Books of Blood, Vols. 4-6 (v. 2) [Paperback]

Clive Barker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1988

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 ...From the brilliant World Fantasy Award winner Clive Barker come fourteen spine-chilling stories of darkness unleashed, gathered together in one volume for the first time. These are visionary tales of terror which will curdle the very marrow in your bones ...

Editorial Reviews

Review

'I literally could not read him alone. His stories are compulsively readable and original. He is an important, exciting and enormously talented writer' - Stephen King 'Gushing gore and flying flesh ... read it with gloves on' - Time Out 'Clive Barker writes about horrors most of us would scarcely dare imagine' - Ramsey Campbell

About the Author

Clive Barker was born in Liverpool in 1952. He is the author of The Books of Blood (in six volumes), The Damnation Game, Weaveworld, Cabal, The Great and Secret Show, Imajica, Everville and Sacrament as well as writing, directing and producing for the screen - his films include Hellraiser and Nightbreed. He presently lives in Los Angeles.

Product Details

• Paperback: 454 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books (February 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0751512257
• ISBN-13: 978-0751512250
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 7.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #247,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Clive Barker was born in Liverpool in 1952. He is the worldwide bestselling author of the Books of Blood, and numerous novels including Imajica, The Great and Secret Show, Sacrament and Galilee. In addition to his work as a novelist and short story writer he also illustrates, writes, directs and produces for the stage and screen. His films include Hellraiser, Hellbound, Nightbreed and Candyman. Clive lives in Beverly Hills, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than the movie!, October 23, 2009

By 

Mare (Missouri) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Books of Blood, Vols. 4-6 (v. 2) (Paperback)

After watching a terrible movie based on the Books of Blood, we decided to check on the books to see if they were as bad as the movie or if the movie was just awful on its own. Well we read the first books, 1-3 and we were hooked. The movie was more fluff and the book had more substance and as usual, better than the movie. Clive Barker has a sense of what's scary but, at times, with a bit of wit and humor. The books are actually short stories and I would recommend that in addition to V.2 you also get v.1.

If you are a fan of his, this is a good addition to your collection! If you love horror stories with a bit of twists and a lot of thought, this is a good book for you.

14 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Endocrinal as well as exocrinal and seminal, March 6, 2006

By 

Jacques COULARDEAU "A soul doctor, so to say" (OLLIERGUES France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Books of Blood, Vols. 4-6 (v. 2) (Paperback)

In this second half of the highway of the dead, Clive Barker takes us even deeper than we could have ever dreamt into the empire of death. Every story is a miracle and a fascinating marvel. Every story deserves our attention and energy. But some are maybe slightly more conspicuous, at least for me. But these stories seem to be fascinated by various parts of the body, various parts and pieces that have total freedom to do as they like, be they hands that sever their attachment to human beings to live their autonomous life and get rid of the human race ; or the righteous christian soul - a very gullible appendage or appendix indeed - of a preacher who is ready to kill if necessary to impose his vision of the final apocalypse, at least if he has enough time to do it before being executed by his prospective victims ; or the sexual impulse of a man boosted by some prophetic prefiguration of viagra, an impulse that will have to run its course to the end which necessarily means death for the body that is nothing but the tool of that drive ; or the fascination of the eyes, and the camera that is nothing but an extension of these eyes, of this research worker who discovers the deepest pulsating need of mystery, horror and fear in the minds of ordinary simple people who invent the Candyman to inhabit their nights with some thrilling experience ; or the deepest voracious cannibalistic female mother of everything and everyone, a madonna that controls, dominates and generates the whole world that is so willing to be so possessed that no one sees or realises it ; or the killing instinct of one's grandfather once hanged for his murdering crimes and now able to revisit his grandson in order to make him do again what he himself did in order for this grandson to take his place in the city of the damned and for him to get on the road to eternal life or non-existence since freed of any torturing and waiting ; or the very death we all carry in us and that can be turned into a living deadly organism that is transported and scattered around like a plague, as if death was an organ of ours among many others ; or the greed that gets punished somewhere in Amazonia through a curse from Indian victims of the voracious western ogres who need to eat the flesh and drink the blood of innocent prehistoric survivors of ancient nature-oriented civlizations ; or the real beast that lives in some of us and that is controlled by psychiatric expertise into obedience and service to the secret clandestine forces that stabilizes the obscure balance of the world split in two camps, at the time of the cold war when Clive Barker was writing, and today at teh time of the war on terrorism ; or the satanic magic one can buy from Lucifer against one's own soul that one can always retain or recapture by mocking the devilish master and using Satan's magic to block the recuperation of one's body after death without which the soul is nothing, in fact not even detained. One may be surprised and even shocked by the quantity and diversity of bodily fluids that are shed in those pages, but Clive Barker has a fluid and liquid imagination and his world would have no density without those life-providing even and especially diabolical fluids. We could also wonder why Clive Barker needs so much sex in his stories, and particularly non-kosher sex, that kind of sex that is associated to Sodom and Gomorrha. But once again the potency of Clive Barker's style is in the sexual dimension of the delirium he calls his imagination. Writing for him is nothing but intercourse with this imagination of his who definitely rapes him over and over again page after page in all possible variations and nuances. And the most hellish form of rape is for him scatological, which means the release of another bodily fluid of sort. Fragile-psyched and delicate-sensitivitied readers are rather heartily advised not to enter these deep lanes and paths down into the pestifirous crypt of human haunting delusions which are nothing but, over and over again, the last illusion that will charm us into either stupidity or complete vegetable stupor. Maybe some will be illuminated, but these lights are nothing but the mesmerizing power of IT, of the longed-for molesting we all hope will one day assault us with delicious ecstacy.

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

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Horror at it best, June 22, 2010

By 

IAMKING "MARK" (MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Books of Blood, Vols. 4-6 (v. 2) (Paperback)

I love the original Books of Blood and this is just as good. Defintely worth buying. I would recommend to all horoor fans. Clive Barker is one of the best authors.