.

The incredible writing and stories that brought Clive into the public eye will not disappoint. In this edition, read over 500 pages of the raw horror-fantasy that made one of todays most prolific and talented writers a sensation.
The content of the stories themselves are absolutely incredible in their scope and leave you altogether changed for the experience. Tender contemplations, unbelievable violence, and dreams you've never fathomed are the collective spine of this collection, and these themes are juggled through all manner of time, place, and perspective, leaving your senses and imagination reeling.
The sex, vulnerability, violence, humor, surrealism, hubris, and sadism are deeply affecting on a truly primal level, and indicate the presence of a writer that does not create fiction so much as he remolds our deepest darkest secrets and shows them to us, which is the goal of all true art.

Clive Baker, some call him the master of horror even Stephen King Called Barker "The Future of Horror," And someone to call him a master or the future wouldent be too far off. Clive Barkers "Books of Blood:Volume 1-3" were my first attempt at Barker, and I couldent have loved them more. Volumes 1-3 are in here there are five stories in each voulme.

Volume 1

Volume one had to be my favorite out of all three.

The Book of Blood: The book starts out with, well I guess you would call it the cover story or the frame story it's a short one only about 15 pages, but it is a good 15, it tells the story of Mary Florescu who has employed a medium who's a fake, she's hired him to investagate a hunted house. McNeal (The Medium) Fakes the visions at first but then they become all to real and Simon McNeal becomes a living Book of Blood

The Midnight Meet Train: When a man named Leon Kaufman falls asleep on a New York subway he dosent know that his life will never be the same. He wakes up to a living nightmare.

The Yattering and Jack: Jack is an avrage man but theres something in his house something called the Yattering, The Yattering is a demon and this demon will stop at nothing to make jack notice him, He will make jack's life a living hell doing whatever he can just to fullfill a promise made by his father.

Pig Blood Blues: Pig Blood Blues is one of my favorite stories out of the collection. Redman is a retired policemen who comes to work at a school, one of the first thing that happens is a fight or sort of a slaughter, Redmen finds out that a few boys are beating up another boy whos named Lacey, Lacy later tells Redmen the story of Henessey, a boy who's gone missing at the school.

Sex, Death and Starshine: This is a pretty good story by Barker it tells the story of a theter predution and it's actors that are going to preform there last play but when a man named Mr. Lichfield arrives and says his wife will be prefoming the lead things change fast.

In the Hills, the Cities: In The Hills, The Cites is one of the best stories in the collection because of how strage it is. When Mick And Judd go on a vaction they find that the rual area they go to in Yugoslavia has something very strage, something that will cause quite a lot of people to die.

Volume Two

Dread: which is probably my favorite story out of Volume two. Tells the story of Steve, Steve soon meets another student named Quaid, Quaid who is a smart student knows (As Steve will soon find out) what people Dread

Hell's Event: Hell's Event tells the story of a man named Joel, Joel will soon be running a race, but this race counts for a Hell of a lot more then Joel knows.

Jacqueline Ess: Her Will And Testament: When Jacqueline trys to commit suicide, she finds a strage power inside her, a power thats actully quite deadly.

The Skins of the Fathers: When Davidson's car breaks down in the Arizona desseret, he dosent know that he will soon stumble on to something very strage something or somthings that will stop at nothing to get a very special boy.

New Murders in the Rue Morgue: when Lewis (a Descended of the great dectective C. Auguste Dupin) comes to Paris to see a friend thats been convicted of Murder he will soon see that Dupin wasent the only one in the family to find a strange murder. . . a Pretty good take off "The Murders in The Rue Mourge" a Short storry by Edgar Allan Poe, It might be a good idea to Read (If you havent already) Murders in the Rue Mourge before you start on this stoy.

Volume Three

Son of Celluloid: One of my favorites out of Volume Three tells the story of a convict who dies behind a movie screen and later the strage things that happen soon after.

