Search Results for : clive barker

Book Review: The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker

 in Book Reviews / Books / Holiday by

Book Review: The Scarlet Gospels by Clive BarkerSummary

“The long-beleaguered detective Harry D’Amour, investigator of all supernatural, magical, and malevolent crimes, is back―and about to face off against his formidable and intensely evil rival, Pinhead, the priest of hell. Bloody, terrifying, and brilliantly complex, fans and newcomers alike will not be disappointed by Barker’s horror, which will make your worst nightmares seem like bedtime stories.

The Gospels are coming.

Are you ready?”

-From Amazon.com

Review

This book was a lot to read and took me much longer than it should have, not because of the length but because of how dark the book was. I mean it was REALLY dark to read. Within the first few chapters, abortions were talked of, people were degraded to animals, chains ripped people apart….like man. It was like a supernatural SAW movie. So getting past the first few chapters was difficult because it was pretty gruesome, but I kept wanting to know what was going to happen and refused to give up.

As the story progressed, it got more and more complex – and more and more out there. By the end of the book, these humans were literally wandering around hell and watching the Cenobite mess stuff up. Wasn’t expecting that at all.

As for the Cenobite, also known as Pinhead (you probably know him by that if you’re familiar with Hell Raiser or read The Hellbound Heart), I had mixed feelings about him. You’re supposed to hate him, and for most of the book I did, but there were moments that you felt bad for him. Like he was doing this all for a reason because he was ostracized and wanted to get back at his makers and leaders for what they did for him.  So of course you hated him and knew he was a bad guy, you just sometimes were able to understand why he did what did, or was able to slightly understand it instead of it being senseless violence (like…really violent violence).

This is the third book by Clive Barker that I have read and I love all of his work. He’s a master at writing these stories and making you question what you think you know. His books are terrifying and gruesome and make you want to keep reading. They’re absolutely perfect for this wonderful Halloween season. If you don’t mind a horror book, then this is perfect. I just highly recommend not reading this book before you go to bed because I honestly would have trouble sleeping after reading it too late at night. It messed with your head that much.

But it’s a fantastic book. It was scary and messed with you but that means that the author did an amazing job and I really do recommend reading it.

I give it a 4 out of 5 tea cups. I would have given it a 5 out of 5 but I felt that sometimes the violence was just a little too much and I’m not a massive violence book reader. I don’t  mind ass kicking and stuff like that..but this was torture and that’s not my cup of tea exactly.

rating four tea cups mlcwo

Happy Reading!

Tortured Souls: The Legend of Primordium by Clive Barker

 in Book Reviews / Books / Fiction / Holiday / Older Readers by
“He is a transformer of human flesh; a creator of monsters.”

Tortured Souls by Clive Barker

Summary

”Tortured Souls” is one of the most vividly imagined, tightly compressed novellas ever written by the incomparable Clive Barker. At once violent and erotic, brutal and strangely beautiful, it takes us into the heart of the legendary ”first city” known as Primordium, the site of political upheaval, passionate encounters, and astonishing acts of transformation.

Lurking at the edges of this extravagant tale is the ancient entity known as ”Agonistes,” who accepts the pleas of selected ”Supplicants,” transforming them, through a combination of art, magic, and pain, into avatars of violence and revenge.

The story begins when a freelance assassin named Zarles Krieger commits a routine murder-for-hire. This act will lead him to two life-altering encounters, one with the daughter of his victim, the other with Agonistes himself. This conjunction of the human and the inhuman stands at the center of this instantly absorbing creation.

With great authority and equally great economy, ”Tortured Souls” expands to become a portrait of Primordium itself, with its hierarchies, its hidden mysteries, its shifting power structure, and–most significantly–its indelible cast of characters. A perfectly controlled example of what Barker calls ”the fantastique,” ”Tortured Souls” is something truly special, a story whose imaginative reach and sheer narrative power are evident on every page.”

Review

I don’t generally read horror books as they aren’t my cup of tea generally, however I decided to try Clive Barker earlier this year with his book The Hellbound Heart. The movie Hellraiser is based off of that book, and I wanted to see where the movie came from. It was a pretty creepy read. So of course, during the Halloween Season, I had to find another one of his books. With my course load, I wanted something that I could get through nice and quickly. Tortured Souls fit the bill perfectly.

The book was a while 87 pages. Wow, so long! I know! So I read this book in about 30 minutes and loved every minute it. It captured me and kept me going. It’s a collection of short stories that, woven together, make a larger story. It’s all around this city and this creator Agonistes, who is a creation of God, and then can play with humans and create them to be terrifying. The whole description of what he does to the humans that call for him is terrifying. And gruesome.

But within all of this horror and terror is something beautiful. Two people, who were so twisted by what they had become, found love together. They were able to find comfort together in everything they had done (which was for a cause). But, all good things come to an end and their love was their downfall.

