Joining Harry is a group of magic users, the Harrowers, who help him along the way after Norma Paine is abducted by the Hell Priest and his misshapen minion, Felixson. The story revolves around two of Barker’s iconic characters, Harry D’Amour, his tattooed implacable investigator of the supernatural, and the eloquent Cenobite Hell Priest, better known as Pinhead. This novel has a long history, and he’s had fans on tenterhooks since the 1990s when he first hinted at this work in progress. The Scarlet Gospels marks Clive Barker’s long awaited return to adult horror fiction. The Scarlet Gospels was worth waiting for, it is Barker at his finest a wonderful continuation of the story of Pinhead.ISBN-13: 9781427261571 (Macmillan audiobook)Īvailable: Hardback, Macmillan audiobook, paperback, Kindle edition, Audible edition The ending is just superb, cataclysmic, bittersweet and perfectly fitting. Figuring out just what Pinheads endgame could be is one of the highlights. The plot moves forward swiftly with a number of twists and turns. That's not to say Harry is in anyway undershadowed, it's just that in this book its soo good to be bad.
It's a different reading experience to most horror novels I've read, I found myself rooting for Pinhead as much as I was Harry and company. Both Harry and Pinhead get equal screen-time but it's the path that Pinhead takes that really steals the show.
What impresses me most about The Scarlet Gospels is the sense of scale you get, its a tale as grand as they come - and yet without losing touch with the individual characters. Luckily Barker decided to create a full-length novel focusing on everyone's favourite Cenobite and Barkers other landmark creation, the infamous private investigator Harry D'Amour. He also seemed more competent that most horror creations of the time, less inclined to lose his prey by all but the narrowest of margins or cheap tricks.Īnyone who has followed Clive Barkers career will know that The Scarlet Gospels has been a long, long time in production - as far back in time as 1998 Barker mentioned he was writing the book, originally planned as anthology with a Pinhead novella included. This guy was the real deal, a character directly from the pits of Hell. This wasn't some guy who'd just gone bad, or a long-toothed creature of the dark.
This guy was much more coldly intelligent and collected than any I'd seen before. Hellraiser brought with it a different kind of bad guy. Growing up in the 80's his name was often spoken in quiet awe by impressionable teenagers, not least due to his infamous Books of Blood collections.įor me though it was the character of Pinhead that managed to solidify his standing as a master of horror. It has to be said that even though I don't entertain much horror, Clive Barker is somewhat of a legend.
0 kommentar(er)