Rawhead Rex: Rawhead Rex was a Monster that was sort of put to death but when a farmer unearths the stone that he's been under, he's unearthing hell.

Confessions of a (Pornographer's) Shroud: Ronnie dosent know excalty what he's gotten into, he thought he had a good job but what he dosent know is that what he's doing is very wrong and now he has to die.

Scape Goats: When four people get shipwrecked on an island they soon find out that there lives wont ever be the same. And some of them will have to die.

Human Remains: a young male prostitute is hired by an archeologist, but what he dosent know is that somehing very strange will go on in the Archeologist's house.

Overall "Books of Blood" is a very good shot story collection it will keep you reading though the night and maybe give you a few nightmares in the process. 5/5

This was my first venture into the world of Barker's short stories, and although I was very excited to read the book, I found that it was as many short story books are, hit and miss.

The book opens with a story titled "The Book of Blood" which I suppose would be an intro, though it is almost a short story in itself. It is a good intro, drawing the reader in lots of ghosties, a haunted house, paranormal phenomenon and lots of blood. Excellent intro to amp up the reader and get them ready to dive right through the book. I'd give this short 4 of 5 stars.

The first story is "Midnight Meat Train." I wasn't overly impressed with the title but what the heck, it was a good story. A serial killed of the most disgusting kind, an unwitting accountant who finds his way into that serial killers world, and then bam, strangeness abounds as the supernatural makes its appearance. Excellent story again, 4 of 5 stars.

The second is "The Yattering and Jack." I would in no way call this a horror story... it's closer to something you would find in a Christopher Moore book, in fact I think he based the entire book "Practical Demonkeeping" off of reading this short. This story was a humorous tale of a lesser Demon sent to torment a man to insanity... the problem is that the man just doesn't seem to care about anything the Demon does... including exploding a few household pets. I found myself giggling through this story. I don't felt that it fit all that well with the rest of the book, but it was highly entertaining. 4 of 5 stars.

Third you have "Pig Blood Blues" if I recall the title correctly. This one was strange, but predictable. An ex-cop goes to work at a school for delinquent boys and finds himself mixed up in a strange sacrificial mess. The story seemed familiar, sort of like the Wickerman meets "Children of the Corn." I can't say that it was my favorite, but every short story book has at least one mediocre story in it. 3 of 5 stars.

Fourth is "Sex, Death, and Starshine" and interesting story about the life and death of Theater. Sex, murder and ghosts abound in this story. I think Dionysus would be pleased. Though this may have been the longest story in the book, I enjoyed it. I like ghosts and the theater, and I was very happy that it didn't turn out to be another "Phantom of the Opera" which is what I was concerned with in the beginning. Though at times the story drug a bit, I think this was probably my favorite. 4 of 5 stars

The final story "In the Hills, The Cities" was completely bizarre. I can't even begin to explain it because I couldn't for the life of me comprehend it. I didn't find it frightening, or even disgusting... just perplexing. Two gay guys go out into the middle of nowhere and find... um... two cities? I tried with all of my might to picture what was being described in my mind... but it just wouldn't go together. I felt this story was by far the weakest in the book and a sadly pitiful note to end on. 2 of 5 stars.

All in all, I would say this is a 4 star book, the majority of which is very entertaining to read. I think the only scary stories in it were "The Book of Blood" and "Midnight Meat Train" but the others were good for what they were, except for the finale which was very disappointing.

I have to say that 'Midnight Meat Train' and 'The Yattering and Jack' have to be two of the best horror stories I have ever read. Clive Barker writes very well throughout this book but I found 'Sex, Death and Starshine' a bit dull, however it was still very good reading. I found 'Book of blood' (the short story)to be very good although it did not grab my attention as much as 'Midnight Meat Train'. I thought 'In the hills, the cities' to be a bit wierd, the storyline was extremely surreal. I think that although some of the storylines were among the best I have ever read, I cannot give this book the full five stars. Had all the stories been of the quality of 'The Yattering and Jack' this book would be definitely in the five star category. Sadly this is not the case so I have to give it four. I would recommend this book to any fan of horror, just for 'The midnight meat train'.
Clive Barker is one of the best horror writers I have ever come across, at his best he can be better than Stephen King. I preferred 'Books of Blood Vol 2' to this book.