I honestly loved this book and wasn’t really expecting to. Clive Barker is honestly a master when it comes to horror writing. While he doesn’t necessarily scare you with questioning what will happen, you generally blatantly know what is going to happen and that makes it so much scarier. He also has no fear with saying what is happening. He will state the torture going on and he will not be afraid to do so. I quite like the frankness in his writing.

Additionally, he suggests ideas that seem so real! Especially in this book, since it had these godly reference, it kept referencing to God and bits of the Bible. I even had to google some parts of it because it seemed so real, like it could have been an obscure part of religious history that they don’t teach you. Of course his books are about demons and creatures which religions generally do not teach, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if some it was real. But of course, it was not. He writes in such a convincing fashion.

The book was based on earth, in the past, but also in the present as well.  You’re never really clear when the stories take place. It says that the city where it all occurred, Primordium, came before any other cities. However there were cars and such. It is a creative way to write because it can be now, but it also cannot be. It is a place beyond time.

I absolutely loved this book and it was a perfect book for the Halloween month. It is an adult book because of the nature of the writing and the general themes going on in the book.

I do recommend that you read it, if you like horror books! For that, I give it a while 5 teacups!

rating 5 tea cups mlcwo

Happy Reading!

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

 in Adult / Book Reviews / Books / Holiday by
the hellbound heart, clive barker, hellraiser

From wikimedia.org

[amazon template=add to cart&asin=0061452882]

Summary

“Frank Cotton’s insatiable appetite for the dark pleasures of pain led him to the puzzle of Lemarchand’s box, and from there, to a death only a sick-minded soul could invent. But his brother’s love-crazed wife, Julia, has discovered a way to bring Frank back;though the price will be bloody and terrible . . . and there will certainly be hell to pay.”

Review

Well….damn. Literally. This was quite a read. So let’s just say it to start off with, this is the book that the Hellraiser movie is based off of. And I’ve wanted to see the movie, or at least bits of it, but I wanted to read the short story first when I found out it was a short story. It’s classified as a novella as it is only about 48 pages long but it was a wild ride within those 48 pages.

Clive Barker has a very unique and interesting writing style. He researches what he is writing and clearly knows his stuff. And he is not afraid to be gruesome. This book was extremely violent and creepy as hell. Like it made my skin crawl in a few places. Why did I read it during the Christmas season you may ask? Because I needed a break from Finals, it was a quick read, and it would give me something to give you lovelies. So this is 100% a Halloween season book. Like perfect for Halloween!

Besides being quite graphic with the violence, due to the creatures and the nature of what the point of the story was, it was quite graphic sexually. I’m not talking about like people really having sex, but just images that it put forward and it was crude. However this only happened within the first few pages. This all makes this an ADULT book. Not young adult at all but definitely for adults. I mean technically if you have ‘teen’ in your name you are classified as young adult though, so I’m saying 18+ at least. This was quite explicit and violent material.

However the story was amazing. The idea behind it was incredible and how he was able to get so much into 48 pages was incredible. In a way it felt like a mixture between Stephen King and Dan Brown due to the scary sense from King and the historical and research portion from Brown. However if those two came together, you would need to multiply it by 10 and then you’d get Barker. Stephen King was listed on the back of The Book of Blood by Clive Barker (which I will be reading soon) as saying, “I have seen the future of horror, his name is Clive Barker.” And I love that quote. Clive Barker, I feel, isn’t read much. Many people have heard of the Hellraiser film, even though it isn’t terribly popular now, but not of his stories. But man I am glad I came across him. It was a good little adrenaline boost and the writing was good and it kept you guessing. I honestly had no idea how the book would end. And it felt like a movie when I was reading it. But not a Hollywood film. Those low-budget horror movies that are scarier than anything Hollywood could make.

Do I recommend reading it? Oh yes. I found a PDF of it online which is great but I’d suggest to get it just because it’s a book and I’m sure you’ll read it again. I know I will.

The story was fantastic, it wasn’t a long read and it made you question everything. What’s better?

Just remember, don’t open a box that you don’t know what’s in it.

Happy Reading!

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson [Book Review] 19

 in Adult / Books / Fiction / Young Adult by

This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure here.

Summary

“First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting”; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

As it’s spooky season, I had to give some of the classics for this season a read. I’ve read all the basics like Dracula , Stephen King books, Clive Barker books, and many others. But this one, I hadn’t read. 

I recently started a small book club with my mum, so we read books together, and as we were going to be quite busy this month, this was the perfect book – it’s not too long and not exactly a difficult read.

Spooky without being scary.
As the book is quite old, their idea of scary is not our idea of scary, which was kind of nice. I wasn’t reading this book and absolutely terrified or questioning if I could read it at night. It was just a classic kind of scary read, like Dracula. So as an autumnal read, this one fits the bill perfect. I’d say 15 and older could give this one ago, if they can get around some of the strange writing styles.

