Revelations [Hardcover]

Douglas E. Winter (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1997

Featuring opening and closing novellas by Clive Barker and stories by David Morrell, F. Paul Wilson, and Whitley Strieber, among others, a collection of stories offers an alternative, apocalyptic twist on the chronology of the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Pestilence, floods, war, social upheaval, drug-related crime, wicked leaders, birth defects, conspiracies, corruption, even visions of death-dealing aliens--this superb anthology is a timely reminder that destructive forces and fantasies of destruction are not just a millennial phenomenon; they've been with us all along. Douglas Winter writes in the afterword: "I chose the writers whose words had moved me, surprised me, remained vibrant in a time of repetition and glut. I wanted assurance that the fiction nominally known as 'horror' would survive into the twenty-first century; and I wanted Revelations to offer that reassurance to readers." These 11 long tales--one for each decade, plus a frame story--succeed brilliantly in doing so. The writers are Clive Barker, Joe R. Lansdale, David Morrell, F. Paul Wilson, Poppy Z. Brite, Christa Faust, Charles Grant, Whitley Strieber, Elizabeth Massie, Richard Christian Matheson, David J. Schow, Craig Spector, and Ramsey Campbell.

From Kirkus Reviews

An original story anthology and mighty hymn to a coming apocalypse by 14 leading horror writers, gathered here by inspired editor Winter (Prime Evil, 1988, etc). Each decade of the 20th century is assigned to a writer or writers (in two cases they work in tandem) who evoke the particular madness of that decade as it contributes to a prophecy for the next century. Winter tells us that the end of the present millennium, now upon us, is ``a time of revelation,'' as in the apocalyptic revelations of St. John. He has spent seven years assembling this book, looking for genuinely original writing that rises above genre clich‚s, and he has largely achieved his objective. Clive Barker, in top form, offers two works: the introductory ``Chiliad: A Meditation--Men and Sin,'' about the thousand years of guilt leading up to this century; and the anthology's wrap-up short novel, ``Chiliad: A Moment at the River's Heart,'' a parable about guilt that rises magnificently above genre. In Joe R. Lansdale's ``The Big Blow,'' black boxer Jack Johnson fights for his life against the toughest white man he's ever met, while a wave as big as the Great Wall of China hits Galveston. In F. Paul Wilson's ``Aryans and Absinthe,'' a Jewish bookseller in Berlin in 1923 has an absinthe hallucination, foresees the death camps, and attempts to assassinate Hitler. Poppy Z. Brite and Christa Faust offer the immensely stylish, crystalline ``Triads,'' featuring two boys sold to a Peking Opera troupe who later, going go out into life as women, get mixed up with Chinese mafia/revolutionaries and witness the Japanese bombing of Shanghai. Other big names on hand include, among others, Whitley Strieber, Charles Grant, and Ramsey Campbell. Astute, entertaining mainstream fantasy. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 450 pages
• Publisher: Harper Prism; First edition (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061052469
• ISBN-13: 978-0061052460
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #123,359 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars An incredible anthology!, July 20, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Revelations (Hardcover)

Doug Winter has outdone himself. This assemblage of writers and stories is guaranteed to thrill and chill you. The Joe Lansdale story is worth the purchase price alone. It will (allegorically and literally) blow you away. Clive Barker's "bookend" pieces are also fantastic. There are no weak links in the century long chain in this book. This is what an anthology should be like

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning fictional journey of Pre-Millenial Tension, June 24, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Revelations (Hardcover)

Douglas E. Winter waited a long while to return
with an anthology to match his excellent Prime
Evil; so rather than retread old ground he creates
a celebration of the coming Millenium. We are left
with Revelations: a volume which brings together
some of the best contemporary horror talent in a
non-genre experiment to build an anthology novel
covering the final century of our current
Millenium. Its scope reaches even beyond this,
with Clive Barker's tale of openings and closures
which wraps about the tales of our century, taking
up to the stirrings of the Millenia we currently
inhabit.

As an anthology it is surpassed by few, and as
a novel it is a work which renews important events
of the previous century ready for the onset of
the future Millenium. So it prises open a few
graves; airs the woes of some of the centuries
ghosts; takes us into the depths of many of our
recent history's defining moments. Natural disasters
and far more human ones, the full range of human
emotion. Each author makes a decade live in the
present for a while, and history phases past with
the turning of each page. What can the future
hold? Where better to look and draw inspiration
from but the past.

Do the authors matter? In a work like this they
should, but the individual voices merely combine
to create a greater whole. Once Barker's unique
vision of the past has receeded we move into the
twentieth century, and a pair of devestating
natural disasters wrought fresh by Joe Lansdale
and David Morrell; storm and pestilance. Next F.
Paul Wilson brings us face to face with one of
the centuries greatest evil, and a man that can
possibly avert it; or can he? Then to the Chinese
Opera, and a secular world from which two young
lovers escape - a collaboration between Poppy Z.
Brite and Christa Faust. Charles L. Grant brings a
unique vision of the man in black and Whitley
Strieber takes us on a nuclear trip. Richard
Christian Matheson takes the seventies and the
charts by storm, with a band who downward spiral
carries them to devestation. David J. Schow and
Craig Spector bring down the Berlin wall, while
the shades of old conflicts look on. It takes
Ramsey Campbell's charting of this, our current
decade, to bring an obscure author into the
limelight with the greatest book ever written; barr
none. So it's over. Yet it is merely the beginning,
so Clive Barker again takes us on his encapsulating
vision.

At the end of this enrapturing journey you have
been shown where we have been and where we are
going, that the darkest of literary visions is
still conscious of the light. A forfilling meal
you'll shelve for perusal again, and again - a
book which will outlast the Millenia that spawned
it.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a gathering of great writing talent!! What results!!, March 8, 1998

By 

J. Bilby "littlebibs" (Kingston, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Revelations (Hardcover)

I just wanted to say i think this is such a great showcase for horror writers both new and older. Although i haven't finished all the stories i must say my favorites so far, the excellent Joe R. Lansdale and Pobby Z. Brite and Christa Faust. I would also say Douglas E. Winter should be commended for his choice selections and vision.