I read this many years ago, during the first issue, I guess it would have been in the late 80's.

To this day, the books of blood series have made an impact on my and how I judge other thriller or horror stories (books, short stories and movies).

I seem to recall that the introduction to book 1 said something to the effect of "Books are a lot like people, wherever they're opened, they're red".

I knew from just that intro I was in for a treat.*grin*

I've recommended this series of books to many people over the years and have thought about re-reading them again as it's been about 20 years! These novellas are, in my opinion, the best stuff Clive Barker has written and is on my top 20 list of all time favorite books.

Barker is a very different horror-writer, than the more commercial succesful writers like King or Koontz. His writing is much more unnerving and surreal than his more popular colleagues.
His work is another world, a world of grotesque and twisted minds and bodies, a world of incredible depravity and senseles pleasure. It is certainly an aquired taste, and not for everyone. To some people it is simply too much.
The Books of Blood vol. 1-3 covers a wide range of depravity from ritual murder over cannibalism and to vengeful spirits.
But the grotesque imagery is also what is attractive about the book. Like a carwreck, you want to turn away, but you can't.
I think I can best describe barker as a mix between H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar A. Poe. A very, very unsettling combination to be sure. Books of Blood is definately not recomended for the faint of heart or as a bedtime story

This is an incredible book. Barker is a fantastic author and his writing just flows so well. You will be cringing one moment, and laughing out loud the other. As other forms of entertainment falter in their quality (Hollywood movies..) books like this need to be read. This is worth every penny and second of your time. Read it.

So Clive Barker repackaged his collections "Cabal," "In The Flesh," and "The Inhuman Collection," and retitled them "Books Of Blood Volumes 4-6." A cheap marketing strategy to sell more books. I already owned all the published short fiction by this author and thought he had published more when I saw this title. I almost bought it. Cheap marketing scam.

Overall - excellent, longish horror stories, heavy on the description, very much about the dangers of hedonism, and addiction to any kind of pleasure (religion, pleasing society, controlling other people, really, do ANYTHING once too often, take it for granted, and it'll turn on you).

Favorites:
Midnight Meat Train
In the Hills, the Cities
Rawhead Rex (although the monster's one vulnerability made me roll my eyes)

Clive Barker is quite simply the best Horror writer I have come across so far -although I have to admit my experience is limited. His short stories are at least as good as short stories written by stephen king.
This book contains some most excellent stories, in my oppinion the best are:
'The Yattering and Jack', 'The midnight meat train', 'Hell's event', 'Skins of the fathers', 'New murders in the rue morgue', 'Rawhead rex', 'Jaqueline Ess; Her will and testament' and 'Confessions of a pornographers shroud'
Hey, wait a minute, that's more than half the stories in the book. Oh well, just goes to show how good this book is!
Each one of these stories is very well written and the concepts, although sometimes a little surreal, are all very good.
I would recommend this book to any fan of the horror genre. A second omnibus is also available, I am looking foreward to reading it.

This was my first exposure to Clive Barker's writing. I've always enjoyed Hellraiser in a weird sort of way (not ironically, but not entirely serious either), so I thought I'd have a similar experience with this. I was wrong. The book wasn't necessarily bad, it just felt like so many other young writers. Barker at this point clearly had not become a mature writer, so he consistently reaches for the only thing he knows for sure will get a reaction: over-the-top blood, gore, and writing.

