Clive Barker's Greatest Hits...

The Essential Clive Barker is an entertaining, engrossing collection of excerpts of Clive Barker's short stories, plays and novels. It is broken up in different chapters, each representing a different theme. Barker introduces each, showing how each one not only portrays the theme, but shows the similarities and relationships between the different stories. Some of the themes include Journeys, Love, Bestiary, and of course, Terror... It is a very fascinating read and gives a little better insight into his books, especially the interrelationships.

Most of the work is from his most famous novels, such as _Imajica_, _Weaveworld_ and _Sacrament_, to name a few. He included a few short stories. The one I liked best was a little story called "The Departed" that was originally published in the New York Times as a Halloween ghost story. It's about a woman who dies and wants to see her son for the last time. I'd never read it before, so I especially enjoyed it. He also has some excerpts from plays that he has written. I have yet to read any of his plays in full, but after reading the sections taken from _History of the Devil_, I'm going to have to go look for it. The play is basically that the devil is being put on trial and has to defend himself that he's really not that bad a guy after all. The part where he describes how the crucifixion really came about is an extremely interesting take on the subject.

You get a picture of the stories that inspired some of his later movies. You hear the story taken from _The Damnation Game_ that first introduces us to the evil of the Candyman and his "sweets to the sweet". The story is absolutely chilling to read. The excerpt from _The Hellbound Heart_ is a good introduction to what later became "Hellraiser" on film. That was one book I never read, but I will now. There was also an excerpt from _Cabal_, which later became the movie "Nightbreed", but I don't think it was one of the strongest scenes in the story.

The only down side I can see, is that if you aren't familiar with Barker's work, you may not be able to appreciate it as fully. Though, the excerpts are still entertaining, you need the background information of the story to really understand it. But, it also is tantalizing enough to make you want to pick up and find out what happens next. I have read all his novels, and after reading this book, it definitely makes me want to dive in and reread them all over again... If you're not a fan, you'd be better off waiting and reading some of his novels first and you'd enjoy this book much better. But if you are a fan, the title of the book is self-explanatory...