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Clive Barker


Cabal

Clive Barker

For more than two decades, Clive Barker has twisted the worlds of horrific and surrealistic fiction into a terrifying, transcendent genre all his own. With skillful prose, he enthralls even as he horrifies; with uncanny insight, he disturbs as profoundly as he reveals. Evoking revulsion and admiration, anticipation and dread, Barker's works explore the darkest contradictions of the human condition: our fear of life and our dreams of death.

Table of Contents:

  • Cabal - novel
  • The Life of Death - (1985) - novelette
  • How Spoilers Bleed - (1985) - novelette
  • Twilight at the Towers - (1985) - novelette
  • The Last Illusion - (1985) - novella

Chiliad: A Meditation

Clive Barker

Welcome to the world of Chiliad, an astonishing two-part novella by the incomparable Clive Barker. A brilliantly composed narrative filled with unforgettable images, this visionary meditation on time, history, and human suffering is surely one of Barker's most distinctive--and distinguished--creations.

Chiliad consists of two interrelated stories, stories filtered through the melancholy imagination of a narrator perched on the banks of a river that flows backward and forward through time. The first movement, 'Men and Sin,' takes place in the millennial year of 1000 AD. The second, 'A Moment at the River s Heart,' occurs exactly one thousand years--the length of a 'chiliad'--later, as the new millennium approaches. At the heart of these stories are two savage, seemingly inexplicable atrocities, each of which reaches across the centuries to reflect and connect with the other. As the narratives unfold and time becomes increasingly permeable, Barker creates a dark, sorrowful portrait of the ancient human capacity for cruelty and destruction. Writing always with lucidity and grace, he addresses a host of universal concerns, among them the power of guilt and grief, and the need to find signs of meaning in the chaos that surrounds us. In the process, he examines the endless chain of consequences that inevitably proceed from a single act of violence.

At once hugely expansive and deeply personal, Chiliad is a compact masterpiece, a resonant reminder of Barker's ability to create fictional worlds that enrich and illuminate our own.

Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

Clive Barker

Film's most popular action hero needs a place to heal after his surgery has gone terribly wrong. His fiercely loyal agent finds him just such a place in a luxurious forgotten mansion high in the Hollywood Hills. But the original owner of the mansion was a beautiful woman devoted to pleasure at any cost, and the terrible legacy of her deeds has not yet died. There are ghosts and monsters haunting Coldheart Canyon, where nothing is forbidden. Clive Barker's Coldheart Canyon showcases the boldly innovative New York Times bestselling master at the very top of his formidable and frightening skills. Clive Barker is the internationally bestselling author of more than twenty books for adults and children. He is also a widely acclaimed artist, film producer, screenwriter, and director. He lives in Beverly Hills, California.

Galilee: A Novel of the Fantastic

Clive Barker

Rich and powerful, the Geary dynasty has reigned over American society for decades. But it is a family with dark, terrible secrets. For the Gearys are a family at war. Their adversaries are the Barbarossas, a clan whose timeless origins lie in myth, whose mystical influence is felt in intense, sensual exchanges of flesh and soul. Now their battle is about to escalate.

When Galilee, prodigal prince of the Barbarossa clan, meets Rachel, the young bride of the Gearys' own scion Mitchell, they fall in love, consumed by a passion that unleashes long-simmering hatred. Old insanities arise, old adulteries are uncovered, and a seemingly invincible family will begin to wither, exposing its unholy roots....

Imajica

Clive Barker

A book of revelations. A seamless tapestry of erotic passion, thwarted ambition and mythic horror. Clive Barker takes us on a voyage to worlds beyond our knowledge, but within our grasp.

John Furie Zacharias, known as Gentle, a master forger whose life is a series of lies. Judith Odell, a beautiful woman desired by three powerful men, but belonging to none of them. Pie'oh'pah, a mysterious assassin who deals in love as well as death. These three are united in a desperate search for the heart of a universal mystery, and will find the truth that lies in a place as mysterious as the face of God, and as secret as the human soul. They discover the Imajica.

Imajica is many things: an epic novel of vast panoramas and intimate, obsessive passions, embracing ghosts and reflections as well as the human and the divine.

Infernal Parade

Clive Barker

From the beginning of his distinguished career, Clive Barker has been the great visionary artist of contemporary dark fantasy, a form that Barker himself has termed "the Fantastique." Through his many novels, stories, paintings and films, he had presented us with unforgettable images of the monstrous and the sacred, the beautiful and the grotesque. His body of work constitutes a great and varied contribution to modern popular culture.