Stories:

The Book of Blood - 3/5 Meh. Seemed like kind of a lame way to frame a series of stories (and contains the first masturbation scene of the collection), but it's built around an interesting concept.
The Midnight Meat Train - 1/5 The whole story was so ridiculous and dumb I caught myself giggling at several points. It's like reading a creative writing assignment from that kid who's always trying to be weird, but he's really not.
The Yattering and Jack - 5/5 My favorite story of the collection and the only one I've gone back to read. Great dark comedy and well written.
Pig Blood Blues - 3.5/5 Pretty good. A couple logical errors in the actions of the main character, but overall it was enjoyable.
Sex, Death and Starshine - 5/5 I liked this one. Really original and well-executed.
In the Hills, the Cities - 1/5 The whole idea behind this one is laughable and stupid.
Dread - 3/5 Starts out on a strong note, develops well, then Barker ruins it with a ridiculous ending. I saw the ending coming and thought "no, there's no way he'd write something that dumb." He did.
Hell's Event - 4/5 Interesting idea, written very well.
Jacqueline Ess: Her Will And Testament - 3/5 Actually a cool idea, but it's effectiveness is blunted by the clunky dialogue.
The Skins of the Fathers - 4/5 I like monsters. A little bit of dark comedy in this one too.
New Murders in the Rue Morgue - 1/5 I might be crucified for this, but I think Edgar Allan Poe is very overrated. This story not only falls all over itself to be a Poe knockoff, it also suffers from Barker's seemingly never-ending supply of dumb ideas.
Son of Celluloid - 5/5 This one was really good. Original and enjoyable.
Rawhead Rex - 4/5 Good idea, but by this time I'd become so annoyed by the gore that I can't give it 5 stars. Another masturbation scene in this one.
Confessions of a (Pornographer's) Shroud - 3/5 Not bad. It's very funny at some points.
Scape-Goats - 2/5 A story that goes almost nowhere, but isn't laughably bad.
Human Remains - 3/5 I'm still not quite sure how or why this one works. Ends in an interesting way.

My overall impression of this collection was that Barker doesn't put much planning into his stories. They either come together in a haphazard way or he clearly has an ending in mind which he works backwards from. Not having any sort of clear plan is also why I think he relied on so much gore instead of psychological terror. Either way, I would recommend this book only if you can get a cheap copy. Like, under $10. I'd say the $7-8 range would probably be an appropriate price.

This author has an interesting style, which may be objectively admirable but is certainly not my cup of tea. Barker relies heavily on poetic gore to propel very familiar plots. While I can credit his stories for avoiding the traditional trappings and clichés of horror - often inventing novel premises for monsters and demons that avoid easy categorization – the stories themselves all fall into the tired formula of: blank hero - wonders what’s going on - monster! – ironic doom. The barrels of gore are not enjoyable either. Even when using semi-literary language, the author constantly relies on the grotesque and the gory for his thrills. Instead of being scared of the unknown in the shadows, the reader gets a bright spotlight shined on a revolting mess instead. It’s a cheap trick that grows tiresome. Also, for a book with only a few stories, two of them are comedic entries, which are unsuccessful in their execution by being neither funny or scary.

I highly recommend Mike Miller’s innovative 3VIL series instead, which has short horror fiction that is both smart and intense, minus cheap shock and tired plots.

A particularly cringe-worthy memory of my childhood involves Clive Barker. I took a date to see Hellraiser. Yes, Hellraiser, where Pinhead in all his infernal glory was revealed to the public. I'm surprised I wasn't reviled by my date, afterward. But in my defense, I was too paralyzed by the idea of the date in the first place to give any thought to film choice.

Since then, I've read and enjoyed other Barker books. In my late teens/early 20s I read and very much enjoyed The Great and Secret Show, Weaveworld, and The Damnation Game. Then I put Barker and his books aside, and Barker himself moved on to other kinds of writing. I'd always skipped The Books of Blood, meaning to get back to them, but didn't -- at least not in a reasonable amount of time.

I might have enjoyed them better had I read them with the others. Perhaps I've simply outgrown Barker. Or rather, outgrown his early writing.

