Books of Blood by Clive Barker – Recommendation

 

 

 

A collection from the master of horror … trust nothing except your fear…

Here are the stories written on the Book of Blood. They are a map of that dark highway that leads out of life towards unknown destinations. Few will have to take it. Most will go peacefully along lamplit streets, ushered out of living with prayers and caresses. But for a few, the horrors will come, skipping, to fetch them off to the highway of the damned …Gathered together for the first time in one volume, here are fifteen mind-shattering stories from the awesome imagination of World Fantasy Award winning author Clive Barker. They will take you to the brink – and beyond…

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Clive Barker was born in Liverpool, England, the son of Joan Rubie (née Revill), a painter and school welfare officer, and Leonard Barker, a personnel director for an industrial relations firm. Educated at Dovedale Primary School and Quarry Bank High School, he studied English and Philosophy at Liverpool University and his picture now hangs in the entrance hallway to the Philosophy Department.

Barker is one of the leading authors of contemporary horror/fantasy, writing in the horror genre early in his career, mostly in the form of short stories (collected in Books of Blood 1 – 6), and the Faustian novel The Damnation Game (1985). Later he moved towards modern-day fantasy and urban fantasy with horror elements in Weaveworld (1987), The Great and Secret Show (1989), the world-spanning Imajica (1991) and Sacrament (1996), bringing in the deeper, richer concepts of reality, the nature of the mind and dreams, and the power of words and memories.

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I’ve been meaning to get these books for a while now. I remember seeing Volumes 1 – 3 at the school library back when I was around 13 or 14. I devoured the book and was haunted by it. More than a decade later I still rate Clive Barker as my favourite, pure horror writer. I’ve ordered these books again to add to my collection.

Why did I take so long?