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    Books of Blood, Volume 4
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    Books of Blood, Volume 4
    Unavailable
    Books of Blood, Volume 4
    Ebook242 pages4 hours

    Books of Blood, Volume 4

    By Clive Barker

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    EVERYBODY IS A BOOK OF BLOOD;
    WHEREVER WE'RE OPENED, WE'RE RED. — Clive Barker

    Few authors can claim to have marked a genre so thoroughly and personally that their words have leaked into every aspect of modern pop culture. Clive Barker is such an author, and the Books of Blood marked his debut - his coming out to the world - in brilliant, unforgettable fashion. Crossroad Press is proud to present Clive Barker's "Books of Blood" in digital for the first time.

    The Books of Blood combine the ordinary with the extraordinary while radiating the eroticism that has become Barker's signature. Weaving tales of the everyday world transformed into an unrecognizable place, where reason no longer exists and logic ceases to explain the workings of the universe, Clive Barker provides the stuff of nightmares in packages too tantalizing to resist.

    Never one to shy away from the unimaginable or the unspeakable, Clive Barker breathes life into our deepest, darkest nightmares, creating visions that are at once terrifying, tender, and witty. The Books of Blood confirm what horror fans everywhere have known for a long time: We will be hearing from Clive Barker for many years to come.

    This fourth volume contains the short stories : "The Inhuman Condition," "The Body Politic," "Revelations," "Down, Satan," and "The Age of Desire," as well as a new introduction by author Al Sarrantonio.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrossroad Press
    Release dateMar 25, 2014
    ISBN9781310472800
    Unavailable
    Books of Blood, Volume 4
    Author

    Clive Barker

    Clive Barker is the bestselling author of twenty-two books, including the New York Times bestsellers Abarat; Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War; the Hellraiser and Candyman series, and The Thief of Always. He is also an acclaimed painter, film producer, and director. He lives in Southern California.

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    Reviews for Books of Blood, Volume 4

    4/5

    261 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Four stars just for the first story alone. The best story in any of the collections so far. I didn't care much for The Body Politic and Down Satan, but the others were good.

      But The Inhuman Condition is just frigging brilliant, and it points to where Barker would take his writing in years to come.

      I honestly thought I'd tire of Barker, reading these collections so tightly together, but I'm finding I'm enjoying them more as I go.
    • 4/5
      I should say up-front that I'm a huge fan of Clive Barker--his horror novels are some of my favorites, and I also have a huge amount of respect for his talents as a playwright; his play The History of the Devil is one of the most powerful I've seen, and I'll never forget my first experience watching it, though that was about 20 years ago now. As such, my expectations were pretty high coming into this collection....And I ended up feeling like it was somewhat uneven. The stand-outs in the collection are "The Body Politic", "Revelations", and, to a lesser extent, "The Age of Desire". The two novella-length pieces, "The Inhuman Condition" and "The Age of Desire" felt somehow frenetic and over-packed, and I have to think that either could have been fantastic if allowed to flower out into a full novel, but lost some of their power in this form. One of Barker's undeniable talents is characterization--his writing is brilliant, is concepts are horrifying, and his plotting is spot-on, but it's his characterization and the masterful way he brings characters to life against such a larger background as he paints that really makes his work so powerful. In these two novellas, plot and atmosphere were prioritized over character, and I think they suffered for it. At the same time, they're still great reads, and I have to think that my high expectations of Barker led me here to feel a bit of disappointment, where I would have been impressed otherwise. Still, those other stand-outs I mentioned, shorter as they may be, blew the longer pieces out of the water.No doubt, Barker isn't for everyone--I'm a hardened horror reader and writer, and it takes a lot to make me flinch, but I cringed at a few spots while reading this collection. He has a way of bringing gore and horror to life so that they feel real--like you're glimpsing a true nightmare rather than wandering into a story--and it's hard not to love that if you're a horror fan. Barker's particular brand of horror also brings in the sacred and profane, religion, and even ethics and free will. The mix, against his gorgeous prose, makes for some wonderfully uncomfortable reading.In short, I'd absolutely recommend this collection to fans of horror short stories, but I'd caution long-time Barker fans to temper their expectations in comparison to some of his longer works.
    • 4/5
      Classic Barker - if you're a fan, don't miss this one. I thought I had read all of the Books of Blood back in high school, but I didn't remember these stories at all.

      The book includes 5 short stories:

      The Inhuman Condition
      A group of delinquents beat up an old homeless man for fun. But when one of them steals a knotted cord from him, and obsessively starts to loose the knots, he may loose demons upon the world... or worse.

      The Body Politic
      A fresh take on the horror trope of hands that turn against their owner.

      Revelations
      A preacher, his wife, and their assistant check into a haunted motel, where the ghosts may be trying to get things right, but the living are still prone to getting things wrong.

      Down, Satan!
      An evil tycoon, ignored by god, decides to re-create hell, on earth.

      The Age Of Desire
      Illicit scientific experimentation leads to the creation of an "aphrodisiac" that runs out of control.

      "Revelations" and "The Inhuman Condition" were by far my favorites, but the whole book is worth reading.
    • 3/5
      A collection of Horror short stories that was originally published in the mid 80's. This is actually Volume 4 of the Books of Blood series, but published as this title in the US. I love short stories, and this is a good collection of some of Barker's early work.