I had read a lot of Clive Barker’s short stories when I was younger, but forgot which ones I had read since I hadn’t read them all. I couldn’t remember if I had read In the Flesh or Inhuman Condition since they both started with the same letter. While reading this one, none of it was familiar until I got to the second of four stories, called “The Forbidden”. It is the basis for the Candyman movies. I never saw the movie, but the story stuck with me since it was very creepy and gross. When I read it, the movie had not been made, but one scene in it became ingrained in my brain. A woman who is doing some graduate school research on a very poor neighborhood. She goes into an abandoned house to find drawn on the wall an extremely disturbing face laughing, but the doorway was being used as the mouth. It was so descriptive that when I had an assignment in my junior English class to describe a room that another person in the class would have to guess who it belonged to, I described that room. No one guessed it was the room of a psychopathic killer, but instead thought it was a messed up teenager. :)
The first story in the book, called “In the Flesh”, didn’t do much for me. It had supernatural and horror elements to it with a guy who had questions about good and evil and where sin comes from. Then he gets a cellmate who just isn’t quite right. I think when I first started reading Clive Barker, I was attracted more to his horror stories, but as I got older, I enjoyed his fantasy stories more. The first one was more in the horror realm, but beyond the final twist and the “city” that he dreams about, I didn’t care much about the crazy cellmate. I actually could have enjoyed the entire story if the cellmate had been left out, even though I guess it was the point of the story, I just didn’t care for that half of it.
I actually enjoyed each story more than the last one so I did enjoy “The Forbidden” more, but my favorite part is still the room description. The rest of it was not as cool as I remembered. I did enjoy the third story, “The Madonna”, that did have supernatural elements but it seemed more in the fantasy vein and I just loved it. It is about an abandoned bath house where naked women swayed some men to come to them, but the men might not have wanted to do it if they knew the consequences.
My favorite story was the last one called “Babel’s Children” where a women who loves to drive off the beaten path comes across a nunnery that isn’t run by nuns, but has held some brilliant minds captive for years for some very twisted games. It was the most realistic story out of all of them, but you still had to suspend your disbelief about the games being played. With the way some things happen in the world, you wonder sometimes that maybe major world decisions are being made the way it is described in the book. I had a good chuckle about the absurdity of it.
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Randolf Jaffe works in the Dead Letter Office in Omaha, Nebraska where he stumbles across people talking about the Art, which is something that exists in another plane of existence. He learns about Quiddity, which is called a dream sea where people float in their minds when they are born, when they fall in love for the first time and when they die. He wants to find out about this Art, so he leaves to find out more about. This leads to a huge battle between good and evil in a tiny California town where the residents do not know what to make of bizarre creatures that impregnate virgins, feed off of people's fears and dreams, and the threat of huge creatures trying to break through the plane of existence to bring hell on Earth.
I tried to read this book many years ago, but didn't enjoy it back then. I think a lot of it had to do with that I loved when Clive Barker wrote about England in so many other stories. I was put off with almost all of it taking place in California since I did not view that as some exotic place and I became bored. I don't have that issue any longer, so I gave it another show in reading it.
I loved it this time. It is a very big book, but it is an epic story and it needs to be long. I love how when other authors write fantasy and they create an entire different world that does not take place in any sense of the real world, but Clive Barker created this world in the middle of the real world. There were extraordinary beings interacting with ordinary people, and I enjoyed reading their reactions.
My only complaint about it was after building up to what would be the final climax, there wasn't a great sense of urgency towards the end of the book. I didn't have my usual sense of trying to find out what was going to happen next, skimming over lines, forcing myself to go back and read slower so I wouldn't miss anything, but then going back to skimming so I could find out what happens next. Also, Barker has been very descriptive in other stories about horrors, but when he was trying to describe the huge, big baddies that were trying to break through, they didn't sound very gross or horrific.
Even with those complaints, it wasn't enough to destroy my overall enjoyment of the book. Also, the very ending gave hope to the sequel (Everville) and another epic adventure.
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A man loses his wife just after she gives birth to their daughter and he discovers he is a death merchant that needs to collect soul objects after people die.
I loved this book. I loved the way Christopher Moore constructs sentences. For example, instead of just saying that someone told someone else to hold on one second. Instead he writes, "Charlie was going to try to come up with some kind of answer when his cell phone rang and he held up his finger to pause time." I found the way he described completely normal, everyday situations in highly amusing and often comical ways.
The main character is very identifiable since he is just an average guy who gets sucked into being a grim reaper, but doesn't know all the rules and not sure if he is doing anything correctly. While he stumbles around trying to figure that out, he has his young daughter to contend with who is a little bit odd, but he still thinks she is an angel, even when she brings hellhounds home as pets. It only gets better from there.
Even with all the humor, the story was not just a light little story. There was thrilling aspects and a lot of suspense and tension in the major storyline and between characters. A lot of research was done about underworld aspects or a lot of imagination (if there was no research involved) about the entire underworld. It is a full-fledged story with humor to break through all the dark stuff. It really made me want to read other books by the author.