This astonishing novella, Infernal Parade, perfectly encapsulates Barker's unique abilities. Like the earlier Tortured Souls, an account of bizarre--and agonizing--transformations, Infernal Parade is tightly focused, intensely imagined, and utterly unlike anything else you will ever read. It begins with the tale of a convicted criminal, Tom Requiem, who returns from the brink of death to restore both fear and a touch of awe to a complacent world. Tom becomes the leader of the eponymous "parade," which ranges from the familiar precincts of North Dakota to the mythical city of Karantica. Golems, vengeful humans both living and dead, and assorted impossible creatures parade across these pages. The result is a series of highly compressed, interrelated narratives that are memorable, disturbing, and impossible to set aside.

Infernal Parade is quintessential Barker: witty, elegantly composed, filled with dark and often savage wonders. It proves once again that, in Barker's hands, the Fantastique is not only alive and well, but flourishing. This is vital, visionary fiction by a modern master of the form.

Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament

Clive Barker

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the collection Books of Blood, Volume II (1984). It can also be found in the anthology Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror (2010), edited by Ellen Datlow.

Mister B. Gone

Clive Barker

You hold in your hands not a book at all, but a terrifying embodiment of purest evil. Can you feel the electric tingle in your fingers as you are absorbed by the demon Jakabok's tale of his unintentional ascent from the depths of the Inferno? Do you sense the cold dread worming its way into your bloodstream, your sinews, the marrow of your bones as you read more deeply into his earthly education and unspeakable acts? The filth you now grasp has been waiting patiently for you for nearly six hundred years. And now, before you are completely in its thrall, you would do well to follow the foul creature's admonition and destroy this abomination of ink and paper before you turn a single leaf and are lost forever.

You have been warned.

Sacrament

Clive Barker

Sacrament is a novel unlike any that Clive Barker has written. Neither horror nor fantasy, though partaking of both, this masterful work plunges far deeper and soars even higher.

It is the story of Will Rabjohns, perhaps the most famous wildlife photographer in the world, who has made his reputation chronicling the fates of endangered species, including his own. For even as Will rises to the pinnacle of his career, he is witnessing his own world the close-knit San Francisco community that has nurtured and liberated him ravaged by AIDS.

Then an almost mystical encounter with a bear in the Arctic leaves Will all but dead. In the depths of his coma, he revisits the wildernesses of his youth in England and relives the terrifying encounter that created him, both as an artist and a man.

Befriended by a mysterious couple, Rosa McGee and Jacob Steep, the young Will is granted the love he has been denied by his own family. But with that love comes a grim education. For while Rosa shows him the cruelties of passion, Jacob teaches him the purities of death seducing him with the possibility that he might one day slaughter the last of a species and thus change the world forever.

When Will stirs from his long sleep, he realizes that this dark dream, which he thought he had put behind him is still very much a part of who he is. Haunted by its echoes and driven by the certainty that he must face Rosa and Jacob one final time, he sets out on a journey of self-discovery a journey that will lead him from the familiar streets of San Francisco, back to the Yorkshire moors and on to the stark beauty of Scotland's Western Isles. There he will penetrate the ultimate mystery The Domus Mundi and finally discover the secret that links his destiny to that of the innumerable creatures with whom we share our planet.

Sacrament is the book Clive Barker's millions of readers knew he had to write someday: the troubling and passionate masterwork from the pen of one of today's most acclaimed authors.

The Damnation Game

Clive Barker

Chance had ruled Marty Strauss' life for as long as he could remember. Now at last luck was turning his way. Parolled from prison, he becomes bodyguard to Joseph Whitehead, one of the richest men in Europe. But Whitehead has also played with chance - an ancient game which gave him vast power and wealth, in exchange for his immortal soul. Now the forces he played against are back to claim what's theirs. Terryifying forces, with the power to raise the dead; and Marty is trapped between his human masters and Hell itself, with just one last, desperate game left to play.

The Forbidden

Clive Barker

A woman seeking material for her college thesis on "Graffiti: The Semiotics of Urban Despair" visits a housing project where tales of horrible murders lead her to strange art in abandoned apartments.

This novelette originally appeared in Fantasy Tales V7n14, Summer 1985. It has been anthologized many times, and can be found in the collection Books of Blood, Volume V, along with various other collections.

It was the basis for the 1992 movie Candyman.

The Hellbound Heart

Clive Barker

WFA nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology Night Visions 3 (1986), edited by George R.R. Martin.

