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A review by persypie
Books of Blood: Volumes One to Three by Clive Barker
4.0
“Everybody is a book of blood. Wherever we’re opened, we’re red.”
I really thoroughly enjoyed 80% of the stories in this grim collection from Barker. He truly has a way of seamlessly mixing the disgusting and the macabre.
Some notable standouts for me include:
- The Midnight Meat Train
- Pig Blood Blues
- Sex, Death and Starshine
- Dread
- Jacqueline Ess
- The Skins of the Fathers
I will say the last volume was definitely the weakest of the three and what kept this from being a 5-star read. There was only one decent story (Scape-Goats) which feels slightly ironic.
Overall, it is still a great collection, and the first two volumes are sure to delight any horror fan.
I wish I would have captured at the time of reading a short review for each story (as is tradition now) but alas, I did not. I’ll compile the ones I have record for here.
+++++++++++++++++++
INDIVIDUAL REVIEWS
+++++++++++++++++++
Pig Blood Blues ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“This is the state of the beast—to eat and be eaten.”
Suspenseful, unsettling, and every bit the horror masterclass I’ve come to expect from Clive Barker. This story might be short but it certainly packs a punch.
A little reminiscent of Lord of the Flies?
+++
The Skins of the Fathers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Little dots and commas of human pain on a blank sheet of sand; she didn’t care to think of the pen that wrote them there. That was for tomorrow.”
A superb tale of monsters—though whether it was man or the demons from the desert that deserve the title is impossible to say.
+++
Midnight Meat Train ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Does the beef salute the butcher as it throbs to its knees?”
This is another twisted tale from master horror writer Clive Barker. It feels like it was inspired by aspects of the Cthulhu mythos—the Old Gods, the macabre, and the mouth of madness that swallows the human mind when faced with the unknown.
I’ll never look at New York City the same way again.
+++
New Murders in the Rue Morgue ⭐️⭐️⭐️
“No life could be lived the way he’d lived it without a reckoning coming sooner or later; and here it was.”
Though I’m aware this tale was written as a companion to Edgar Allan Poe’s story Murders in the Rue Morgue I couldn’t help but feel that it also took some inspiration from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
New tongue twister unlocked: Assimilating a simian into society.
+++
The Yattering and Jack ⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Let there be blood. Let there be agony. They’d all break.”
A delightful take on a poltergeist story with a bit of a surprise at the end. It gives new meaning to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
+++
Son of Celluloid ⭐️⭐️
“Nobody dies in the movies. You can always thread the celluloid up again.”
Well, thank goodness the “fat” girl was here to save the day (at a whopping 225 lbs, give me a break). I really liked parts of this story, but it was undeniably fatphobic, and I’m very over the horror industry needing to rape young virgin girls.
+++
Rawhead Rex ⭐️
“He would certainly die. It was purely a matter of time and inclination.”
They can’t all be winners.
I really thoroughly enjoyed 80% of the stories in this grim collection from Barker. He truly has a way of seamlessly mixing the disgusting and the macabre.
Some notable standouts for me include:
- The Midnight Meat Train
- Pig Blood Blues
- Sex, Death and Starshine
- Dread
- Jacqueline Ess
- The Skins of the Fathers
I will say the last volume was definitely the weakest of the three and what kept this from being a 5-star read. There was only one decent story (Scape-Goats) which feels slightly ironic.
Overall, it is still a great collection, and the first two volumes are sure to delight any horror fan.
I wish I would have captured at the time of reading a short review for each story (as is tradition now) but alas, I did not. I’ll compile the ones I have record for here.
+++++++++++++++++++
INDIVIDUAL REVIEWS
+++++++++++++++++++
Pig Blood Blues ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“This is the state of the beast—to eat and be eaten.”
Suspenseful, unsettling, and every bit the horror masterclass I’ve come to expect from Clive Barker. This story might be short but it certainly packs a punch.
A little reminiscent of Lord of the Flies?
+++
The Skins of the Fathers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Little dots and commas of human pain on a blank sheet of sand; she didn’t care to think of the pen that wrote them there. That was for tomorrow.”
A superb tale of monsters—though whether it was man or the demons from the desert that deserve the title is impossible to say.
+++
Midnight Meat Train ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Does the beef salute the butcher as it throbs to its knees?”
This is another twisted tale from master horror writer Clive Barker. It feels like it was inspired by aspects of the Cthulhu mythos—the Old Gods, the macabre, and the mouth of madness that swallows the human mind when faced with the unknown.
I’ll never look at New York City the same way again.
+++
New Murders in the Rue Morgue ⭐️⭐️⭐️
“No life could be lived the way he’d lived it without a reckoning coming sooner or later; and here it was.”
Though I’m aware this tale was written as a companion to Edgar Allan Poe’s story Murders in the Rue Morgue I couldn’t help but feel that it also took some inspiration from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
New tongue twister unlocked: Assimilating a simian into society.
+++
The Yattering and Jack ⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Let there be blood. Let there be agony. They’d all break.”
A delightful take on a poltergeist story with a bit of a surprise at the end. It gives new meaning to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
+++
Son of Celluloid ⭐️⭐️
“Nobody dies in the movies. You can always thread the celluloid up again.”
Well, thank goodness the “fat” girl was here to save the day (at a whopping 225 lbs, give me a break). I really liked parts of this story, but it was undeniably fatphobic, and I’m very over the horror industry needing to rape young virgin girls.
+++
Rawhead Rex ⭐️
“He would certainly die. It was purely a matter of time and inclination.”
They can’t all be winners.