Reading his Books of Blood as a newly minted 40 year old, I just couldn't find any magic. In most of the stories I could feel the rough edges of a beginning writer: Characterization shallow or missing, lots of abrupt shifts in perspective that pulled me away from characters I would have rather learned more about, and ideas that to me that just didn't feel particularly fresh, or if they were fresh, not particularly interesting.

Still, a few were engaging enough to recommend, although I have a hunch everyone will have their own favorites. Recommend for fans of Barker who keep their expectations in check -- hopefully you'll be pleasantly surprised. Me, I'm giving it just a 3-star appraisal.

Clive Barker did not want his Books of Blood broken up into individual volumes when they were published, yet that is what happened. Now, the first three volumes are available in one book, serving as the perfect introduction to Barker's unique style of horror. There are some really groundbreaking stories included here, alongside of a dud or two from Volume Two, but each and every story exhibits the genius and originality of its author's dark vision.
The initial offering, The Book of Blood, stands out as a unique ghost story, but it also serves as a provocative abstract for everything Barker sought to accomplish with these stories. After this enticing introductory tale, we head below the streets of New York to sneak a ride on The Midnight Meat Train. This story is vintage Clive Barker, full of blood and gore. Barker isn't trying to drown the reader in blood as a means to hide any lack of skill on his part, though, because the skill is undeniably there for all to see. In The Yattering and Jack, a dark comedy farce, a poor demon does everything he can think of to make the unshakeable Jack miserable, driving himself almost mad in the process. I think of The Yattering and Jack as an amusing sort of Barker bedtime story. Pig Blood Blues forces the casual reader to once again don hip hugger boots for a trek into gore and depravity. At a certain school for wayward boys, the other white meat is not pork. Sex, Death and Starshine is a good story, touching upon the needs of the dead to be entertained every once in a while, but it lacks a certain oomph.
Dread is a somewhat sadistic tale of one man's obsession with death. His is a hands-on endeavor, as he seeks to look the beast directly in the eye by studying the effects of dread and the realization of imminent death in the eyes of his fellow man. Dread is a psychologically disturbing read, one which succeeds quite well indeed in spite of a rather pat ending. Hell's Event tells the story of a charity race, only this particular contest pits a minion of the underworld against human runners, with the control of the very government hinging upon the outcome. Next up is Jacqueline Ess: Her Last Will and Testament, a disappointing story in which the main character's special abilities to control the things and people around her wind up wasted. The Skins of the Fathers is not a bad story, but it is quite weird. A sometimes almost comical group of inhuman, bizarre creatures comes to a small desert town to reclaim one of their own, born five years earlier to a human mother. A puffed up sheriff and belligerent posse of townsfolk lend comic relief as much as tension to the story's plot of borderline absurdity.
I love the unusual premise and the surreal quality of Son of Celluloid. The back wall behind the screen of an old movie theatre has seen so many famous lives projected upon it that the essence of those screen legends has germinated within it. The only thing needed to bring the screen personalities to life is a catalyst, which comes in the form of a dying criminal. The man himself is of no consequence, but he has within him a force possessing a single-minded drive to grow and thrive. Next up is Rawhead Rex, one of Barker's more violent stories. There are creatures that thrived on earth long before man helped force them to the brink of extinction, and things get pretty gruesome when one fellow unknowingly unseals the prison in which such a monster has been sealed for eons. Murder of a more human kind rests at the heart of Confessions of a (Pornographer's) Shroud. This tale doesn't succeed completely in my estimation, and some might even find it oddly laughable, as the main character is an amorphous blob of a dead man's essence who reconstitutes the form of his human body in a death shroud. Scape-Goats is a little island of death story, the most interesting aspect of which is its viewpoint; it is not often that Barker tells a tale from the first-person perspective of a woman. The final story, Human Remains, offers Barker's typically unusual slant on the old doppelganger motif.
I have saved the worst and best of the collected stories for special mention. New Murders in the Rue Morgue is by far the worst short story Barker has ever written. We are led to believe Poe's classic story The Murders in the Rue Morgue was based on fact, and now the modern representative of the Dupin blood finds himself mired in an extraordinary, eerily similar, and exceedingly ludicrous case of his own. On the flip side, the most impressive story told in these pages is In the Hills, the Cities. Two male lovers touring the hidden sights of Yugoslavia become the reluctant witnesses to a sight few men could ever even conceive of when a unique traditional battle between the citizens of two adjacent towns takes an unexpected and ever-so-destructive turn. If you want to know what the big deal about Clive Barker is, this is the story you need to read. Books of Blood immediately established Barker as a giant in the genre and should be required reading for all fans of extreme and intellectually challenging horror.