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A newspaper reporter at a small Chicago newspaper is sent on assignment to her old hometown in Wind Gap, Mo. to find out why young girls keep showing up dead.
This was a really quick read. I found it very enthralling, especially the parts where the main character described why she cut herself when she was younger. I never understood cutting, so reading a character trying to describe why they say it and what they are thinking when they do it, helps to understand why young girls do it. That isn't the main part of the story, but just a subplot that really helps the reader get inside the main character's head while she is trying to work on the murder story for her paper in a town she did not want to return. She ran away to get away from her mother, but she was back living with her mother and her young half-sister that her mother adores, while also dealing with the haunting reminders of her dead younger sister that her mother obviously loved more than her.
There is a lot going on in the story, but it is very well written. My only complaint was I saw who was committing the murders about halfway through the book. I didn't guess the full reason, but it wasn't surprising when I found out the full reason behind it. Gillian Flynn is a writer for Entertainment Weekly. She reviews television. I wonder if watching and reviewing crime shows gave her some ideas for the book, but from watching my fair share of them myself, I think that was what helped me guess the killer.
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In old English times, young Tristan has fallen in love with the most beautiful girl in the village of Wall. She does promised him a kiss if he retrieved a fallen star, so he goes off searching for it.
A quick read, written like the old fairy tales with flowery language. It reads as if it was written in the time that it takes place. It has the fantasy twist where beyond the Wall is a whole different world that most people in the village are not allowed to travel, but Tristan is able. He goes off having adventures, searching and finding the star, trying to get her back to Wall when she doesn't want to go with him and is angry that she fell in the first place.
I enjoyed the star's spunk and unwillingness to cooperate with the young man trying to kidnap her, even though he didn't see it that way. He viewed her as an object and finally sees her as more than that, even though she isn't human, she still has feelings. Tristan was still likeable, even when he was so bull-headed and clueless that the girl he loved back home could care less about him. He grows up on his adventures, even though the entire book zips along really quickly.
I would have liked if some parts were expanded upon more. I felt like parts of it were getting interesting and then it moved onto the next part. It wasn't a sudden jerk to a new topic, but the event would be wrapped up quickly or summarizes instead of told. Beyond that, it was a nice, sweet book.
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velveetahead has commented on (7) products.
In the Flesh by Clive Barker
velveetahead, August 24, 2008
I had read a lot of Clive Barker’s short stories when I was younger, but forgot which ones I had read since I hadn’t read them all. I couldn’t remember if I had read In the Flesh or Inhuman Condition since they both started with the same letter. While reading this one, none of it was familiar until I got to the second of four stories, called “The Forbidden”. It is the basis for the Candyman movies. I never saw the movie, but the story stuck with me since it was very creepy and gross. When I read it, the movie had not been made, but one scene in it became ingrained in my brain. A woman who is doing some graduate school research on a very poor neighborhood. She goes into an abandoned house to find drawn on the wall an extremely disturbing face laughing, but the doorway was being used as the mouth. It was so descriptive that when I had an assignment in my junior English class to describe a room that another person in the class would have to guess who it belonged to, I described that room. No one guessed it was the room of a psychopathic killer, but instead thought it was a messed up teenager. :)The first story in the book, called “In the Flesh”, didn’t do much for me. It had supernatural and horror elements to it with a guy who had questions about good and evil and where sin comes from. Then he gets a cellmate who just isn’t quite right. I think when I first started reading Clive Barker, I was attracted more to his horror stories, but as I got older, I enjoyed his fantasy stories more. The first one was more in the horror realm, but beyond the final twist and the “city” that he dreams about, I didn’t care much about the crazy cellmate. I actually could have enjoyed the entire story if the cellmate had been left out, even though I guess it was the point of the story, I just didn’t care for that half of it.
I actually enjoyed each story more than the last one so I did enjoy “The Forbidden” more, but my favorite part is still the room description. The rest of it was not as cool as I remembered. I did enjoy the third story, “The Madonna”, that did have supernatural elements but it seemed more in the fantasy vein and I just loved it. It is about an abandoned bath house where naked women swayed some men to come to them, but the men might not have wanted to do it if they knew the consequences.
My favorite story was the last one called “Babel’s Children” where a women who loves to drive off the beaten path comes across a nunnery that isn’t run by nuns, but has held some brilliant minds captive for years for some very twisted games. It was the most realistic story out of all of them, but you still had to suspend your disbelief about the games being played. With the way some things happen in the world, you wonder sometimes that maybe major world decisions are being made the way it is described in the book. I had a good chuckle about the absurdity of it.
