GET THE HOTS FOR DARK PLOTS - BARKER, KING, & THE NEW BLOOD

     In this latest Eek! Speak blog, instead of a movie discussion, I want to talk books, in particular three new titles that each had an impact on me. Two of these books happen to be from my two favorite horror authors, although I should drop the genre label, because they are my two favorite authors, period. The third book is from a new author who you haven’t heard about yet, but will soon, in just a few minutes.

     I’ll hesitate from saying these are book reviews, because they are not reviews in the traditional sense. I am not going to find any gripes or provide criticisms with these books, because I don’t have any. As with my film writing, I am not interested in criticism, but celebration.

     So let’s celebrate these three bloody books, shall we? As Stephen King states so perfectly in Under the Dome, I "get the hots for dark plots"!

    

     Clive Barker’s latest novel, The Scarlet Gospels, was released in late May, and it’s a title the author has teased us with for two decades. At one point, the book was said to be 243,000 words, but the book that has seen release is closer to half of that. That shorter page count concerned me at first, until I delved into the pages. Elaborate world building has been Barker’s passion of late with the Abarat series, and it serves him well here in constructing the darkest universe of all, Hell.

This looks like a forbidden book.

     Hell in The Scarlet Gospels is distinctly Barker's, subverting the Hell that we saw in Hellbound: Hellraiser II. This Hell is not the Hell of Christian lore. There is no fire and brimstone, only cold stone and diseased terrain. Hell is familiar in many of its workday hassles and hierarchies, and in its crumbling architecture and infrastructure. Hell has become ancient Rome in its final days, a decadent circus society that can no longer sustain itself.

Inner cover jacket illustration of Hell by Clive Barker.

     At the center of Hell and The Scarlet Gospels is the demon we know as Pinhead, but since he loathes that nickname, I’ll refer to him by his favored moniker, the Hell Priest. This book is all about his downfall, and whether he will bring Hell down with him. Lucifer may or may not have anything to say about the wayward demon laying waste to his kingdom, and one of Barker’s most delicious conceits here is that for the denizens of purgatory, Lucifer’s presence and power must be taken on faith.

     The Hell Priest’s first appearance was in Barker’s 1986 novella The Hell-Bound Heart, where he was relegated to background status and went unnamed. Pinhead became a character in Barker’s directorial debut Hellraiser, played with iconic grace by Doug Bradley, but the character strayed in a long running series of Barker-less sequels. With The Scarlet Gospels, it’s exciting to see the Hell Priest back in the hands of his creator, getting the full story he deserves. This is no longer the graceful ghoul people know from that first movie, or a hero monster that would belong with the Nightbreed. The Hell Priest earns his name with an unending stream of atrocities against humans and inhumans alike. He enters the story with a massacre of a hidden sect of psychics, employing such creative tortures as hook and chain bowel removal and accelerated malignant pregnancy. He’s also a bully of brute strength, and enjoys violence as base as beating and raping a crippled old woman. Yes, this Hell Priest is a total fucking bastard, as he should be.

From demon to Pinhead to the Hell Priest.

     The Hell Priest does not go rogue alone. He creates a slave Cenobite to assist in his rebellion, named Felixson. The inventive mutilation that this character displays I found quite disturbing, so much so that it hurt my mind's eye. I would love to see a Barker drawing of him. Felixson is a memorable new creeper.

     We don’t have to take this journey with depraved monsters alone. Unluckily drawn into the Hell Priest’s orbit and domain is perennial Barker hero, paranormal investigator Harry D’Amour, last seen in Everville, which is my favorite Barker book. At Harry’s side is a motley crew of outcasts whose lives have been plagued by continual connections to the supernatural. Together, this close-knit group of friends on the fringe bring some much welcomed levity to what otherwise may have been a too dreary trip through Hell. These are not screaming victims by any means, prone to shrieking on sight of a monster, of which there are thousands. Even with the armies of Hell on their heels, they can still joke, come up with creative curses, and make passes at each other. Hell cannot quell human hormones.

Hell cannot be contained within The Scarlet Gospel's pages.

