Books of Blood volume III by Clive Barker

[koilungfish]

Title - Books of Blood volume III
Author - Clive Barker
ISBN - 0-7221-1414-1

"She fell awkwardly and landed hard on something soft. Here the smell of rot was incalculably stronger, it coaxed the stomach into the throat. She reached out her hand to right herself in the darkness, and on every side there was slime and cold. She felt as though she'd been dumped into a case of partially-gutted fish."

Books of Blood volume III is, as the title states, the third volume in a series of books wherein the short early works of Clive Barker are to be found. Volume III contains five stories:

Son of Celluloid mixes the magic of cinema with stomach cancer and comes up with something vile and sticky. Most of Barker's horror is sticky - orifices, bodily emissions and internal organs are slathered all over this book, and most of the rest of his work as I recall - and Son of Celluloid is no different.

Rawhead Rex is a miniature horror novel. If one were to consider a full-length horror novel to be a full-grown tree, Rawhead Rex is a sapling. It contains all of the plot structure, characters, scenes and events to make a proper novel; it lacks only length. It's also better than a good many horror novels, which says a lot about Barker, who has essentially written a bonsai horror novel here.

Confessions of a (Pornographer's) Shroud plays on the human aspect of horror. Where Rawhead Rex was the classic monster versus man, this is about a man who is made into a monster against a man who is monstrous. There is an obvious basis for comparison to Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, which shows that M.R. James can do more with less. Barker's love for slopping on the gore doesn't impair his ability to come up with ideas - one gets the impression that he pours on the blood and filth because he likes blood and filth, not because he thinks it's shocking - but it does mean his horrors are better at inspiring revulsion than terror.

Scapegoats is a rather more thoughtful tale, although barely less sticky. The concept is interesting but the story has the least meat to it of all here. The title doesn't make that much sense as it relates to the events of the story. There is more atmosphere, possibly because the horror is less physically present, but all in all the general effect is to leave the reader a bit bemused.

Human Remains is about a rentboy with perfect face and something that would rather like to borrow that. In true British fashion, as with Scapegoats, the ending is ambiguous leaning into what would constitute defeat in an American story, but the underlying structure suggests there's more going on here than is obvious. The repeated references to Flavius, a long-dead Roman who does not technically appear in the story, suggest a thought, an idea under the story, a consideration on identity and mortality, that never fully reached the surface.

All in all, Books of Blood volume III is a short collection of four okay horror stories and one bonsai horror novel, all absolutely soaked to the bone in bodily fluids and actions. If you like horror meaty, with random sex, Barker's a good choice.

Also, Son of Celluloid features a female character who is overweight, who not only thinks and feels about her weight in a realistic fashion but also actually uses it to her advantage. Other stories feature a monster being repelled by sacred femininity, a Catholic monster, menstruation getting mentioned at all, let alone as something relevant to the plot rather than a source of cheap gore, and a totally non-judgemental view of gay prostitution. Kudos to Mr Barker on all that.

This book is:
* - short
* - sticky
* - okay-to-pretty good

This book is not:
* - refined intellectual horror
* - Mr Clean White American versus The Scary Dark Thing
* - the work of an author who has reached the height of his abilities