NIGHTMARES ILLUMINATED. The column for horror evangelists. 055 A Demon By Any Other Name…

by | Jun 15, 2015 | Columns | 1 comment

Having now settled back in to my place in the northeast and having left behind for good the dusty heat of a certain plains state, I set my sights on whatever in the world comes next. Should I drop everything and volunteer on Bernie Sander’s presidential campaign for the next however many months? Absolutely, I should. The world needs Bernie. If only there weren’t all those bills to pay. So maybe instead of volunteering I should try to find a job. Thing is, that’ll take up as much time as volunteering, cutting into my busy summer social program. Hmm. I know: Sugar Mama. If anybody knows where I can get one of those, hit me up at the gmail, OK? I gotta tell you, it has been a weird couple of months, ladies and gentlemen. I am glad I had books to read.

I am have been anxiously awaiting Clive Barker’s new novel, The Scarlet Gospels. A new Cenobite story. How could anyone resist? In preparation I re-read the earlier piece, The Hellbound Heart, in order to, you know, get in the mood. That earlier work was presented in its main elements in the first Hellraiser film which, despite its low budget, was an effective horror movie. The franchise that developed from this humble beginning centered around two elements: the puzzle box that called the otherworldly to our plane and the Cenobite commonly referred to as Pinhead. It is through Pinhead that many fans know Barker, although fans of his writing often point to the longer, more complex works of dark fantasy as their favorites. For me, it is Imajica. O how I love that book. And I have not a single negative sentiment toward The Great and Secret Show or Weaveworld. His early shorter works collected in the Books of Blood are horror literature scripture. He is one of the Big Four, and no mistake. This new book? I have read a number of rumblings about it that leave the consensus muddy. To me, it is Barker writing in one of his fundamental styles. All his books aren’t the same, you know. The feel and construction of Sacrament, say, is very different to the way Weaveworld reads. The Hellbound Heart is a brute of a story, and The Scarlet Gospels reads in that vein. Harry D’Amour is a moderating influence, but Harry is a character, not a style, so the story is still a brute. The author has already said quite a lot about the plot and what will be revealed, and a lot of what was promised is not actually in this book – but then, clearly, this is one of at least two and perhaps many installments in the architecture of Hell, the story of the Cenobites, and the “untold scriptures” of the anti-divine. We’ve been put on the path but there is still a long way to walk. I enjoyed The Scarlet Gospels immensely and I look forward with an urgent intensity to what pleasures await. If you are a horror fan, or just a Clive Barker fan, you are going to want to read this book.

What else can I tell you before I go back to leafing through the Help Wanted ads? Well, after you finish the new Barker book and while you are waiting for the Next Stephen King Book due out this summer, you could read Jeremy Bates’ Suicide Forest (Ghillinnein Books), which is a snappy quiet little horror novel that makes for good beach noodling. The first in a planned series of World’s Scariest Places books to be released by the publisher, Bates takes readers to a creepy spot in Japan where real people choose to end their lives in surprisingly large numbers. The novel is a novel so it’s a make-em-up, but you can go see the actual place if you want, and that adds another element to the scary.

Too tired to read (or maybe you are a little bleary from the live music I suggested last time)? There are always movies in the summer, big blockbuster thingamadoogies. I was complaining about the Avengers movie last time without having seen it. I have since remedied that inferior perspective by sitting down in a multiplex for the show. I stand by my uninformed opinion. Not a good movie. Not a good story. The visuals looked too much like a video game, or perhaps even a cartoon. I didn’t like it much, but in the interest of full disclosure I should tell you that my low opinion is perhaps colored by having seen the Avengers flick a day after I saw Mad Max: Fury Road. I had been really looking forward to the Mad Max film, a feeling that stands in direct contrast to the dread I felt at the prospect of sitting through the other one. Not a good starting point, I’ll give you that, but still, ladies and gentlemen, Mad Max is stunningly superior in every sense. It appeared to feature mainly practical effects rather than digital ones, a characteristic that made it seem more real in comparison. Even with the relatively limited character development in the Max film, I still cared about what happened to the people in the movie. In the Avengers you know from the beginning the bad guys are going to lose and nothing really bad is going to happen to the good guys. Everything was up for grabs in Mad Max. The direction and the choreography of the action built actual suspense in MM; not so much in the other. Truly, in every way, Fury Road was the superior film. If somehow you have not seen these movies yet then I bet you can sift through my subtle and nuanced remarks to find which one I think you should pick.

Next time, a look at Mr. King’s latest effort, an Ancient Aliens report (ran out of time in this installment), and an update on the state of my tinnitus from the summer concert crawl.

 

******************************************************************************

 

Nightmares Illuminated is written by Wayne Edwards, ©2015 by the author, all rights reserved. Contact eMail: [email protected]

Be the first to follow me on Twitter and Instagram: @we21011

1 Comment

  1. Nickolaus Pacione
    Nickolaus Pacione on June 16, 2015 at 7:51 am

    There is things I am going to reveal that will raise a lot of questions. 1.) Brian Keene lies to CreateSpace.com about Legend Keeper.– he made a claim about me “publishing” his e-mail address in the novella when it was set in the 1980s e-mail wasn’t realized until the mid-1990s. 2.) Kealan Patrick Burke appeared on The House of Pain with a story called The Clause around the same time I emerged with The Cabbie Homicide.
          You want to ask Brian Keene about enabling my work to be stolen ala David Boyer too as he threatened to turn me unpublished. As I published my testimony the industry wants me out and I am not going to retire or quit meaning if you want me out the only way is you better damn well have a gun. Look I also reveal that Ramsey Campbell, Mary Sangiovanni and Kealan Patrick Burk self published their work with CreateSpace.com too. So I think it’s time the stifling ends because I have no problem ending careers if you go to my company, Lake Fossil Press I reveal more truth telling there than you can shake a stick at.

    Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *