Customer Reviews

Inhuman Condition

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

God, just talking about The Inhuman Condition makes me itch to read it all over again for the tenth time. Clive Barker, especially early Barker like In The Flesh, The Inhuman Condition & The Books Of Blood are so righteously killer, I can't help but re-reading them whenever I get the chance. Talk about visionary horror, Clive Barker turned the entire Horror Genre upside down with his fiction. Inventive, clever, well-written & above all, original, he was like the new incarnation of H.P. Lovecraft. Genius.

The Inhuman Condition consists of five novellas:

The Inhuman Condition: Some hoods roll a drunk and steal something very precious. A piece of rope with three knots in it. Nothing special, right? Well...once you untie the knots, something comes into being. Something terrible. Great story.

The Body Politic: Charlie has the strangest thoughts. He thinks his hands are planning a revolt, plotting against him and the whole human race. Crazy, right? Well...when he wakes up to find that his hands have strangled his wife, he's not so sure any more. Another great, original story.

Revelations!: A modern day ghost story with a small twist. An evangelsit and his troupe check into a motel where a murder most foul had taken place...so do the deceased couple, for they're there to recreate the murder or try and reconcile, who can tell. Witty and strange. Clive keeps us enthralled.

Down, Satan: The only detraction from the book's brilliance. A rather short story about a man who wants to hang with Satan so he builds Hell on earth just for that very purpose. Bizare and dark, never really takes off as a full story.

The Age Of Desire: Weird. That's the first thing that comes to mind when I think about this story. A group of scientists are doing experiments with hallucinogenic love drugs. The results are very interestng. Probably the most pornographic of all the stories. This one will make you wonder what really churns through Clive Barker's brain.

Overall, an excellent incarnation of horror. Buy it, read it, love it.

Dig it!

This is probably the second or third Barker collection I came across, way back in 1987. I was a high school kid, immersed in King, Straub, Lovecraft, Koontz, but Barker was a writer I had to think about, someone whose writing style aimed above the usual 6th grade average. His images were unsettling and confusing--I remember coming to the end of the title story and thinking, "Wwwhaaat?" but that was so long ago. I credit Barker with making me a more discerning, sophisticated reader. Horror could be sharp with wit, laced with the blackest comedy, and subversive like the punk rock music I loved. He approached topics like sexuality and psychology unlike any other writer I had ever read. This book, Volume 5 of "The Books of Blood," is one of the very strongest. He toys with religious fanaticism and fundamentalism in "Revelations," with the Devil in the modern world in the fable "Down, Satan!" and with eros and extreme arousal in "The Age of Desire," one of my favorite stories by him. This was one that I would retell to my shocked friends at lunch. They wanted to be weird, to be outcast, but Ha! they weren't willing to go all the way. Barker, he goes all the way. He is, along with Harlan Ellison and Lovecraft himself, the only writer of any type of fiction, that I can reread now, over a decade later, with satisfaction and awe and respect. Clive Barker. Make no mistake.

Again, I love Clive Barker. His work is just awe-inspiring. This collection borders on classic in the likes of H.P. Lovecraft and Poe. Shoot, it doesn't just border, it crosses over. These stories will be remembered years to come, mark my words. Clive Barker is genius. His work is the real deal, he cannot be immitated. His craft is so incredible. The stories are horrifying, gruesome, and beautiful. The Body politic is terrifying as is the title story about a knot and the demons that hell unleashes when the knot is undone. This is great stuff. Why can't all authors have this ambition?

This is a good collection of creepy stories. As usual, Clive Barker delivers wild images, exciting plots and impactful language. The story about the hands is particularly creepy and memorable. If you're new to Clive Barker, start with one of his full-length books and try the short stories later. Full-length character development is where he really shines. If you already love his writing, you'll enjoy these dark tales.

AUDIO VERSION - I'm sorry for Clive Barker that this audio book was performed and directed so poorly. Dillinger Steele mispronounces 50 or so words narrating this short collection. If you love the English language and Barker's beautiful prose, you'll cringe listening to Dillinger Steele mangle it.

He was just cutting his teeth when he wrote this, but it still stands strong. There are moments that make you cringe and some that make you look over your shoulder. If you're a fan of Barker's or just of horror in general, don't miss this one.

There are some blood tales in this book.Let me cut to the chase.
1)The body politic.
A very simple story.In a world where our hands have a mind of their own,one man's hand seeks to take over the world!(I know this sounds dumb,but the story is quite good.)

2)The inhuman condition.
A guy and his friends beat up a vagrant for fun,stealing from him a piece of knotted rope...
That same day, the guy who took the knotted rope from the vagrant,begins to unravel it.With the unravelling of the rope his friends suddenly start to die out,one by one...And a lot of evil starts to be unleashed.The same vagrant whom was a victim has to help the guy battle this evil.

