Reviews

Τα βιβλία του αίματος 3 by Clive Barker

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mrwilliams's review against another edition

4.0

‘Human Remains’ is the best short story out of the first three “Books of Blood”. It is beautiful and sad and unsettling. Barker’s second “Books of Blood” didn’t do much for me. I was hesitant to get into the third book. I am so happy I finally sat down and read this collection. There is a thread of similarity passing through all five stories that I think really helps make this such a strong collection.

carlosernesto's review against another edition

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4.0

This may seem like an odd thing to say about a horror writer, especially someone as boundary-pushing as Barker was (in his debut), but I think Clive Barker's Books of Blood sort of hit a sweet spot. They're shocking and bloody without descending into hackwork. They've got plenty of interesting characters yet never seem to drag. They're smart and creative without becoming pretentiously clever. I wouldn't say he gets it right all the time (see "The New Murders in the Rue Morgue" in volume 2), but since good horror is actually rather hard to write, his batting average on this series is phenomenal.

persypie's review against another edition

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2.0

“I saw the heart of nothing and survived.”

Most of the stories in this collection were a disappointment, with the exception of Scape-Goat for being moderately better than the rest.

They can’t all be winners, but this was a disappointing selection of stories that bored me.

I wish I would have kept up with running reviews for each story in this collection (as is now tradition) but alas, I did not. I’ll add the ones I do have here.

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INDIVIDUAL REVIEWS
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Son of Celluloid ⭐️⭐️
“Nobody dies in the movies. You can always thread the celluloid up again.”

Well, thank goodness the “fat” girl was here to save the day (at a whopping 225 lbs, give me a break). I really liked parts of this story, but it was undeniably fatphobic, and I’m very over the horror industry needing to rape young virgin girls.

+++

Rawhead Rex ⭐️
“He would certainly die. It was purely a matter of time and inclination.”

They can’t all be winners.