This 567-page sampler of Clive Barker's darkly fantastic work has an unusual format. You'd expect a huge collection of his macabre short stories (like the three 1984 Books of Blood that made his name in horror), or perhaps an omnibus of the sinisterly exotic novels in which he moved from Grand Guignol to his own warped brand of epic fantasy. Instead, here's a book of bits: 70-odd passages from novels and plays, plus four complete stories and an introduction in which our author offers glimpses of what makes him tick. The Essential Clive Barker is thematically arranged in 13 sections, each with its own brief prologue: "Doorways," "Journeys," "Visions and Dreams," "Lives," and so on. Some of these fragments are powerful and evocative, some numinous, some horrid; many are teasers to make you wonder what comes next. Reading this is like sitting through a movie-length feature composed entirely of trailers flaunting pyrotechnic effects. It's a volume for dipping into rather than swallowing whole. There are fine things here, especially the complete stories--including "In the Hills, the Cities," an unforgettable mix of surreal horror and Balkan political allegory. But aficionados will already own the books containing these excerpts, while newcomers surely prefer to begin with a complete novel or collection. A perfect present for the Barker fan who has everything else. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk


From Library Journal
Barker (Galilee) takes a thoughtful approach in this anthology of excerpts from his short stories, novels, plays, and screenplays. Illustrating 13 themes prominent in his work, including terror, love, art, and memory, the selections cover Barker's evolving career from works of horror to dark fantasy to his latest genre-combining novels. The introduction offers insights into the selected themes, Barker's philosophy of writing, and the events that inspired him to write. Each theme also begins with a short introduction that places the selected works within that theme's context. While many of the novel excerpts are quite short, they do stand on their own. The uninitiated reader will find the selections intriguing, not frustrating, while the reader familiar with Barker will find new perspectives on his complex works. But with no new material included, demand may be low. Recommended for larger public libraries.ADevon Thomas, formerly with Highland Township P.L., MI Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
A mega-anthology of (mostly) excerpts from novels and plays by the popular and critically acclaimed horror writer whose increasingly ambitious work keeps pushing against genre boundaries. ``Private Legends,'' Barker's detailed introduction, offers interesting revelations about pivotal moments in his youth that influenced his development as writer, painter, and filmmaker; it also firmly distances the author from the realistic tradition and sturdily defends what he rather grandly calls ``the fantastique.'' The book is arranged in 13 sections representing favorite themes. ``Doorways,'' for example, presents entries into other worlds, in a florid (and lurid) passage from the play Paradise Street and a chilling snippet from the novel The Great and Secret Show (1990). Standouts include a riveting story, ``The Forbidden,'' which became the brilliant horror film Candyman; several evocative scenes from Barker's underrated visionary novel Sacrament (1996); and memorable passages from two masterpieces: Cabal (1988) and The Damnation Game (1987). Barker's best fiction should be read in its entirety; still, this generous collection offers seductive proof of the redoubtable imaginative power of one of our boldest inventors. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Washington Times
"[Clive Barker] is a mapmaker of the mind, charting the farthest reaches of the imagination.... His ambition and audacity are unparalleled; we know that we are in the presence of a vision that is genuine, unique and lasting."


J. G. Ballard
"A powerful and fascinating writer with a brilliant imagination ... an outstanding storyteller."


New York Times Book Review
"[Barker's] extravagantly unconventional inventions are ingenious refractions of our common quest to experience and understand the mysterious world..."


Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"A writer of stunning imagination."


Locus
"The premier metaphysicist of contemporary fiction."


Washington Post Book World
"Barker has an unparalleled talent for envisioning other worlds."


Publishers Weekly
"Barker's prodigious imagination delivers magicians, doppelgangers, Boschean creatures of staggeringly various descriptions and a pantheon of gods and goddesses..."


Kansas City Star
"Barker just keeps getting better... [This book] serves as an introduction to a rather dangerous but oh-so-enthralling gentleman."


Washington Times
"[Barker] is a mapmaker of the mind, charting the farthest reaches of the imagination.... His ambition and audacity are unparalleled..."


Denver Rocky Mountain News
"...has carefully culled out truly representative pieces by which your can judge or relive his unique brand of fantastique fiction."


