Hellbound Hearts [Paperback]

What a creepy fun filled read and just at the right time of the year. This book is full of great short stories by wonderful authors. Stories full of Cenobites and creatures made from your worst nightmares. Neil Gaiman's graphic piece was just awesome and Kelly Armstrong's The Collector gave me chills.

I really enjoyed this collection of tales inspires by Clive Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart. The stories were so good that halfway through the book I got the urge to re-watch the Hellraiser movies and have since put them on my Netflix queue.

If you are looking for a scare this Halloween season, I would highly recommend this book.

Hell has many faces. In this anthology we see some of them. For anyone who is familiar with the Hellraiser mythology (the great novella by Clive Barker and the 8 movies), there is surely some wavering about this book. I know I was on the fence on whether to buy it or not. I did, and I am glad that I made the choice. 90% of these stories are very good. The other 10% weren't bad, but not as strong in my opinion. Some of my favorites are the story that lead off the book, "The Dark Materials Project," "Santos Del Infierno," and "The Promise." "The Promise" sent chills down my spine.

The one thing I will say is that we meet Cenobites that are new and unfamiliar to us. There are appearances by one or two of the demons that were developed in the films, but for the most part they are new and nasty. The descriptions of some of the creatures is truly terrifying. I found these characters more disturbing than some of the cenobites created in the films.

This was a great hold over until Cliver Barker finally finishes the long awaited final Pinhead story. If you are a fan of the movies or his novella, read this book. I was not disappointed. It is a book that will have a place on my bookshelf for a long time.

Pleasure and pain. That is the foundation in many ways of Barker's Cenobite mythos, and this anthology had both, which I will explain in a moment. First, this book is a collection of new works based on Clive Barker's original short story, The Hellbound Heart, which in turn, inspired Hellraiser. You will NOT see any of the original characters in these stories, including `Pinhead' but you will see a vast collection of wonderful stories by some of the greatest authors of horror.

A complete list of authors and stories follows:
* Prisioners of the Inferno by Peter Atkins
* The Cold by Conrad Williams
* The Confessor's Tale by Sarah Pinbrough
* Hellbound Hollywood by Mick Garris
* Mechanisms by Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola
* Every Wrong Turn by Tim Lebbon
* The Collector by Kelly Armstrong
* Bulemia by Richard Christian Matheson
* Our Lord of Quarters by Simon Clark
* Orfeo the Damned by Nancy Holder
* Wordsworth by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
* A Little Piece of Hell by Steve Niles
* The Dark Materials Project by Sarah Langan
* Demon's Design by Nicholas Vince
* Only the Blind Survive by Yvonne Navarro
* Mother's Ruin by Mark Morris
* Sister Cilice by Barbie Wilde
* Santos Del Inferno by Jeffery J. Mariotte
* The Promise by Nancy Kilpatrick
* However by Gary A Bauneck and Lucy A Snyder
* `Tis a Pity He's Ashore by Chaz Brechley

... and an afterword by Doug Bradley who played the Cenobite who is commonly known as Pinhead.

The Pleasures: Most of the stories in this book are brilliant. The Confessor's Tale by Sarah Pinbrough and Sister Cilice by Barbie Wilde are both excellent and deal with a common theme. The Cenobites described in Hellbound Hollywood by Mick Garris and Our Lord of Quarters by Simon Clark were both quite disturbing, and the twist ending of The Collector by Kelly Armstrong had me clapping. I loved these stories and many others in this book. It is well worth the money. You can just sense the love that these authors have for the mythos and the pride they take in their stories.

The Pain: Well, Wordsworth by Gaiman and McKean is painful. As a comic book collector I am familiar with the depth and wonder of McKean's art. His complicated mixed media art is beautiful... when reproduced correctly. In black and white on newsprint renders his images flat, and some of the words impossible to follow. It's frustrating. Also, the Cold by Conrad Williams left me in the cold, and `Tis a Pity He's Ashore by Chaz Brechley seemed like the wrong story to end with because I kept waiting for the punch or the point, by I was still waiting by the beginning of Bradley's afterword.

All in all, this is one of the best horror anthologies to hit the market in years.

Highest Recommendations for Barker fans, for horror fans, for those who want to lose sleep at night.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 15 reviews  4.3 out of 5 stars