It was the basis for the 1987 movie Hellraiser.

The Thief of Always

Clive Barker

Mr. Hood's Holiday House has stood for a thousand years, welcoming countless children into its embrace. It is a place of miracles, a blissful round of treats and seasons, where every childhood whim may be satisfied.

There is a price to be paid, of course, but young Harvey Swick, bored with his life and beguiled by Mr. Hood's wonders, does not stop to consider the consequences. It is only when the House shows its darker face--when Harvey discovers the pitiful creatures that dwell in its shadows--that he comes to doubt Mr. Hood's philanthropy.

The House and its mysterious architect are not about to release their captive without a battle, however. Mr. Hood has ambitions for his new guest, for Harvey's soul burns brighter than any soul he has encountered in a thousand years...

Tortured Souls: The Legend of Primordium

Clive Barker

"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.

Note: This novelette was first published in 2001 as an accompaniment to a series of action figure toys know as Clive Barker's Tortured Souls. There were six toys in the series, and each toy was accompanied by the part of the novelette that featured that character.

Weaveworld

Clive Barker

Set in contemporary England, two friends discover a secret magical world and are drawn into a battle between good and evil.

Abarat

Abarat: Book 1

Clive Barker

A journey beyond imagination is about to unfold....

It begins in the most boring place in the world: Chickentown, U.S.A. There lives Candy Quackenbush, her heart bursting for some clue as to what her future might hold.

When the answer comes, it's not one she expects.

Welcome to the Abarat.

Days of Magic, Nights of War

Abarat: Book 2

Clive Barker

Candy Quackenbush's adventures in the amazing world of the Abarat are getting more strange by the hour. Christopher Carrion, the Lord of Midnight, has sent his henchman to capture her. Why? she wonders. What would Carrion want with a girl from Minnesota? And why is Candy beginning to feel that the world of Abarat is familiar to her? Why can she speak words of magic she doesn't even remember learning?

There is a mystery here. And Carrion, along with his fiendish grandmother Mater Motley, suspects that whatever Candy is, she could spoil their plans to take control of the Abarat.

Now Candy's companions must race against time to save her from the clutches of Carrion, and she must solve the mystery of her past before the forces of Night and Day clash and Absolute Midnight descends upon the islands.

A final war is about to begin. And Candy is going to need to make some choices that will change her life forever...

Absolute Midnight

Abarat: Book 3

Clive Barker

"I know that many of you here have waited years for this Hour," Mater Motley said, using that voice that, though it was barely conversational in volume, was somehow heard everywhere. "The waiting is over. Tomorrow there will be no dawn. Only midnight, absolute and eternal."

And so begins a new chapter in the epic story of sixteen-year-old Candy Quackenbush and her journeys through the world of the Abarat, where every hour is an island in one eternal day, and nothing is as it seems.

Candy travels through the Abarat from island to island and across the sea with an unlikely band of friends: the escaped prisoner Malingo the Geshrat, the quarrelsome John Brothers, who all share the same body but never the same opinion, and the many other colorful characters they meet along the way.

The problem is that trouble finds Candy wherever she goes. And soon she discovers a secret plot, masterminded by the diabolical Mater Motley, who is obsessed with becoming Empress of the Islands. Her method is simple. She will darken the skies, putting out the suns, moons, and stars. She will bring absolute midnight.

The Great and Secret Show

Book of The Art: Book 1

Clive Barker

In the little town of Palomo Grove, two great armies are amassing; forces shaped from the hearts and souls of America. In this New York Times bestseller, Barker unveils one of the most ambitious imaginative landscapes in modern fiction, creating a new vocabulary for the age-old battle between good and evil. Carrying its readers from the first stirring of consciousness to a vision of the end of the world, The Great and Secret Show is a breathtaking journey in the company of a master storyteller.

Everville

Book of The Art: Book 2

Clive Barker

On the borderland between this world and the world of Quiddity, the sea of our dreams, sits Everville.For years it has lived in ignorance of the gleaming shore on which it lies.But its ignorance is not bliss. Opening the door between worlds, Clive Barker delivers his characters into the heart of the human mystery; into a place of revelation, where the forces which have shaped our past--and are ready to destroy our future--are at work.

The Book of Blood

Books of Blood

Clive Barker

This short story originally appeared in the collection Clive Barker's Books of Blood: Volume I. It can also be found in the anthology Night Screams, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg.