Book Description
"I wonder if the reverse is not also in some way true. That the artist is constantly working on anelaborate and fantasticated self-portrait, but at the end has drawn, unbeknownst, a picture of the world." -- Clive Barker, "Private Legends: An Introduction"Clive Barker, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author, playwright, artist, producer, director, screenwriter, and one of the world's master storytellers, writing in the haunting and moving traditions of Poe and Dickens, invites us to join him on a dazzling, wondrous journey through the worlds of his imagination and to experience visions, dreams, love, terror, heaven and hell, and revenge.As we read, we discover and explore the dream-sea Quiddity and the islands of Ephemeris; the five Dominions of the Imajica, of which the Earth is but an imperfect facet; the rapturous world woven into an ancient, threadbare carpet in a derelict house in Liverpool; Hood's Holiday House where each day contains four seasons and children's wishes may come true; the Sky Room of Galilee, where the creation of the universe may be witnessed; and the clubs and bars of San Francisco and New York, in which all manner of sexual adventures lie in wait.In these stories, the real and the miraculous are within a breath of one another, life gives way to death, and death to life; doorways open into other states of existence, and each doorway leads us back to our own dreams and fears.The Essential Clive Barker is an irresistible narrative compendium that superbly represents the impressive quality and range of Barker's fiction, spanning more than twenty years of writing. It contains more than seventy excerpts from novels and plays and four full-length short stories, all personally selected by Barker, and offers a privileged insight into a remarkable writer and his art.


About the Author
The Thief of Always is Clive Barker's first book for children. He is the internationally best-selling and award-winning author of several books for adults, including Weaveworld, Imajica, and Galilee. Mr. Barker regularly shows his art in Los Angeles and New York, and produces and directs for both large screen and small. He lives in Los Angeles.


Excerpted from The Essential Clive Barker : Selected Fiction by Clive Barker, Armistead Maupin. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
Chapter OneDoorwaysWe pass through doorways all the time; they're so familiar to us we fail to appreciate their mythic resonance. In the language of the fantastic, doorways present the reader with passage into other worlds, other times, other states of being. The most widely known example is probably in the film of The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy tentatively opens the door of her house and discovers that she has been living in a black and white world, and that the experience that awaits her on the other side is rainbow-colored. What more perfect analogy for the power of the imagination?In the chapter that follows there are very few literal doorways; but all the selections describe moments when a character discovers that the rules of the world are changing in front of his or her eyes. Nothing will ever be the same again.Cal Mooney topples from the wall of a yard and falls into an enchanted carpet. Private detective Harry D'Amour stumbles into a place of passage between this world and Quiddity, the dream-sea. A boy called Will Rabjohns discovers that killing a living thing is also a doorway; a place in the world where everything changes. This, of course, is the reverse of the scene from Oz. Some color goes out of the world when Will is taught to kill.Most of the journeys these characters are about to take are outlandish. But the experience isn't completely remote from us, is it? We've all crossed a threshold or turned a corner and come upon some revelation that has changed our lives. A face to fall in love with; a library filled with undiscovered books; a doctor, making a small, sad smile as he rises to beckon us in . . .From Weaveworld The birds did not stop their spiraling over the city as Cal approached. For every one that flew off, another three or four joined the throng.The phenomenon had not gone unnoticed. People stood on the pavement and on doorsteps, hands shading their eyes from the glare of the sly, and stared heavenward. Opinions were everywhere ventured as to the reason for this congregation. Cal didn't stop to offer his, but threaded his way through the maze of streets, on occasion having to double back and find a new route, but by degrees getting closer to the hub.And now, as he approached, it became apparent that his first theory had been incorrect. The birds were not feeding. There was no swooping nor squabbling over a six-legged crumb, nor any sign in the lower air of the insect life that might have attracted these numbers. The birds were simply circling. Some of the smaller species, sparrows and finches, had tired of flying and now lined rooftops and fences, leaving their larger brethren--carrion-crows, magpies, gulls--to occupy the heights. There was no scarcity of pigeons here either; the wild variety banking and wheeling in flocks of fifty or more, their shadows rippling across the rooftops. There were some domesticated birds too, doubtless escapees like 33. Canaries and budgerigars: birds called from their millet and their bells by whatever force had summoned the others. For these birds being here was effectively suicide. Though their fellows were at present too excited by this ritual to take note of the pets in their midst, they would not be so indifferent when the circling spell no longer bound them. They would be cruel and quick. They'd fall on the canaries and the budgerigars and peck out their eyes, killing them for the crime of being tamed. But for now, the parliament was at peace. It mounted the air, higher, ever higher, busying the sky.The pursuit of this spectacle had led Cal to a part of the city he'd seldom explored Here the plain square houses of the council estates gave way to a forlorn and eerie no-man's land where streets of once-fine, three-story terraced houses still stood inexplicably preserved from the bulldozer, surrounded by areas leveled in expectation of a boomtime that had never come, islands in a dust sea.It was one of these streets--Rue Street the sign read--that seemed the point over which the flocks were focused. There we more sizable assemblies of exhausted birds here than in any of the adjacent streets; they twittered and preened themselves on the eaves and chimney tops and television aerials.Cal scanned sky and roof alike, making his way along Rue Street as he did so. And there--a thousand-to-one chance--he caught sight of his bird. A solitary pigeon, dividing a cloud of sparrows. Years of watching the sky, waiting for pigeons to return from races, had given him an eagle eye; he could recognize a particular bird by a dozen idiosyncrasies in its flight pattern. He had found 33; no doubt of it. But even as he watched, the bird disappeared behind the roofs of Rue Street.He gave chase afresh, finding a narrow alley which cut between the terraced houses halfway along the road, and let on to the larger alley that ran behind the row. It had not been well kept. Piles of household refuse had been dumped along its length; orphan dustbins overturned, their contents scattered.But twenty yards from where he stood there was work going on. Two removal men were maneuvering an armchair out of the yard behind one of the houses, while a third stared up at the birds. Several hundred were assembled on the yard walls and windowsills and railings. Cal wandered along the alley, scrutinizing this assembly for pigeons. He found a dozen or more among the multitude, but not the one he sought."What d'you make of it?"He had come within ten yards of the removal men, and one of them, the idler, was addressing the question to him."I don't know," he answered honestly."Maybe they're goin' to migrate," said the younger of the two armchair carriers, letting drop his half of the burden and staring up at the sky.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Whether creating novels, paintings, motion pictures, children's books or television series, Clive Barker aims for one thing: to explore the farthest edges of the human imagination. Over the past two decades, Barker has built a solid reputation for works of subversive fantasy that stretch the very limits of human understanding. The Essential Clive Barker is both a look back at and a look forward to Barker's artistry. From his immensely popular early debut, the thrilling Books Of Blood, to the recent and delicately nuanced Sacrament and Galilee, The Essential Clive Barker demonstrates that Barker's career has been one of transformation.