A little slow but picked up suddenly.
Now, since it’s an older book, I have to be careful with this comment. Books now are written at a much faster pace to appease the reader. This one had a very slow beginning that had you questioning exactly when something was going to happen. You were nearly halfway through the book before you even made it to Hill House and 3/4 of the way through before the strange stuff started happening. It made the read a little slow in a sense, but you also wanted to get through it faster to find out what was going to happen and when.

Nothing like the modern movie The Haunting.
In early 2000’s, a movie with Liam Neeson and other famous actors came out called The Haunting which is based off of this book. I went into this book thinking it was going to be like the movie. This movie is a common one many have seen, so I’m going to say now that if you think it’ll be like the movie, then you’re wrong. It definitely had some parallels and the overall idea was similar, but it wasn’t the same for the most part. The ending especially.

Eleanor is a little odd, just naturally.
What adds to the book is the fact that the main character is quite…out there. She’s odd so even from the beginning you just seem to be thrown off from the way she speaks and thinks. It actually puts you off balance as a reader. The speaking patterns are all over the place, which seems to confuse you. While you were reading it can be a little confusing, as her thought processes is like a roller-coaster, but afterwards you realize that it adds to the whole story!

Kind of shocking the ending.
You had this idea of how it was going to end and it didn’t end that way at all. Don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil anything, but just be prepared to not be ready for what happens. You think you can figure it out and then boom.

Overall, I absolutely loved the book. Even though it was a little slower, it’s a classic and such a good read. It’s not needed around Halloween but it’s great for autumn in general. It’s bite sized, so no need to worry about it being a massive reading commitment.

I easily give this book a 5 our of 5 teacups!

5 teacups

Spooky Reading!

Interview with Varun Sayal – Author of Time Crawlers

 in Author Interview by

I had the amazing honor to interview a relatively new author, Varun Sayal!

He recently contacted me to read his new book, Time Crawlers, and to say I was impressed and immediately drawn in was an understatement. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the book.

So of course I had to ask him for an interview! It’s been so long since I’ve had one here, and I figured he would be the perfect to pick it back up again. The bar is high!

Interview with Varun Sayal - Author of Time CrawlersSo who is he?

“VARUN SAYAL is an engineer and MBA from I.I.T. and I.S.B. (top schools in India), who has been involved in theatre as a playwright, actor, and director, and has also been an independent movie-maker. His genre of writing is predominantly science fiction blended with mythology and a sprinkle of the gruesome actualities of life. In his own words:
“I think of each story as a surreal, fast-paced narrative that pulls in the reader right from the beginning, takes them through a voyage into an alternate dystopian realm, bequeathing to them images etched permanently on their minds. I live by the quote, ‘a true art calms a disturbed mind and disturbs a calm mind.’””
I focused most of my questions on his book, so I feel you will really understand his answers once you read it, and I do HIGHLY suggest it.
Without further waiting, here is the incredible interview. Thank you once again Mr. Sayal!!
  1. Where did you get the inspiration for some of the names from your story as they were so unique?

I always try to give those names to characters which have some meaning attached to them, such as, Guru Trikalacharya in story “Nark-astra”. His name is derived from word Trikal which in Sanskrit means all the three timelines, past, present, and future. Kaaljeevi roughly evaluates to one who lives within time or beyond it. Jokie is someone who will usually take everything as a joke or lightly.

 

  1. Why did you choose to do some of the story in an ‘interview style’?

When I started writing as a student, I started as a playwright, writing and adapting umpteen number of plays for our college competitions and they were fairly popular. At that time, I built a strong grasp on how I can communicate stories via pure dialogs, which influenced my writing a lot. And hence you see a lot of stories here written in pure dialog or interview format. That’s my natural style of writing. However, I found out the hard way that many readers find this a tough format to read. Or many feel that they liked the story but they wish some more details were given out in pure prose. So I am inclined to change my style, tough thing to do, but I love such challenges. J

 

  1. The stories themselves are filled with facts and data. Do you have training in this area? Where did you learn about all of this for your story?

I am an engineer by education hence I have studied a lot of advanced level Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. Which influences my writing style, when I try to bring realism to my stories by using facts from these disciplines and that also helps me stay true to my writings in terms of their scientific meaning. For example, I will rarely write about an animal or creature which is 5 feet tall and suddenly grows to 50 feet. I just can’t do that because I don’t believe such a sudden change in mass of a body is possible out of thin air.

 

  1. When I was reading some of the stories I really had flashbacks to some of Clive Barkers writers. Did any of his novels inspire you, or did any other author inspire your writing?

