You know you should not read this review don’t you?

(Hardcover version)

When you read this review can you hear my voice in your head? How does it sound like? Is it someone you know? Well that is what I thought. As you may have guessed you shouldn't read this review. What I am about to tell you is not good for you to know. For your own good you should not read another word. So stop now! I said stop reading! Well, well, there you go reading it anyway; don't tell me I didn't warn you.

This unique book is both a story about a demon and a conversation with that demon all at once. My first paragraph is my feeble attempt at imitating what goes on in the book. In the book there are several requests to stop reading the book and burn it instead, and some of these requests are threats of torture and threats of eternal damnation if you don't burn the book. This gets a little tired after a while, but I found the concept of a demon both telling his gruesome life story and talking to you and threatening you all at the same time quite innovative and creepy.

About the book

The name of the demon is Jakabok Botch. He escaped the ninth circle of Hell in the 14th century. He has been with us ever since and if you buy this book and read it he will be with you too. He will be much closer to you than you can guess at this moment. Jakabok Botch is ugly, severely burned, he has two tails, he hates mankind, and he likes to take warm baths in the fresh blood of infants. He definitely had a hellish childhood so despite him raising hell on earth and being so cruel, you also feel sorry for the demon, and you sort of start liking him too, like a beast you feel close too.

I admit that I did not think the book was very scary, but for me it was still a page turner. I found the book to be interesting and creative. I found the comparisons between the heartless barbarism of people in less enlightened times (as well as today) and that of demons in Hell enlightening. In some ways earth is a lot like another circle of Hell in which we are our own demons. However, in this circle of Hell, there is a choice, a choice that the eternally damned demons do not have. Demons and Humans are so similar and yet different.

An episode in the book that I found to be quite intriguing was the war and the subsequent negotiation between the angels of heaven and the demons of hell over the written word at the time and place of Gutenberg's invention. This event determined our future and this book also has a very peculiar place in this history.

I am currently also reading two other books by Clive Barker, Books of Blood and Hellbound Heart. Clive Barker's books are creepy, dark, gory, bloody and scary. He has an amazing imagination and he is an incredibly skilled author. This book is different in the sense that it is not as gory and perhaps not as scary as his other books. This is why many of his fans do not like this book as much as his other books. However, in my opinion this book is very creative, imaginative, interesting and still creepy. For me it was a real page turner. Despite the repeated requests to stop reading and burn the book I had to keep reading.

I think that certain stories in, for example, the Books of Blood are too weird and not just creepy, but repulsive. There are also near X-rated parts in the Books of Blood but not in this book. So with this "Clive Barker light" he may be trying to reach a wider more timid audience. If, on the other hand, you are into really dark and gory stories, and you want something really scary, then this may not be the best Clive Barker book. In case you don't know who Clive Barker is, it is his book Hellbound Heart which is the basis for the movie Hellraiser.

Final recommendation

With this book Clive Barker may be trying to reach a wider audience and is letting down some of his fans in the process. However, this "Clive Barker light" worked for me and I found it a quite creepy page turner.