... wherever we're opened, we're red. So Barker begins his jaunt through slicked carnage & chattering horrors with a glib, vaudevillian quip. This collection is not for the feint of heart; neither to the genre or the author.
If you are new to Clive Barker's work, look for one of the less expensive editions of this collection of short stories. It's definitely recommended reading for anyone getting into the horror in general, as he writes in several styles and displays skill in many of the classic horror forms (the ghost story, the haunted house, etc). Given the size & cost of this particular edition, it's not practical for the casual reader, however, it would make a fantastic gift for a committed fan. The vast amount of material assaults the senses & creates a fugue state of dread. The presentation is severe: the book itself is oversized & nearly three inches thick. Stark black lettering on sterile white frames a small, crimson image on the cover, a bloody smear of a painting laughing out at you. The pages are a heavier weight, and the fonts are crisp and stern. If you have a Barker fan in your life, or are a fan and looking for something to spoil yourself with, I highly recommend this.

The horrific images are burned forever into my psyche... perhaps because of the young age in which I came upon them, or perhaps of their breadth of imagination, lyrical flourish, lucidity and clarity of detail, not to mention the overall symbolic and metaphorical representation of humanity's faults. Barker captures in beautiful prose a series of nightmares that, once read, will haunt for many years to come.

Though as an author, Barker has departed the horror genre for further reaching aims in the Fantastic, my soul senses that The Books Of Blood vI-III will be remembered (if only by an ever-dwindling underground following) as some of the most intelligently disturbing horror stories of the Twentieth Century.

In my Opinion, the best stories from these first three volumes include:

Scape Goats: for the sense of isolation and doom, plus an unexpected chilling WWII reference

Tale of a (Pornographer's) Shroud: simply put, a tragic account of a man's soul seeking revenge for his undignified death at the hands of filth-peddlers

Pig Blood Blues: The horrid reincarnation of a youth's malevolent spirit

Rawhead Rex: a demigod's blasphemous destruction wrought upon an unsuspecting English village

The Skins of the Fathers: Demons from beneath the sands return to claim their half-human offspring.

In The Hills the Cities: once one overlooks the unnecessary interpersonal aspects of the two main characters, the scale and immensity of death will astound you.

Jaqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament: depicts the power of love and it's inevitable death

Take Care, fellow horror-enthusiasts.

For all those truly horror adepts, yes, this is for you.

If King is your ultimate master of horror, then please, step aside.

Don't get me wrong, King's work is great, he is indeed a great writer, then he lacks the desire to truly mess with the reader's mind save some numbered exceptions.

Barker on the other hand, has this strange aura in his stories, reading for the first time Books of Blood I remembered the first time I read a Lovecraft story, it was crude, not extremely detailed, focused on disgust and unsettle the mind of the reader and ending abruptly, the way that an horror experience would end, not a story.

Have you ever find yourself in a very terrifying experience? Most people haven't, and it's the reason why a lot of them can't understand Barker. His work goes fast, it doesn't set the mood most of the time, it just happens and as it happens it ends.