     With The Scarlet Gospels, the man who initially gave us Books of Blood has delivered an epic of evisceration. Not only is the novel awash in the title color, it is a carnival of gleeful perversities, with a nonstop barrage of ejaculating evils, diabolical genitals, and unholy fornications. When a grinning face pushed out of a demon's butthole, my own grin grew so wide I feared the edges of my mouth would meet at the back of my head and my cranium would fall off. I was looking forward to a second read before my first reading was over. There are so many lines worth revisiting, like “I don’t know you from a warm hole in a cold corpse.”

     Two scenes in particular really struck me that I want to mention. The first involves one of the first stages of the Hell Priest’s takeover, or takedown, of Hell, as he unleashes a flock of origami birds with murder spells written on them on an assassination campaign against Hell’s order. This vivid scene is a clever extension of the written word as weapon theme from Mister B. Gone.

Mister B. Gone echoes within The Scarlet Gospels.

     Another scene that had resonance occurs toward the end of the book, when the survivors, devastated by loss, return back into our world, stranded on a deserted southern highway. Of all possible rides, a black sedan with a cross hood ornament stops for them, carrying the corpulent Reverend Kutchaver. This spokesman for God, with his rote preaching and empty platitudes, proves so annoying that the Harrowers are reassured their tragic journey through Hell and back was the right path. Better to battle demons and sometimes lose than submit to the ignorant bliss of false salvation like this fool Kutchaver.

     I have many friends who ordered the UK hardcover edition of The Scarlet Gospels for the striking scarlet David Mack illustration of Pinhead on the cover. I prefer the more mysterious cover of the US edition, with an arcane symbol in the center and the letters seared into the weathered jacket. It gives more the appearance of a forbidden religious text of some secret sect. Barker’s illustration of the Hell Priest on the back cover is another bonus.

Back cover for the US edition of The Scarlet Gospels.

     My history reading Barker extends back to early 1986, when I read his first Fangoria interview in issue #51. I was intrigued by the high praise Fangoria gave him, and I rushed out to buy Books of Blood Volume One, and then Volume Two and Volume Three in rapid succession. Who else remembers the ridiculous covers of those Berkley Horror paperback editions, with their pictures of silly rubber monster masks in lurid colors? Those covers may have alluded to cheap pulp, but those of us who dared to read them knew those books were the most subversive and outlandish horror gems to ever grace supermarket shelves. I have been a Barker enthusiast ever since, eagerly following every new book with a release day hardcover purchase, and I have enjoyed his flights into fantasy as much as his horror offerings. The third Abarat book, Absolute Midnight, is my second favorite Barker book.

My first three Barker books today.

     Fangoria wasn’t the only voice to give Barker’s debut a solid endorsement. There was that famous quote “I have seen the future of horror… and it is named Clive Barker” that graced those Books of Blood covers, from my other favorite author, Stephen King. In January 1985, one year before I read Books of Blood Volume One, I picked up my first Stephen King paperback, Cujo, immediately followed by Firestarter, and then Carrie, and then Night Shift, and then Christine, and then just about everything up to this day. With that quote, I wonder whether Clive enjoyed King calling him an it instead of a he.

He introduces us to it.

     It was a momentous occasion for me to recently have both of these authors deliver new books of bloody horror, released two weeks apart, thirty years after I became an addict of their work. I feel privileged that they have persevered, considering both have battled near death experiences in recent years, and that they continue to craft exactly the kind of pulse-pounding stories of graphic terror that I have craved since my first days reading them. The horror genre has evolved heavily since these guys entered the scene, in great part because of their efforts, but the writing itself is not exactly the same. Barker and King 2015 do not write as Barker and King 1985 did, nor should they. After three additional decades of honing their craft, I believe the work of both men has gotten better, and is as imaginative (Mister B. Gone’s “Burn this book” conceit) and vital (Under the Dome’s democracy burning under a magnifying glass) as it has ever been. I even prefer Doctor Sleep to The Shining.

My first five King books today.

     My desire to reread The Scarlet Gospels would have to wait, because Stephen King’s Finders Keepers came out right on Gospel’s cloven hooves. While the only scarlet on the cover of Barker’s book is in the title word, the cover of King’s novel is awash in a rain of blood, saturating the pages of an open book. This cover certainly lets us know right off what we will find within the book’s pages, namely bloody murder. While Finders Keepers is in no way near the gorefest of The Scarlet Gospels, the sporadic scenes of violence are flinchingly brutal. With both The Scarlet Gospels and Finders Keepers, the body counts are not exceedingly high, specifically the human body count in the case of Gospels (for Hell, it’s a slaughter). Both authors make us care for the leads so much that when something terrible finally does happen to them, it’s devastating, which is key to the most effective horror writing.

