What did you love best about The Books of Blood, Volume 1?
I’ve been reading Barker and collecting his stuff since the late 80s. He’s the great imaginer of our time. These first stories, raw, powerful and shocking at the time ushered in a brand new understanding of the politics of horror. No longer were we talking about the outside threats, the aliens, the monsters, we were facing our own inner demons, we were the monsters, and Clive Barker really understood that long before the rest. The human monster is the most frightening of all. And these stories, from the Midnight Meat Train rattling beneath NYC to the unhappy demonic Yattering trying to do the job he hates, the visceral nature of Pigs Blood Blues, Sex Death and Starshine… brilliant… but truly the gem, the story that assures Barker’s legacy is that final one, In the Hills, The Cities… which is quite possibly one of the best stories of fantasy-horror ever written.