3)Revelations.
Now this is a very fascinating story.A pastor and his wife goes to a motel,for some kind of vacation.The room in which they are staying was the scene of a murder.
In this room the ghosts terrorize the couple.

4)Down satan.
In this story a guy builds a place for satan on earth.A very short story.(not one of my favourite)

5)The age of desire.
A very good story.In this story,a victim of an Aphrodisaic experiment run away from the lab and starts to uncontrollably have sex with people...But then he soon starts to rape and murder people and things start to get nasty...


An overall fairly interesting book.I would recommend it....enjoy...Nigel.

No doubt about it, Clive Barker has got what it takes to write great horror. these four short stories stir the nerves and haunt the mind. this is edge of your seat terror which wont allow you to stop reading till its over. Having bought the audiobook edition, I found myself glued to my headphones listening to each creeping story. From creatures hidden in knots to sexual lust out of control to body parts bent on destruction this book has it all; if all horror books would only have these elements it would be great. The narrator Dillinger Steele did a pretty good job at reading the book but since most of the stories took place in London he failed to inject any hint of a british accent. His southern one kind of muddles up the voice of the characters at times but he does not shy away from doing his best to give the listener the gory details. A great book to add to a horror fans collection or an audiophile's one. Highly recommended; now I want to buy In the flesh. By the way, Amazon is practically the only etailer which has the audio versions of these books still on hand; get them before they're gone!

In the mid-to-late eighties, after the first three successful installments of the Books of Blood, the next three in the series were released under the same title. Earlier this year, these three books were re-released in paperback from Pocket books. The Books of Blood IV and V were published under the names of the first short story in each respective book: The Inhuman Condition and In the Flesh. The Books of Blood VI was published differently: joined with the novel Cabal, the four stories are added on after the novel, providing a very nice anthology for fans of Clive Barker.

"The Inhuman Condition": Two thieves decide to vent their anger on a hapless hobo, while the other sees little use in this and decides to wait at the side while the other two reduce the vagabond to a bloody pulp. Karney, while he impatiently waits, finds a piece of rope with three knots in it, belonging to the now bloody hobo. Taking the line of knots home, he furiously begins to attempt to untie one. It takes him days, but finally it is complete and a supernatural beast is released.

The same occurs with the other two knots. However, the hobo wants the knots and its beasts back, for they are very much a part of him in a way that the reader cannot possibly imagine.

"The Body Politic": A story where one's hands attain their independence and seek out a way to separate themselves from the unwanted body they are connected to. Like some nightmarish disease, this spreads to many people, and scenes are revealed in amazing imagery by Barker's skilled pen, of hands detaching themselves from their respective bodies and then strangling and strangling until there is not longer any movement in the husk that the hands were once connected to.

Only one man is able to devise a plan that will lead to the extinction of this army of protesting hands, though he carries it out at the sacrifice of his own life. Nevertheless, the world is safe again, for the moment. In another place, a new horror animates itself in rebellion.

"Revelations": Two of the characters in this story have been dead for twenty years (he from a bullet shot by his wife for cheating on her; she from the electric chair after being tried and convicted for the murder of her husband). They return to the scene of the crime in an effort to understand what went wrong.

At the same time there is another couple, he an annoying Bible-thumping evangelist, she submissive and unquestioning. But this night will be different. This time she will no longer submit to his whim and that of God; she will stick up for herself for the first time. It will end in bloodshed and death, in a grand finale where shots will be fired. The end is already determined. And then again, not.

"Down, Satan!": A man loses his belief in God, his new plan is to find Satan and deny him, proving to God how faithful he is. To bring Satan to him, the billionaire creates a pseudo-Hell in North Africa: "There were ovens large enough to cremate familiars; pools deep enough to drown generations. The new Hell was an atrocity waiting to happen; a celebration of inhumanity that only lacked its first cause." Though he is unsuccessful in ensnaring Satan, the many pain-inflicting tools of this New Hell begin to work, seemingly of their own accord.

"The Age of Desire": A new drug has been invented, one which turns on the libido to its full potential and lets it rule the body over the brain and the heart. The first time it is administered to a human, he rapes and kills the doctor then escapes. The other doctor disappears into hiding. The police arrive and pick up the pieces and try to understand what is going on. Meanwhile the infected human, possessed by what he considers an all-consuming fire on his skin, attacks the nearest person (be they male or female) and proceeds to abuse them in every sexual way possible. His desires rise to such a crescendo that he proceeds to find a sexual interest in inanimate objects, such as brick and stone.

Originally published on September 10th 2001 ©Alex C. Telander.

Originally published in the Long Beach Union.

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Excellent book, especially for horror and dark fantasy fans! This is definitely one of Barker's best works in my opinion, you won't be let down. I recommend to anyone!

The new edition of one of Barker's best collections contains an ironic bonus for those who are familiar with The Body Politic. Namely: this printing is CRAWLING with typos. It is time for the editors at Pocket Books to turn off the spellcheck and hire a proofreader.