Issue #20: Clive Barker’s Books of Blood
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The Elevated Horror of Clive Barker
My introduction to the world of Clive Barker was an odd one. I was grounded for some forgotten infraction (safe bet: talking in class and getting a bad conduct report) but had seen promos for Nightbreed premiering on cable, and didn’t want to miss it. So I did what any intelligent 11 year old would do: snuck downstairs and watched it on mute. Or, should I say, watched SOME of it—after a while it became clear that this was no typical horror/monster movie and I would need the dialogue to make any sense of it.
Over the next few years I would do my duty as a budding horror fan and check out Hellraiser, Candyman, and Lord of Illusions, all of which I tried really hard to like as much as I did the usual slasher and killer doll movies I enjoyed. But as I eventually realized, Barker’s work—both on the screen and on the page—requires a certain degree of intelligence and maturity to fully appreciate, and I wasn’t quite there yet (some might say I’m still not). It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I really started to “get” his work, and was elated to realize that there was a lengthy bibliography that I could start to properly explore.
As a horror movie fan, naturally the majority of his books and stories that I’ve read are the ones that have been adapted by himself or others: The Hellbound Heart, The Forbidden, Cabal… these stories became movies that I couldn’t fully wrap my head around as a kid, but are now among my favorites, and it was a thrill to go back and relish in the source material. Likewise, reading the (as yet un-adapted) likes of Mister B. Gone and Coldheart Canyon (a massive text I have jury duty to thank for getting through) gave me even more insight into how creative and imaginative this one mind could be, something that I couldn’t have gleaned from the 20-30 minutes of silent Nightbreed I saw that gave me my first impression of the man.
And he hasn’t stopped with books and movies; he’s also an accomplished artist and theater director, hell he’s even created original stories for video games (and lent his voice to one of them) and popped up in a few cameo roles for his friends. However, if one were to list all his jobs, “author” would probably top the list, not just for their accessibility but because of how much more work his stories have inspired over the years.
His six volume Books of Blood series is the easiest thing to recommend to a newcomer; not only is it where you’ll find the source stories for a number of the films you’ve probably seen or at least heard of (Candyman began life as “The Forbidden” in Volume 5, aka In The Flesh), but it’s also where you’ll see the full range of his imagination at play, even within one volume. Some stories are funny, others more dramatic than horror, and others might make you blush. But each and every one of them will almost certainly tap into your right brain and get it to start churning out images and ideas of your own.
That’s definitely what happened to the authors behind the following stories and poems, all of which are inspired by one or more of the Books of Blood stories. It was a true gift to read them all; as with Barker’s work itself, they ran the gamut from fun to terrifying, personal to otherworldly. And they also served as a good excuse for me to revisit a few of the stories, so I want to personally thank them for that bit of inspiration. I suspect they will do the same for you.
Brian Collins
Brian Quinn
The Monster Within (cover)
Brian has illustrated children’s books, literary fiction anthologies, speculative fiction magazines and sci-fi, fantasy and horror magazines. His online portfolio can be found at: https://www.brianquinnstudio.com/
Alana I. Capria
My Tumor’s Hunger
Alana is the author of the novel Mother Walked Into the Lake and and the story collection Wrapped in Red. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Matt Carlin
Remembrance
Matt’s fiction has recently appeared in The Sea Letter. He has also made several short films, and has had film criticism pieces featured in Senses of Cinema. He is a regular contributor to MUBI Notebook.
Elsa Carruthers
Scape-Goat Offering
Elsa is a writer, poet, and genre scholar. Her story “God Bless the Freaks” will appear in Amazing Stories, volume III, and she is editing an anthology of critical essays on Westworld which will be published next year.
Tracy Davidson
Blood
Tracy’s work has appeared in Poet’s Market, Mslexia, Atlas Poetica, Modern Haiku, The Binnacle, A Hundred Gourds, Shooter, Journey to Crone, The Great Gatsby Anthology, WAR and In Protest: 150 Poems for Human Rights.
Morrow Dowdle
Quaid
Morrow’s publication credits include River and South Review, Dandelion Review, and Poetry South. She was a Pushcart Prize nominee in 2018, and writes graphic novels, most recently with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
Jordan Fash
The Blood on Tollington
Jordan is a graduate of English and creative writing in Kansas City. When not teaching, he works on short fiction. He has been featured on The Literary Whip.
Amelia Gorman
The City Your Father, The City Your Brother
Amelia is a horror poet, programmer and baker. Her recent poetry can be found in Vastarien and Liminality Magazine and her upcoming fiction in Sharp & Sugar Tooth from Upper Rubber Boot Books.
Shannon Hardwick
From: The Yattering and Jack
Shannon’s work has appeared in Salt Hill, Stirring, Versal, The Texas Observer, Devil’s Lake, Four Way Review, Huffington Post UK, among others, and she serves as the poetry editor for The Boiler Journal.
Jamal H. Iqbal
2034
Jamal is a RETIRED actorwriterpoetcomicartistentrepreneursingerproducercreativestrategist seeking valhalla. His poetry, flash fiction, essays and art, were once published in journals across multiple countries.
Parker Jamieson
Creely wasn’t exaggerating
Parker’s fluid. They’ve been published in various journals and online formats. They go to school to study humans—how they think—and why philosophy matters to all people, whether they know that or not.
Adrik Kemp
The Beautiful and the Macabre
Adrik has short stories out in a number of publications including Aurealis Magazine, Third Flatiron, Transmundane Press, CSFG Press, Alban Lake Publishing and Pride Publishing.
Evan Loehle-Conger
The Books of Bark
Evan makes mistakes with words and hopes they’re the mistakes that come out the other side as not-mistakes. He loves to watch surreality and mundanity live in peace and balance, but is still working out the logistics.
Fabiyas MV
Maji
Fabiyas is the author of Kanoli Kaleidoscope, Eternal Fragments, and Moonlight And Solitude. His work has been published by Western Australian University, British Council, University of Hawaii, Rosemont College, Forward Poetry, and others.
Mack W. Mani
In the Mind of the People
Mack’s work has appeared in Strange Horizons, NewMyths, and The Pedestal Magazine. His screenplay You and Me and Dagon Make Three won Best Screenplay at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in 2018.
Hanan Muzafar
Ink and Flame
Hanan is a research scholar in MTech Electronics & Communication Engineering at Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin, Kerala. For him, a poet is a trash bin of the society, who converts junk into fragrant flowers.
W.T. Paterson
The Benefits of Southern Hospitality
W. T. wrote the novels Dark Satellites and WOTNA. His work has appeared in Fiction Magazine, The Gateway Review, and several anthologies. He is a current MFA candidate at the University of New Hampshire.
Sarah Peploe
Wholesome
Sarah’s short stories have appeared in Snowbooks’ Game Over, Martian Migraine’s CHTHONIC, and the online horror/erotica journal Body Parts. She also writes and illustrates comics as part of Mindstain Comics co-operative.
Lancelot Schaubert
Waiting for the Train
Lancelot’s work has appeared in The New Haven Review, McSweeney’s, The Poet’s Market, Writer’s Digest, The World Series Edition of Poker Pro, and others, and was chosen by Spark + Echo for a 2019 writer in residence grant.
Sean Woodard
Repertoire Screening
Sean’s writing has been featured in Los Angeles Review of Books, Cultured Vultures, The Cost of Paper, Found Polaroids, and Los Angeles Magazine. He is a staff writer for Drunk Monkeys’ Film Department.