Imagine yourself walking on a normal day, nothing strange about it and then you get hit by a car, your legs broken, pain, the blood covering half your sight, imagine that then you see the car door opening, and the guy stepping outside has an axe, walking to you, forward you, then... it's over.

That's the Books of Blood. Can you handle them?

The stories can only make you want more Clive Barker. Images that stay in your mind for years-- from the subtle (a knotted twist of rope) to the outrageous (a city walking). A master of words and phrases-- I found myself re-reading phrases just because I'd never seen such poetry in prose (and I don't care much for poems). I've read these stories at least three time and, sacreligious as it may sound, many's the book I've tossed into the garbage before finishing it.

Hands down the best single author anthology book I have ever read. Barker opens up new angles and dimensions in horror that create or more correctly make known 'new' horrors that already exist but we've never focused on before. Great author and I don't say that easily because I didn't personally like his introduction but after reading just a few tales found I was a presumptuous fool.

In three volumes, Books of Blood is a collection of 15 horror stories: tales of hauntings, unnatural acts, women with terrifying powers, men born of monsters, and demonic beings. It could be a cavalcade of horrors, but the stories rely on unusual premises and simple brutality instead of atmosphere, suspense, or psychological motivation--and so for this reader, they were largely a disappointment. Most short story collections are a mixed bag in terms of quality, but Books of Blood has an average success rate of just one story per volume. These successful stories ("Pig Blood Blues" in volume one, "Dread" and "Jacqeline Ess" in volume two, and "Scape-Goats" in volume three) vary themselves in quality, sometimes within the same story: "Dread" and "Scape Goat" both begin marvelously but end on low notes that echo weaknesses in the rest of the collection. But what makes these selections stand out is an intriguing, often frightening premise (a talking, man-eating pig; a woman who can alter flesh with a thought) combined with atmosphere, suspense, and/or psychological underpinning. The result is a story that intrigues, holds the reader captive, and submits him to sights of horror and dread--for in this collection, Barker never shies from the worse sort of violence.

Many of these aspects may seem to be fundamental to a horror story, but too often the short fiction in Books of Blood is missing them. Instead, the stories rely on simple brutality to drive their horror. The loosened bowels, hanging entrails, and devilish visages would be horrific in a visual medium where they would shock and disgust, but Barker's descriptions are more factual than evocative and a reader (like this one) not given to mental images may find that they fall flat. Meanwhile, the subtleties of atmosphere, suspense, and psychology are often incomplete or absent. As a result, the sometimes-clever, intriguing, frightening concepts are lost in hasty revelation and undercut by a lack of emotional depth: too many stories float by on the fact that hell is supposed to be scary, and too few stories explore the impact of hellish powers on the human mind. A slight overemphasis on humor turns the subtlety of dark humor blatant and flat, and further degrades the horror. I applaud Barker's willingness to indulge in outlandish concepts, brutal violence, and the other extremes of the horror genre--there's potential there for the sort of horror that disgusts even as it gives a pleasant chill. But such bare bones are not enough, and execution of the stories in Books of Blood leaves much to be desired. Horror is,however, a particularly personal genre: frightening concepts and successful execution varies between readers, and one with a more vivid, active mental eye may find an ideal horror story in this collection of short fiction. I, however, found too few worthwhile stories in Books of Blood to justify trooping through all the rest, and I can't in good faith recommend the book.

As being Barker's first leap into the writing scene you can clearly view what kind of writer he truly is. As is tagged all over the book, even Stephen King praised Barker's genius after his Books of Blood. With stories like "The Midnight Meat Train" and "The Pig Blood Blues" you can really see how deep Barker's dark intuition for horror can go, much like Alice and the rabbit hole I'd wager. But he also gives you intros into his other literary devices with stories like "The Yattering and Jack" which is more of a comedy story than horror most of the time and "In The Hills The Cities" delving into what he would later adopt lovingly, fantasy. The first omnibus of The Books of Blood is a must have for Barker fans and King fans alike, or should you just enjoy a strange and bloody story to tide you over this is exactly what you're looking for.