It (together with the very short story The Book of Blood (a postscript): On Jerusalem Street from Clive Barker's Books of Blood, Volume VI) was the basis for the 2009 movie Book of Blood.

Books of Blood, Volume I

Books of Blood: Book 1

Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction - essay by Ramsey Campbell
  • The Book of Blood - (1984) - short story by Clive Barker
  • The Midnight Meat Train - novelette by Clive Barker
  • The Yattering and Jack - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Pig Blood Blues - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Sex, Death and Starshine - novelette by Clive Barker
  • In the Hills, the Cities - novelette by Clive Barker

Books of Blood, Volume II

Books of Blood: Book 2

Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

  • Dread - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Hell's Event - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament - novelette by Clive Barker
  • The Skins of the Fathers - novelette by Clive Barker
  • New Murders in the Rue Morgue - novelette by Clive Barker

Books of Blood, Volume III

Books of Blood: Book 3

Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

  • Son of Celluloid - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Rawhead Rex - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Confession of a (Pornographer's) Shroud - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Scape-Goats - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Human Remains - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker

Books of Blood, Volume IV

Books of Blood: Book 4

Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

  • The Body Politic - novelette by Clive Barker
  • The Inhuman Condition - (1985) - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Revelations - novella by Clive Barker
  • Down, Satan! - short story by Clive Barker
  • The Age of Desire - novella by Clive Barker

Books of Blood, Volume V

Books of Blood: Book 5

Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

  • The Forbidden - novelette by Clive Barker
  • The Madonna - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Babel's Children - novelette by Clive Barker
  • In the Flesh - novella by Clive Barker

Books of Blood, Volume VI

Books of Blood: Book 6

Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

  • The Life of Death - novelette by Clive Barker
  • How Spoilers Bleed - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Twilight at the Towers - novelette by Clive Barker
  • The Last Illusion - novella by Clive Barker
  • The Book of Blood (a postscript): On Jerusalem Street - short story by Clive Barker

Books of Blood: Volumes 1-3

Books of Blood: Omnibus: Book 1

Clive Barker

With the 1984 publication of Books of Blood, Clive Barker became an overnight literary sensation. He was hailed by Stephen King as "the future of horror," and won both the British and World Fantasy Awards. Now, with his numerous bestsellers, graphic novels, and hit movies like the Hellraiser films, Clive Barker has become an industry unto himself. But it all started here, with this tour de force collection that rivals the dark masterpieces of Edgar Allan Poe. Read him. And rediscover the true meaning of fear.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction (Books of Blood) - (1984) - essay by Ramsey Campbell
  • Books of Blood, Volume I - [Books of Blood - 1] - (1984) - collection
  • The Book of Blood - (1984) - short story
  • The Midnight Meat Train - (1984) - novelette
  • The Yattering and Jack - (1984) - novelette
  • Pig Blood Blues - (1984) - novelette
  • Sex, Death and Starshine - (1984) - novelette
  • In the Hills, the Cities - (1984) - novelette
  • Books of Blood, Volume II - [Books of Blood - 2] - (1984) - collection
  • Dread - (1984) - novelette
  • Hell's Event - (1984) - novelette
  • Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament - (1984) - novelette
  • The Skins of the Fathers - (1984) - novelette
  • New Murders in the Rue Morgue - (1984) - novelette
  • Books of Blood, Volume III - [Books of Blood - 3] - (1984) - collection
  • Son of Celluloid - (1984) - novelette
  • Rawhead Rex - (1984) - novelette
  • Confession of a (Pornographer's) Shroud - (1984) - novelette
  • Scape-Goats - (1984) - novelette
  • Human Remains - (1984) - novelette

Books of Blood: Volumes 4-6

Books of Blood: Omnibus: Book 2

Clive Barker

Here are the stories written on the Book of Blood. They are a map of that dark highway that leads out of life towards unknown destinations. Few will have to take it. Most will go peacefully along lamplit streets, ushered out of living with prayers and caresses. But for a few, the horrors will come, skipping, to fetch them off to the highway of the damned...

From the brilliant World Fantasy Award winner Clive Barker come fourteen spine-chilling stories of darkness unleashed, gathered together in one volume for the first time. These are visionary tales of terror which will curdle the very marrow in your bones...

