All Barker, no bite

Hello friends.

In my never ending search for something scary to read, I came across the tomes of Clive Barker.  Totally sweet!  Clive Barker!  Hellraiser!  Hellraiser II!!!  I figured I was in for a scary, poop-my-pants treat.

Sadly, not the case with Mister B. Gone.  Good concept, kind of.  The book you hold in your hands is possessed.  Ooooh...booo...creepy...story...?  No.  Not creepy.  Annoying.  Every time the narrative builds momentum the action grinds to a stop so that our narrator can chastise us for reading the book.  Creepy the first time, sloppy the second...boring every other time.  And there are lots of these interjections.

Now, I have to admit that I picked up this particular Clive Barker work because it is so short.  I will totally dive into his longer works, perchance a good scare can come my way.  But damn.  CB let me down this time.

There are some cool set pieces, like when a horribly disfigured demon makes out with a girl and then tosses her in a pot and watches her skin get ripped off.  There's a great scene where the same demon is taking a bath drawn from the blood of hundreds of freshly slain children.  Totally slammin'.  But Barker's juices must have been tapped, because these moments are few and far between.

Hellraiser still fucking rules.