Inside The Essential Clive Barker you'll find: reverent foreword by novelist Armistead Maupin. An introduction by Barker in which he recalls a terrifying vision from his youth, a distinguished person who helped shape his writings, and a dramatic natural event that occurred as he took time off to compile this volume. A broad band of Barker's work, including excerpts from novels, novellas, and plays as well as complete shorter fictions, some of which have never before been published. Seemingly unrelated pieces of fiction tied together into one of 13 themes that Barker uses as an organizational tool in this volume. These themes are those that frequently arise in Barker's work: doorways, journeys, dreams, worlds, and more. Within these, Barker works on other familiar thematic territory, such as love and death and heaven and hell. In his introduction, Barker suggests that this anthology is best consumed in fragments based on the themes rather than read in a linear fashion. Barker offers a primer in which he explains the roots of the themes, as well as some of the connections between the stories that comprise a particular theme. He explains how he has tried to alter the rigid tradition of genre novels, as they create preconceived notions that limit the scope of our most imaginative fictions. The publication of The Essential Clive Barker coincides with the reissues of Everville and The Great And Secret Show in trade paperback. Together these books create the foundation for the revision of Clive Barker and display the magic that has made him an inimitable and popular storyteller for the past two decades.

FROM THE CRITICS

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A writer of stunning imagination.

Locus

The premier metaphysicist of contemporary fiction.

Washington Times

[Clive Barker] is a mapmaker of the mind, charting the farthest reaches of the imagination.... His ambition and audacity are unparalleled; we know that we are in the presence of a vision that is genuine, unique and lasting.

Jorge Luis Borges

A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Over the years he fills a given surface with images of provinces and kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fish, rooms, instruments, heavenly bodies, horses, and people. Shortly before he dies, he discovers that this patient labyrinth of lines is a drawing of his own face. —The Maker

New York Times Book Review

[Barker's] extravagantly unconventional inventions are ingenious refractions of our common quest to experience and understand the mysterious world around us and the mysteries within ourselves. Read all 16 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

A powerful and fascinating writer with a brilliant imagination . . . an outstanding stroyteller. — J. G. Ballard

Jorges Luis Borges