I started the summer by delving back into Clive Barker’s Books of Blood, a collection of short stories from early in Clive Barker’s career.

Clive Barker started out writing horror. His novella, The Hellbound Heart , went on to became the original Hellraiser film, which Barker himself wrote and directed. If you haven’t heard of the Hellraiser film series, you may be more familiar with it’s scary character, Pinhead.

Books of Blood were published in 1984-1985 a year or two before The Hellbound Heart. There are six volumes in total, however today they are generally available in two omnibus editions of volumes 1-3 and volumes 4-6. I haven’t read much of volumes 4-6, however I started reading volumes 1-3 back in 2006, this summer I had the urge to pick it off the shelf and revisit it.

I’m glad I did, Books of Blood is as compelling as when…