Rating: 9.5/10

- Digital Cola

Marvellous book by Barker. I heard this was this first published work. It this is truth, what a wonderful debut!! of course each reader will pick up his favourite story amidst the six short stories contained here, but I think all were great, with the exception of "IN THE HILL THE CITIES", it's a good concept but didn't grab my mind. BARKER is genius, much better than Stephen King.

Clive Barker's 'Books of Blood' contain some of the best horror-short-stories ever written. Barker's talent to scare and impress you both with his literary genius is at his best here.
This first book is the best I think, because it contains the best stories. But the other ones are also brilliant. The best is to get all six and read them partially. There are great horror!

Barker is one the greatest horror writers ever. This collection of stories proves it so. We weaves a world for you to invision so intriquitely that you can't help but want to sleep with a night-light on. The way he uses real-life scenarios, as in the story "Dread," and brings them to you through his words is literally amazing. His world of pure fantasy is rivting and mind-blowing. He is one of the greatest writers of all time.

these short stories were the original source of clive barker's success and earned him recognition as a mainstream author and a competitor for stephen king. they posess a brutality and a simplicity that resonate long after they are finished. in each story clive barker expresses his skill as a writer and an artist.

The Books of Blood were my introduction to the works of Clive Barker, and I can only bow to his genius. The collection of stories in the Books of Blood demonstrate the depth of his imagination that is rivalled by none in his field, and the fantastic merging of (get ready for the cliche) reality and fantasy. Tales like 'In the Hills - the cities' antaognise deeply buried primal fears, and drag them kicking and screaming into consciousness.
By these volumes, your literary life won't be the same without them.
Pity he has to make the films though. Candyman ? Hellraiser 4 ? Give me a break.

In all the best horror there is a strong undercurrent of perversity, of the repressed, unacceptable desires that afflict everyone in a civilized society. The most salient feature of Barker's fiction is that he takes this element that frequently remains only implied in much of the horror tradition and places it right on the surface.

The Books of Blood are a good introduction to Barker's work.

I actually prefer Clive Barker's short stories to his novels. This anthology, which includes all three volumes of his fabulous Books of Blood, is, in my opinion, his best horror to date. "Dread", "Midnight Meat Train", "Rawhead Rex", and "The Yattering and Jack" are worth the price of the book alone.

I should also mention that if you are a fan of this anthology, it is also worth checking out In The Flesh and The Inhuman Condition.

Barker's stories already seem dated. Rather than containing the universal appeal of great tales, these seem like an author pushing the collective fear button as it existed in the early 1980's. His interchangable, immediately forgettable characters move blindly through Barker-by-the-numbers stories about leftist horror themes and alienate rather than welcome a reader. These read a lot like campy horror comics minus the illustrations. Yes, I know he's hailed as the most revolutionary genius in horror in fifty years, but I think his stories lack anything beyond momentary shock value. Try this: read Barker and then after a month try to remember the details of his stories. When you can't do that, then try to name five of his characters. It's hard, isn't it? The characters get lost in the stories and the stories get spat out of the mind almost upon completion. The works in "Blood" are not lasting gems, they are more like novelty candy: gone in a few minutes.

When I first read Stephen King's glowing review on Clive Barker, I thought "Hmm. This might be interesting." When I realized that he was the mind behind The Hellraiser Series, I couldn't pick up a copy of "The Hellbound Heart" fast enough. Having just finished "Books of Blood", I can only say that I'm a little disappointed. Barker writes well--very well. However, the stories in this collection seemed more inclined to titilate and disturb than to actually terrify; most of the stories (with the exception of The Yattering and Jack, which was knee-slapping hillarious) seemed more concerned with wanton and simply unnecessary violence and sex than true horror. Give me a copy of Stephen King's "Graveyard Shift" anyday.