that man has some series issues, or something. All his books are seriously messed up, as well as his movies. Never the less, I quite enjoy them. Do you prefer his fantasy or his horror stuff, although they tend to blend into each other.

I have not read all his books but my two favorites are "Imajica" and "The thief of Always" I can't say that I like any of the movies. Well, maybe the first Hellraiser. "Nightbreed"(Cabal) was a huge disapointment!

[This message was edited by FGum on August 12, 2002 at 07:36 AM.]

I love his short stories. They're these little vignettes, just tiny little echoes of darkness, beautiful in their own way.

"Thief of Always" is on my list of favourite books.

-------------------------
In the end, I'm left with a selective memory and the tyranny of eternal hope.

I find it next to impossible to distinguish horror from fantasy when it comes to Clive Barker...When it comes to pure story-telling, he is right up there with Neil Gaiman...Faves are Imajica, Weaveworld, and The Great And Secret Show...Truth be known, I like everything I've read by him...Not too many writers I can say that about.

"Keep chasing the dragon and eventually you will catch it." - quote the wraVyn

The only full novel of his I have read is Galilee. Boy, did that suck. And I found it odd how a book by a gay author had so much Sapphism in it.

The Hellbound Heart was okay.

I have started reading Imajica once or twice. It seems much better. I can't wait until I get around to reading all of it.

i like the way he has developed, he's gotten away from the over the top gross out stuff, and i find his more delicate touch more disturbing


can't wait for new stuff!!

q.....

I heard that his next project is a series of children's books. Disney is tied into it some how, but I don't remember the exact details. Anyway, I think the series is about a girl who travels to different world~ not an overly original premise, but I'm sure they will be enjoyable.

I heard something a while back that "The Thief of Always" was going to be made into an animated musical? (shudders) Has anyone else heard this or do I need to up my medication again?

An animated Musical?? Oh dear...... I hadn't heard about that one.

I find that most of his stuff is pretty much mainstream fantasy (Imajica, Weaveworld, Thief of always, Great and secret Show) yet I still have to go looking in Horror to find any of his books.

I find this a little anoying. As in someone once read the hellbound heart and said 'oh he's a horror writer' and never bothered to read any of the rest to put them in the right section.

this opens a whole can of worms about classification and genre definitions but still...

Try the books of blood. Those are most definately horror. And, I think he calls himself a horror writer, so its not all labeling. I know what you mean though.

<nod> All his early output was firmly horror. Books of Blood, Cabal, Hellbound Heart, In the Flesh, Damnation Game, also his early plays. He's not being pigon-holed any more than say, King is.

---
jello.
aka aron.

His fantasies can seem like horrors to others, wouldn't you say? Perspective is everything.

I have been a serious Barker fan for years and years, and what got me into it was work like Hellraiser. But as I got to know hiw writing better, travelling through books like Imagica and Weaveworld, my perspective on him changed. He is a Creator, of the highest sort. Its hard to think of a word that properly encapsulates what he does, like a revelation into the Other all around us, just under the surface and yet wholly unreachable. With him, I have been so transported, so swept away, its magical unto itself.

The latest book of his I just read a few weeks ago was Sacrament, and I (unlike some others) thoroughly enjoyed it. This felt like the most personal of all his books thus far, and he admits as much.

"It's the book closest to my heart of all the books that I have written, in the sense that it contains all the autobiographical elements. It contains a gay hero, it contains a hero who has relocated from England, northern England to here on the west coast. It contains a passionate, I would like to say, commitment to understand and devotion to animals and to the diversity of species. It contains a lot of material about AIDS and about people who have died of AIDS and that are dying of AIDS and what that issue is. So, these are all the things which touch my life. I've lost friends, we probably all have now... it's very much a part of who I am, as a guy, middle-aged, looking at my career, and saying: Well, how can I put more meaning in what I do? How can I make what I do deeper, richer and better? Will is in the middle of life and he's doing that. He's looking at his life and he's saying: I've spent all my time as a creative individual, as a witness. I've been witnessing the world, and now I'm coming to a place where I really want to connect working with all of it.
"Will, is basically a gay man. But, one of his closest friends is Adrianna, and she's not, by any means, a fag hand. She's not, by any means, someone who hangs around queer bars cause she can't get laid. She's a woman who has a passionate sexual life of her own, but is devoted to Will as a friend. Those tensions, descriptions of who we are in our emotional, sexual, physical, spiritual lives are in the book cause I think the way we are in our lives, their ambiguities in every nature, in every part and every part of our nature. And I think not to allow that to be there is to limit [ourselved] of what Pat Robertsons in the world want more than anything in the world is to be limited. What the Bob Doles want. Because the more limited we are, the more power they have over us. "
Interview
By Amber Black and Tim Trautmann, Review(?), 1996

and and and...there cannot be a discussion about Clive Barker without mention of his most recent collaborative work with McFarlane Collectibles, of which my fiance and I have entirely too many of. The Tortured Souls Collection...can't wait til they're finally out!

http://www.spawn.com/toys/series.asp?division=toys&category=horror&series=barker2

Barker's work as an artist and a writer are inspirational. If only I could get my act together like he has.

Yeah I can't wait for the second series of tortured souls to come out.
I've got all of the first set.

quote:

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Originally posted by Grandlethal:
The only full novel of his I have read is _Galilee_. Boy, did that suck.

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Really? I loved it. It was such a different book for him. And so many textures. But gah! I could scream, he didn't ever reveal WHAT happened that night...

Loved the Tortured Souls. Can't look at...bugger, forgot his name....Telios? No. The one hanging by his face.

Wockies Rule.

Picked out my next audiobook once the one I'm listening to (Zelazny) is done. Abarat, the new Clive Barker (found in Young Adult section, not horror). Though I haven't started it yet, I wanted to tell y'all that there's a promotional poster you can get (it's in the dump if your local store got one) while supplies last. Though I'm listening to this one, I may yet buy the book as well as it looks like it's filled with Barker's own art, and in full color! Woo!

Grandlethal: I haven't read Galilee so I can't say anything about it, but Imajica is excellent. I've read it three times... give that one a try.

John Paul Allen

<I>"The best time for me was just before the screaming stopped and their voices hit that pitch." - Jeffrey Michael Roberts, Gifted Trust</I>

I've read Weaveworld and one of the Books of Blood, I can't remember which one and I'm too lazy to look right now.

I thought Neverwhere had some uncomfortable similarities with Weaveworld, what with the mad, genocidal angels and all.

Someone mentioned a series of children's books tied somehow to Disney. That's Abarat, the first book having just been released. It includes some 100 of his own paintings, and (as I near the end), I'm finding it to be wonderful and inspiring, and somehow not feeling it's a children's book. (Don't believe I felt The Thief of Always was much of a children's book, either).

I haven't read all, or even a lot, of Clive Barker. But I was fortunate enough to bump into him at a bar one night some years ago (odder things have happened; and considering that this was outside of a convention where he was a guest, this was not entirely a shock), and in person he's probably one of the single most impressive people I've ever met. Amicable, friendly...talked to me for a quite a long time, me being an unpublished (at the time) and aspiring author.

- John

- John Urbancik
author of Sins of Blood and Stone
www.darkfluidity.com