Reviews

Books of Blood, Volumes 4-6 by Clive Barker

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kyle_j_durrant's review against another edition

5.0

It's done. It's finished. I have finally read all six volumes of the Books of Blood, and what a journey it was.

It's hard to give any thoughts in this review that I didn't already give in my review of the first three volumes. Barker's writing is incredible, and I can already feel it's influence on my more recent work. Astonishing prose and grotesque scenes come together to tell stories that linger in the mind for days afterwards.

All I can really do here is list my favourite stories, though truly I don't think there was a bad one amongst them.

From Volume 4:
The Body Politic - sentient hands!
The Inhuman Condition - magic string
The Age of Desire - a killer libido

From Volume 5:
The Forbidden - Candyman!
The Madonna - creepy abandoned swimming pool
In The Flesh - a Hellish prison sentence

From Volume 6:
The Life of Death - macabre obsessions
The Last Illusion - the race for a magician's soul

All I can say is if you're a fan of horror and haven't read these yet, then I definitely think you should. They explore dark themes and definitely aren't for the faint of heart, but Barker touches the taboo parts of humanity's soul and drags it out into the public eye.

darkstarsbookcavern's review against another edition

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2.0

Following my view of volumes 1 to 3 of the Books of Blood my expectations going in to this weren't exactly high and unfortunately that's where they remained. Not one of these stood out for me and it seemed to have violence just for something to pad out the writing - which again, wasn't great. I haven't read any of Clive Barker's other books and to be honest based on these I'm not going to. Although one nice touch was that volume one opened with The Book of Blood and volume six finishes with returning to it.

cait_henry56's review against another edition

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5.0

There's some amazing short stories in this volume, from The Inhuman Condition to The Forbidden (inspiration for Candyman) to The Life of Death, but the one that will stick with me the most is probably The Body Politic.

Something to note for book collectors: I really hate that the omnibus volumes aren't the same sizes or have similar covers. But that is more on the publishing house than Barker.

brianmagid's review against another edition

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5.0

ranking:

1. In the Flesh
2. The Forbidden
3. The Body Politic
4. The Age of Desire
5. The Madonna
6. The Inhuman Condition
7. On Jerusalem Street
8. The Last Illusion
9. The Life of Death
10. How Spoilers Bleed
11. Revelations
12. Down, Satan!
13. Twilight at the Towers
14. Babel's Children

Glad I embarked upon reading these this year. Maybe not as consistently good as Vols 1-3 but the highs are higher. Glad it exists, even at its worst it is always demented and vivid in a way that has burrowed permanently into my imagination.

reubenalbatross's review against another edition

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I'm sad that I felt the need to DNF this, but I just wasn't enjoying my time. I read Volumes 1-3 a few ago and remembered really enjoying them, but these haven't lived up the them. I don't know if I've changed, or if the quality is different.

All of the stories felt pretty pedestrian. Even the weirder ones were mainly boring day-to-day stuff, with little inserts of horror.

I rated the stories I finished as follows, but the high ratings feel generous looking back. I think I was rating with too much optimism...

Volume 4 -

'The Body Politic' - 5 stars - nice and scary
'The Inhuman Condition' - 3 stars - was interesting, but the ending made no sense to me at all...
'Revelations' - 3.5 stars - a different kind of horror, and not one that did much for me
'Down, Satan! - 4 stars - creepy, but I wanted more descriptions of the gross
'The Age of Desire' - 5 stars - I'm sorry, what?

Volume 5 -

'The Forbidden' - 2 stars - maybe 2 pages out of 37 were actually scary/of interest. The rest was pretty mundane - just a posho woman walking around an estate