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker
velveetahead, May 31, 2008
Randolf Jaffe works in the Dead Letter Office in Omaha, Nebraska where he stumbles across people talking about the Art, which is something that exists in another plane of existence. He learns about Quiddity, which is called a dream sea where people float in their minds when they are born, when they fall in love for the first time and when they die. He wants to find out about this Art, so he leaves to find out more about. This leads to a huge battle between good and evil in a tiny California town where the residents do not know what to make of bizarre creatures that impregnate virgins, feed off of people's fears and dreams, and the threat of huge creatures trying to break through the plane of existence to bring hell on Earth.I tried to read this book many years ago, but didn't enjoy it back then. I think a lot of it had to do with that I loved when Clive Barker wrote about England in so many other stories. I was put off with almost all of it taking place in California since I did not view that as some exotic place and I became bored. I don't have that issue any longer, so I gave it another show in reading it.
I loved it this time. It is a very big book, but it is an epic story and it needs to be long. I love how when other authors write fantasy and they create an entire different world that does not take place in any sense of the real world, but Clive Barker created this world in the middle of the real world. There were extraordinary beings interacting with ordinary people, and I enjoyed reading their reactions.
My only complaint about it was after building up to what would be the final climax, there wasn't a great sense of urgency towards the end of the book. I didn't have my usual sense of trying to find out what was going to happen next, skimming over lines, forcing myself to go back and read slower so I wouldn't miss anything, but then going back to skimming so I could find out what happens next. Also, Barker has been very descriptive in other stories about horrors, but when he was trying to describe the huge, big baddies that were trying to break through, they didn't sound very gross or horrific.
Even with those complaints, it wasn't enough to destroy my overall enjoyment of the book. Also, the very ending gave hope to the sequel (Everville) and another epic adventure.
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
velveetahead, May 11, 2008
A man loses his wife just after she gives birth to their daughter and he discovers he is a death merchant that needs to collect soul objects after people die.I loved this book. I loved the way Christopher Moore constructs sentences. For example, instead of just saying that someone told someone else to hold on one second. Instead he writes, "Charlie was going to try to come up with some kind of answer when his cell phone rang and he held up his finger to pause time." I found the way he described completely normal, everyday situations in highly amusing and often comical ways.
The main character is very identifiable since he is just an average guy who gets sucked into being a grim reaper, but doesn't know all the rules and not sure if he is doing anything correctly. While he stumbles around trying to figure that out, he has his young daughter to contend with who is a little bit odd, but he still thinks she is an angel, even when she brings hellhounds home as pets. It only gets better from there.
Even with all the humor, the story was not just a light little story. There was thrilling aspects and a lot of suspense and tension in the major storyline and between characters. A lot of research was done about underworld aspects or a lot of imagination (if there was no research involved) about the entire underworld. It is a full-fledged story with humor to break through all the dark stuff. It really made me want to read other books by the author.
(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
Sharp Objects: A Novel by Gillian Flynn
velveetahead, May 11, 2008
A newspaper reporter at a small Chicago newspaper is sent on assignment to her old hometown in Wind Gap, Mo. to find out why young girls keep showing up dead.This was a really quick read. I found it very enthralling, especially the parts where the main character described why she cut herself when she was younger. I never understood cutting, so reading a character trying to describe why they say it and what they are thinking when they do it, helps to understand why young girls do it. That isn't the main part of the story, but just a subplot that really helps the reader get inside the main character's head while she is trying to work on the murder story for her paper in a town she did not want to return. She ran away to get away from her mother, but she was back living with her mother and her young half-sister that her mother adores, while also dealing with the haunting reminders of her dead younger sister that her mother obviously loved more than her.
There is a lot going on in the story, but it is very well written. My only complaint was I saw who was committing the murders about halfway through the book. I didn't guess the full reason, but it wasn't surprising when I found out the full reason behind it. Gillian Flynn is a writer for Entertainment Weekly. She reviews television. I wonder if watching and reviewing crime shows gave her some ideas for the book, but from watching my fair share of them myself, I think that was what helped me guess the killer.
(20 of 38 readers found this comment helpful)
Stardust (P.S.) by Neil Gaiman
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1-5 of 7 nextvelveetahead, February 16, 2008
In old English times, young Tristan has fallen in love with the most beautiful girl in the village of Wall. She does promised him a kiss if he retrieved a fallen star, so he goes off searching for it.A quick read, written like the old fairy tales with flowery language. It reads as if it was written in the time that it takes place. It has the fantasy twist where beyond the Wall is a whole different world that most people in the village are not allowed to travel, but Tristan is able. He goes off having adventures, searching and finding the star, trying to get her back to Wall when she doesn't want to go with him and is angry that she fell in the first place.
I enjoyed the star's spunk and unwillingness to cooperate with the young man trying to kidnap her, even though he didn't see it that way. He viewed her as an object and finally sees her as more than that, even though she isn't human, she still has feelings. Tristan was still likeable, even when he was so bull-headed and clueless that the girl he loved back home could care less about him. He grows up on his adventures, even though the entire book zips along really quickly.
I would have liked if some parts were expanded upon more. I felt like parts of it were getting interesting and then it moved onto the next part. It wasn't a sudden jerk to a new topic, but the event would be wrapped up quickly or summarizes instead of told. Beyond that, it was a nice, sweet book.
(4 of 10 readers found this comment helpful)