Post by Reynard on Feb 20, 2018 1:45:43 GMT
Just to be clear, I don't think that Barker is a great author. He's very much about ideas - the concepts of his early short stories are often extraordinary and not the usual horror clichés. Characters are there to keep the story going and sometimes nice, but not much more. Barker's writing can be very good and entertaining, or just good enough to keep the story going, but with lesser ideas no one would care much about the words.
His writing is to some extent crippled by the fact that he pretty much always writes stories about supposedly sympathetic underdog character, yet he really doesn't seem to give a shit about them. A trait that is, as already said, really obvious in Nightbreed movie also.
I have never actually read Cabal or any other of Barker's books, so the comment is based on Books of Blood alone. Nightbreed is a very visual as a movie, or at least tries to be, but not the kind of story that I'd be likely to enjoy as a book.
His writing is to some extent crippled by the fact that he pretty much always writes stories about supposedly sympathetic underdog character, yet he really doesn't seem to give a shit about them. A trait that is, as already said, really obvious in Nightbreed movie also.
I have never actually read Cabal or any other of Barker's books, so the comment is based on Books of Blood alone. Nightbreed is a very visual as a movie, or at least tries to be, but not the kind of story that I'd be likely to enjoy as a book.