This looks like a messy read.

     Since Finders Keepers is the second book of a trilogy, I recommend reading the first volume, Mr. Mercedes, first. Mr. Mercedes also features a blood rain cover, with a drenched umbrella, but that book was more of a crime suspense thriller, involving a retired policeman being taunted by a spree killer from his past. Finders Keepers keeps the detective plot going, but with a more vicious killer on the loose, this book has a foot firmly planted in horror territory. Because many of the characters are returnees from Mr. Mercedes, most of the character building was achieved with the first novel, allowing for more action in Finders Keepers’ relentlessly propulsive plot. The heroes of Mr. Mercedes don’t appear until the second third of the book, but because of the strength of the new murder plot set in motion, I didn’t even notice their late arrival to this killer party.

Bloody and bloodier.

     Finders Keepers is one of my favorite types of Stephen King stories, the writer in peril tale (Misery and The Dark Half), which is sometimes the writer as peril tale (The Shining and Secret Window, Secret Garden). Either way, what these stories share is King’s insight into the creative writing process, which as a writer, I find endlessly fascinating. It adds to my investment, and sometimes more terror. One of the most disturbing King scenes for me is in Misery, which may be the closest cousin to Finders Keepers, and its not a scene of bodily harm; it’s the forced burning of Paul Sheldon’s new novel. Horrors!

Writer in peril!

     Finders Keepers begins with Misery’s worst-case scenario; a famous author is murdered by his number one fan. This literary lunatic absconds with a number of the author’s unpublished manuscripts, and what happens with these found, lost, and found again volumes and this psycho’s cyclone of violence that follows them is the playing ground for another masterwork of unbearable suspense from the King. I was stunned by the breakneck pace and suspense of this book. Thank you, Stephen King, for continually trying to cook up the perfect scare. I will gladly keep eating them up.

     The killer in Finders Keepers, Morris Bellamy, is a more terrifying creation than Mr. Mercedes’ loser spree killer Brady Hartsfield. Morris’ violence is committed on impulse, and his targets are anyone, man, woman, or child, that gets in the way of his prized literature. This madman is all too familiar. Aren’t all of the killers of the world who justify murder by quoting the Holy Bible or other religious text nothing more than Morris Bellamy, obsessive literature fans who prove their passion by drawing blood?

     Finders Keepers is the second book of a trilogy that seems to be changing subgenres as it moves along. Mr. Mercedes is a reality based crime tome, and so is Finders Keepers, except for two minor moments where some Carrie style shenanigans come into play. These moments are brief, but they imply a supernatural direction is coming with the third volume, End of Watch. That shift may lose a few readers who prefer King’s realism to his magical works, like my partner, who would pick The Body to The Dark Tower any day. I, however, cannot wait to see the surviving characters of this series suddenly have to face a Shining style assault, with tampons and redrum flying all over the place. 

A clue where the trilogy is headed?

     The third book I want to talk about is quite different from the other two, a non-genre work from a first time author, The Day Harken Darringer Died by DoctorBuckles. This semi-autobiographical tale concerns the life of a young musical genius named Harken, and follows him during his horrible home life until his emancipation after high school. Setting out for the big city of Los Angeles in the early 1980s, Harken gets swept up in the West Hollywood party boy scene and hustling, and inevitably has to face the AIDS epidemic that explodes during that decade. Harken falls a victim to his excesses, leading to the event of the title, only is death really the end for Harken? Can an autobiography be written about one’s own death?

The dark side of hustling, from The Day Harken Darringer Died.

     I went into The Day Harken Darringer Died expecting a gay memoir, but it’s really much more. I grew up a child of the 80s, and while I would not become a gay man until the 1990s, I was studiously aware of the AIDS epidemic that laid waste to the gay community in its first decade. I was simply not exposed to the devastation firsthand like Harken and all those who were just a few years older than I was and who were sexually active at the time. I've kept myself educated about those early years of the epidemic, and thought I knew just how bad it was. Reading The Day Harken Darringer Died, I was frequently shocked at how grim and hopeless those early AIDS years were for so many, with not just the disease decimating the community, but also a rash of tragic murder suicides.