No, I haven’t read Clive Barkers, but now that you mention him, I would check out his works. I am more inspired by Isaac Asimov, because despite being a Sci-Fi writer, he never wanted to bamboozle his readers with details of Space Opera, armadas and planets etc. He kept his stories real and instead focused on the human conflicts arising due to technical or robotic advancement. At the end of a story if it’s just a dump of details then it’s just a Scientific Pulp fiction, which may entertain a reader for a few minutes, but won’t leave an everlasting impression on her or his mind. Nothing against those genres, but I want to focus on scientific realism.

 

  1. One of your short stories focused on the darknet and what was happening down there. Did you make it up or did something push you to choose that side of the darknet?

I have thought a lot about how dark-net functions and I do believe in some of the controversy-theories around it, that we are slowly becoming slaves to a secret hidden AI entity. All those caricature-pics, which you see casually being shared on Facebook where people are shown to be glued to their cell phones, something sinister is indeed going on in the background. Within your friend circles or acquaintances, you can see normal people sharing jokes / memes on people who have died, in a lighter vein. Sharing funny videos of people flying, crashing into boxes, each other etc. where I believe those people in the videos might have been badly hurt. So people are losing that sensitivity towards other humans, and that too just for sake of a few microseconds of mirth. In this scenario, I don’t believe “Death By Crowd” is a far-fetched thought but in fact it may already be happening is some other form.

 

  1. In your spare time, what can you be found doing?

I watch a lot of American TV series on Netflix. They just take my mind away from work, from worldly tensions and help me relax. Mentalist and House of Cards were a few non Sci-Fi ones I immensely loved, but usually I love the likes of Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG1, Altered Carbon and even paranormal ones like John Constantine. Oh I can go on and on about these TV Series.

 

  1. What inspired you to be a writer?

My inspirations are rather negative ones .. haha, which means that I saw other published authors and thought I could write better.. I have been writing short stories for a very long time, but never published formally like now, mostly on blogs, sharing with friends. But when I read some of the Indian “Best Selling” authors, I gained a lot of confidence. Because I felt I can write better than them, at least in terms of content. In terms of grasp of language on prose, I feel I still need to learn a lot take some giant strides.

 

  1. Why did you choose this kind of sci-fi genre, and your particular niche of the dark kind of reality?

I love writing sci-fi, and I will be honest, there are times when I think of writing a pure romance story, or a pure drama, but I don’t find that kind of fire within me to do so. But when it comes to sci-fi I love those times when I am creating an entirely new universe, with diverse characters, fantasy-filled scenarios, and problems or situations arising out of something scientific.

 

  1. If anyone wanted to write a book similar to yours, on that detailed kind of sci-fi topic, what would your suggestion be to them?

Firstly, I would say do your basic research well, because Sci-Fi is usually read by readers who have some basic fundamentals of physics and mathematics cleared up. You won’t believe the kind of technical discussions that happen on FB groups “Science Fiction” and “Time travel”. So, you would not want to have embarrassing, glaring potholes being brought out in reviews. Secondly, dystopias generally go well with Sci-fi but you may not always have to show a post-apocalyptic world, just because it’s Science Fiction. You can pick a particular situation out of a normal non-dystopian world and just write about it.

 

  1. When you are writing, what are some things that you cannot do without?

I try to bring a sort of peak into my story which pinches the reader somewhere within. Without that, I think the story fails to get attention or leaves the reader unfulfilled. Having said so that feeling of a pinch is different for different readers. Some find a mystery built up critical to a story, some find a heart-wrenching incident is required, and some others may want a more descriptive set of scenes to connect with the narrative. Tough to please all the audiences.

 

  1. Do readers get to expect another book from you?

Absolutely, I am very excited by the warm reception “Time Crawlers” has received and the rave reviews it is getting on GoodReads that too from top reviewers. I have already written the summary of my next book which is a novel, now I need to carefully execute it with some smart words to captivate the readers. It will be a full prose novel with elements from Time Travel, multiple dimensions, parallel universes and some themes from ancient Indian Mythology. I may include some paranormal characters and situations if they make the story more intriguing. Stay Tuned!

 

  1. What are your hopes with your current book and any future writing you may create?

With these books, I aim to bring a few new tales in this world, narratives which are not just flowery descriptions that enable readers to pass time, but each of them should make the reader put down the book for a second and think about what would happen if that story were real. If I am able to do that I would consider my writing endeavors a success. I also have a secret desire that one day one of my sci-fi stories will be picked by Hollywood. Seems a bit far-fetched, but you never know.

You heard it from the source, folks. You may be seeing an amazing Hollywood movie one day! So keep your eyes on the horizon. I, personally, would love to see one of these stories turn into something big!
Mr. Sayal’s writing is amazing and I highly suggest it. It’s  simple enough to read but the ideas are so deep an profound.
Check him out on other social media sites, and add his book to your Goodreads list!