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

Product Description
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.

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.


Damn Good Starter Text   December 13, 1999
 16 out of 23 found this review helpful

I was looking up this book on Amazon.com to recommend it to a friend who is suddenly interested in Mr. Barker's work. Admittedly, I'm a huge fan, have first edition hardbacks of all his books, and have his autograph on all sorts of crazy stuff. If you want to see why so many people like this guy and want to really get into what makes Clive Barker such a fascinating writer, then read this book. His short stories are all based on the most incredibly original ideas, so that's what you get here - idea after idea after idea before delving into "Weaveworld" or "Imajica" and really getting swept into a completely other world. Stephen King tells a story, often a very compelling one, but it's never exactly the best written one. Clive Barker, because he's such a damn good writer, not only creates an entire world, but also is talented enough to completely immerse you in it. A hundred years from now, Clive Barker will still be read and studied as an example of Post-Modern Lit from the end of the 20th Century. Stephen King, well, he will have a place in popular culture history, but not in the literary canon the way Barker will.


Stunning...   April 25, 2000
 13 out of 17 found this review helpful

As one person who wrote a review for this, I am an avid horror reader. But, unlike that same person, I love this book. Chilling, though-provoking, and yes, even a little bit funny. These tales really get in under your skin, literally! I liked most of the stories, but some where not good. I shall now tell you about my favorite tales.

"The Book of Blood": A man opens the highway, and in doing so, gets these stories engraved on his skin. Pretty wicked.

"The Midnight Meat Train": A newcomer in New York. A man who kills on the subway for a higher power. Guess what happens? They meet(no pun intended). One of his grosser tales, with VERY VIVID descripitions(spelled it wrong, I think). The first story I read.

"The Yattering and Jack": A funnier story, with little gore. The Yattering(a demon) is assigned the least caring man in the world. The turkey scene is a classic!

"Pig Blood Blues": A boy hangs himself in a barn, and still lingers about... Not his best story. the fact that they are putting it in the Books of Blood movie disgusts me. Still, pretty bloody.

"In the Hills, the Cities": Cities join in an old battle. Two, um, "lovers" see the battle. Quite possibly the bloodiest, not goriest, tale in the book. The first story by Barker I EVER read.

"The Skins of the Fathers": Demons. Mountain town. Nuff said. Pretty cool, with lotsa cool monsters.

"Jaqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament": A women can do things to men with her mind. Very erotic ending. Also, the man into women scene is not to be skimmed!

"Rawhead Rex": An old monster gets loose in a village. The best monster story ever made!

Half of the stories in the book! I would describe the other stories, but that would be to many words.

To end, I say anyone who likes Koontz, rainbows, dolls, bedtime stories, and sweet dreams, should look elswhere. But if you like King, lightning, gory tales, and nightmares, read this! It will keep you up all night!


Books Of Blood: The Genius Of Modern Horror   May 26, 2005
 8 out of 9 found this review helpful

Years ago, around '86 or '87 a friend of mine in High School turned me on to a then unknown Englishman by the name of Clive Barker. I was a complete Stephen King junkie at the time and this friend of mine said, dude, you gotta read this guy's stuff...he's un-f*cking-real! I kinda wrinkled my nose and shook my head. Read some no-name's book...pleeze. But I trusted this friend with his opinions and while browsing around one day at a local B. Dalton bookstore I came across a hardcover copy of In The Flesh by Mr. Barker on the under $5.00 table. What the heck. It bought it and read it and....Jeezus! The Forbidden still haunts me to this day. But that small dose of Barker was only the beginning. A few months later I had the luck of finding (on the same under $5.00 table in the same bookstore) a harcover copy of The Books Of Blood. Now, in England, The Books Of Blood were arranged in volumes I through VI by a little outfit called Sphere Ltd, but Stateside, they were broken up into Volumes I through III, The Inhuman Condition, In The Flesh and finally at the end of the novel Cabal. Anyway, I took the book home and started to read the short stories represented there one by one. Astonishing. Nothing I had ever read before would prepare me for what Clive Barker was up to. Never before had I witnessed such abominations, such cruelties, such acts of horrifying and engrossing carnal abberations. He scared me more than a little. Great God, where had this guy come from? Stephen King was praising him on the jacket of every book he printed and rightly so. This guy was the new messiah of the modern horror story. Nowhere had I read such raw, brutal and fresh ideas. Nothing cliche here. The stories encompassing all of the orginal Books Of Blood are awesome from "Midnight Meat Train" all the way to "How Spolers Bleed" at the end of Cabal. These stories are definitely a work of genius. All these years later and I haven't missed a Barker publication yet. Still, though, once in a while, I go back (as I do with Stephen King's earlier novels) and reread them. Books Of Blood is not for the squeamish and neither is Clive Barker. He wasn't afraid to eviscirate someone back then or to report pornographic couplings and he isn't afraid to do so now. Visionary. Imaginative. Original. The Books Of Blood rock on all levels!


The original Clive Barker   March 11, 2000
 7 out of 9 found this review helpful

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.