     AIDS is not Harken’s only obstacle to health and happiness. A number of bullies, abusive boyfriends, and violent johns cross paths with Harken, and he’s left for dead on a few occasions. It’s really quite sad that our community, already under attack from a plague and conservative forces, still has the tendency to attack itself. The biggest bad guy of this book, however, is a bad woman by the name of Carlotta, Harken’s mother. The relentless physical and psychological attacks of this bitter woman upon Harken had me so infuriated that I wanted to crawl within the story to wring this woman’s neck. Carlotta is the new ultimate bad mother, knocking out old Joan and her coat hanger from Mommie Dearest with a frying pan to the head.

Innocent Harken won't stay that way for long, author DoctorBuckles.

     Considering the excessively high body count, bloody scenes, human monsters, and the inevitable extended death of the title, is The Day Harken Darringer Died really that different in genre from The Scarlet Gospels and Finders Keepers? It didn’t seem so when I read these three books back to back to back. Whether historical gay fiction or genre tinged death trip, The Day Harken Darringer Died is a compelling, recommended read. Author DoctorBuckles' first person prose is succinct and shows the promise of an exciting new voice. I especially liked the sensory passages, where he disconnects from the whole and gives his individual parts their own pleasures and passages, where The Body becomes The Face, or The Chest, or The Fill-In-The-Body-Part-Here.

     Supporting this story are one or more images accompanying each chapter, most of them of the author’s life as described in the story, which certainly helps to sell the reality of it all. You get to see seedy gay Hollywood exactly as it was in the 1980s, and Harken in full party mode. It’s an exceptionally vivid time capsule.

Slow down, Harken!

     The Day Harken Darringer Died has not yet been published, but the entire novel is available to read for free on the author’s website, www.harkendarringer.com. Not only a host to this novel and some short stories, the website is a wealth of information on many subjects. You can check out his frequently updated DoctorBuckles Blog, which covers and supports the arts, issues in the gay community, the continued fight against HIV, and the submission process in getting The Day Harken Darringer Died to publishers, and how the publishers respond, if at all. These subjects are always broached with enthusiasm and humor. It’s a Survivor’s Story, not only for the author, but also for the community. Anybody who reads it is obviously a survivor, and others still need to be saved. DoctorBuckles Blog is a necessary call for action as it turns you onto cool art.

     When The Day Harken Darringer Died finally makes it to publication, it could be in a condensed version from the one currently available online. The author has been candid in his blog that because of his novel’s long length, the feedback he is getting from publishers is that for a first time author, the word count will have to be trimmed. In the event of this, some of the chapters have subchapters, and those subchapters, sometimes listed as poems or short stories, could be dropped when the book finally makes it to print. These extra chapters contain some of the most explicitly violent and sexual material in the book. Addiction is a major component of this story, and I believe the book benefits from the excesses of these additional chapters. I’m cheering for this book to make it to print, but I recommend checking it out now, while it can be experienced in its most complete, uncensored form.

     One more book I want to mention before closing is another first novel, namely my own. It’s a horror novel titled Hoarder, and this completed book is on the eve of its release. I’m extremely proud to unleash this horror story, and within the book’s approximately 78,000 words, I want to deliver terror by the tons as I trap the reader within the ultimate hoarder house of horrors. My thirty years reading the masters of horror has inspired me to cultivate my own voice and tell my scary stories not only on film, but also in the field of horror literature.

The cover of my first novel, Hoarder.

     I have just released my first novel Hoarder. I'm going the self-publishing route for my first effort, since I do not want to wait potential years to reach publishers as the story languishes unread on my shelf. Hoarder wants to scare you now. I also appreciate the freedom to put this story out uncensored and completely on my own terms. More information and links to the paperback and ebook can be found here, www.hoardernovel.com.

     My novel writing is a continuing passion, with my second novel, Turkey Day also complete and nearing release, and a third book at the halfway point, my first Needful Things size epic. In other words, I’m in it for the life long haul. Books will not replace my films, but complement them. I hope that fans of Eek! and the authors above will give Hoarder a look. I promise to do my best to quicken your pulse.

Update: DoctorBuckles has now released The Day Harken Darringer Died as an ebook on Smashwords here, www.smashwords.com/books/view/593084 The book is no longer on his website, but a number of short stories can be found there along with his blog. Check them out.