Table of Contents:

  • Books of Blood, Volume IV - [Books of Blood - 4] - (1985) - collection
  • 1 - The Body Politic - (1985) - novelette
  • 34 - The Inhuman Condition - (1985) - novelette
  • 68 - Revelations - (1985) - novella
  • 108 - Down, Satan! - (1985) - short story
  • 113 - The Age of Desire - (1985) - novella
  • Books of Blood, Volume V - [Books of Blood - 5] - (1985) - collection
  • 1 - The Forbidden - (1985) - novelette
  • 38 - The Madonna - (1985) - novelette
  • 76 - Babel's Children - (1985) - novelette
  • 103 - In the Flesh - (1985) - novella
  • Books of Blood, Volume VI - [Books of Blood - 6] - (1985) - collection
  • 1 - The Life of Death - (1985) - novelette
  • 35 - How Spoilers Bleed - (1985) - novelette
  • 66 - Twilight at the Towers - (1985) - novelette
  • 97 - The Last Illusion - (1985) - novella
  • 149 - The Book of Blood (a postscript): On Jerusalem Street - (1985) - short story

The Hellbound Heart

Hellraiser: Book 1

Clive Barker

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.

The Scarlet Gospels

Hellraiser: Book 2

Clive Barker

The Scarlet Gospels takes readers back many years to the early days of two of Barker's most iconic characters in a battle of good and evil as old as time: The long beleaguered detective Harry D'Amour, investigator of all supernatural, magical, and malevolent crimes faces off against his formidable, and intensley evil rival, Pinhead, the priest of hell. Barker devotees have been waiting for The Scarlet Gospels with bated breath for years, and it's everyting they have begged for and more. Bloody, terrifying, and brilliantly complex, fans and newcomers alike will not be disappointed by the epic, visonary tale that is The Scarlet Gospels. Barker's horror will make your worst nightmares seem like bedtime stories. The Gospals are coming. Are you ready?

The History of the Devil

The Clive Barker Playscripts: Book 1

Clive Barker

The History of the Devil by Clive Barker, originally performed by The Dog Company in 1980. This new publication of the full script includes 7 photos of the original production, poster art and manuscript pages from The Clive Barker Archive.

Edited, with an additional afterword by Phil & Sarah Stokes.

The Magician

The Clive Barker Playscripts: Book 2

Clive Barker

The Magician by Clive Barker, originally performed by The Dog Company in 1978. This first publication of the full script includes 14 photos of the original production, poster art and manuscript pages from The Clive Barker Archive.

Edited, with an additional afterword by Phil amp; Sarah Stokes.

Crazyface

The Clive Barker Playscripts: Book 3

Clive Barker

Crazyface by Clive Barker, originally performed by The Cockpit Youth Theatre in 1982. This new publication of the full script includes poster art from the original production and manuscript pages from The Clive Barker Archive.

Edited, with an additional afterword by Phil & Sarah Stokes.

Hunters in the Snow

The Clive Barker Playscripts: Book 4

Clive Barker

Hunters in the Snow by Clive Barker, originally performed by The Hydra Theatre Company in 1973. This first publication of the full script includes 3 photos of the original production, poster art and manuscript pages from The Clive Barker Archive.

Edited, with an additional afterword by Phil & Sarah Stokes.

Frankenstein in Love

The Clive Barker Playscripts: Book 5

Clive Barker

"Frankenstein in Love opens a new chapter in the life (and death) of fiction's most popular monster, as Frankenstein's monster, more terrifying, more insatiable than ever, bursts into the 20th century.

In a devastated South American state, the monster is acclaimed as a revolutionary hero. But his dreams of absolute power are threatened when his inhuman lust for the beautiful Veronique drives him to one last confrontation with his maker.

In this electrifying romance, the horror of Frankenstein spills out of the cinema screen onto the live stage!" -- Production flyer, 1982

Frankenstein in Love by Clive Barker, originally performed by The Dog Company in 1982. This new publication of the full script includes 8 photos from the original production and later Edinburgh Fringe Festival and poster art from the Clive Barker Archive.

Edited, with an additional afterword by Phil & Sarah Stokes.

Nightlives

The Clive Barker Playscripts: Book 6

Clive Barker

"What did you do last night?

Politician Philip Vandenburgh thinks he was asleep. But he was seen on the other side of the city consorting with hoods and hookers, pimps and pushers.

And, in the back streets, he knifed his best friend in a bloody underworld vendetta.

What did you do last night?

Are you sure?" -- Production flyer, 1980

Nightlives by Clive Barker, originally performed by The Dog Company in 1979. This first publication of the full script includes 8 photos from the original production and poster art from the Clive Barker Archive.

Edited, with an additional afterword by Phil & Sarah Stokes.

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