Infernal Parade

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Pub Date 28 Feb 2017 | Archive Date 01 Mar 2017

Description

From the beginning of his distinguished career, Clive Barker has been the great visionary artist of contemporary dark fantasy, a form that Barker himself has termed “the Fantastique.” Through his many novels, stories, paintings and films, he had presented us with unforgettable images of the monstrous and the sacred, the beautiful and the grotesque. His body of work constitutes a great and varied contribution to modern popular culture.

This astonishing novella, Infernal Parade, perfectly encapsulates Barker’s unique abilities. Like the earlier Tortured Souls, an account of bizarre–and agonizing–transformations, Infernal Parade is tightly focused, intensely imagined, and utterly unlike anything else you will ever read. It begins with the tale of a convicted criminal, Tom Requiem, who returns from the brink of death to restore both fear and a touch of awe to a complacent world. Tom becomes the leader of the eponymous “parade,” which ranges from the familiar precincts of North Dakota to the mythical city of Karantica. Golems, vengeful humans both living and dead, and assorted impossible creatures parade across these pages. The result is a series of highly compressed, interrelated narratives that are memorable, disturbing, and impossible to set aside.

Infernal Parade is quintessential Barker: witty, elegantly composed, filled with dark and often savage wonders. It proves once again that, in Barker’s hands, the Fantastique is not only alive and well, but flourishing. This is vital, visionary fiction by a modern master of the form.

From the beginning of his distinguished career, Clive Barker has been the great visionary artist of contemporary dark fantasy, a form that Barker himself has termed “the Fantastique.” Through his...


Available Editions

EDITION Hardcover
ISBN 9781596068070
PRICE $30.00 (USD)

Average rating from 25 members


Featured Reviews

Tom Requiem is led to the gallows for the murder of Mary Slaughter, hung, and buried. But Tom was buried alive, intentionally, for the fates have a new task for him: he will become the ringleader of the Infernal Parade, a crazed cast of characters pulled into the parade to wander a sad world between life and death. The novella consists of six stories, each one tracking a character in the parade: first Tom, then his lover-victim Mary, before branching out into stranger ground. There's the golem, Elijah, created for single-minded murder; Dr. Fetter and his family of freaks; and The Sabbaticus, a monster called forth in a fantastic realm of bleak and sadistic justice. The stories don't have a narrative arc per se, instead focusing on the exotic characters.

Clive Barker has built an impressive reputation as a master of the "dark fantastique," writing stories that blend horror, dark fantasy, and surreal weirdness in ways that few other authors come close to. At his best, he is a grim visionary; at his worst, he offers unique and readable strange tales. Infernal Parade leans more to that latter because it's a bit disjointed; it originated as a series of short stories packaged with the McFarlane toy line of the same name, one story per figure/character. As such, the stories are a bit short and better at giving a feel for their character than any narrative. That said, they show that Barker's limitless imagination shows no sign of slowing down, the stories presenting a vivid array of characters and settings unrestrained by physics or reason. That creativity is Barker's main selling point, along with his blending of the grotesque with the sensuous, and his short stories do a great job of capturing that feel.

At the end of the day, Infernal Parade is a fascinating volume perfect for Barker fans---the fact that it's sold as a signed and limited hardcover should be one indication. Reading it gave me flashbacks to reading his Books of Blood short stories. But readers looking for a more complete, substantial read may be disappointed by a collection that's somewhat disjointed and inconsistent. I would have appreciated a little more meat to the stories, a little something more binding them together. Despite Barker's wild and vivid imagination, it feels like there's something missing from the collection as a whole, though the stand-out stories ("The Sabbaticus" in particular) are masterful. So, one that should be appreciated by Barker fans and short-fiction aficionados, especially readers who enjoyed his fantasies like Imajica or his older collections of short fiction.

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I've been a fan of Clive Barker for many years and one of my most prized possessions is a signed copy of The Great And Secret Show. Not to mention that The Thief of Always is my go to book when I'm struggling for something to read.

The Infernal Parade sees the author return to short Stories for the first time since his highly successful Books of Blood series. While the book is a little on the short side, the stories and characters are vividly brought to life from a master assured of his touch.

The standout stories are The Sabaticus and the Golem and each tales comes with a certain warning of Be Careful What You Wish for. All in all an enjoyable if short read and will fill a gap until the next instalment of Abarat comes along.

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This was my first Barker read, though I'm familiar with his work through the film, Nightbreed. There is no denying that Barker has a wild imagination when it comes to creating monsters!

Infernal Parade is shorter than most of his books. It's a series of short stories that are tied together with a theme, preparation for the Infernal Parade when the dead and demented invade the ordinary world. The one thing that is missing is that the book doesn't take us through to the actual manifestation of this parade, only the individual stories about some of the people and creatures destined to take part.

Barker manages to strike a balance with some of the more gruesome scenes in his stories so that every bit of torn flesh, every drop of blood spilled is relevant to the story at hand and never crosses into the gratuitous. This is a rare skill!

The individual stories each had their own morbid fascination. There were no duds among them. As much as I'm sensitive to Horror stories that involve murder and gore, Barker's treatment of the material just makes me want to read more of his work. The plots were original and imaginative at a level seldom seen in this genre.

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3.5 stars!

Clive Barker always delivers in the creative department and this collection is no different.

Clocking in at only 88 pages, these short stories really pack a punch, yet as a whole, it feels like something is missing.

I think my favorite stories in the bunch were The Sabbaticus and The Golem, Elijah. Both could be interpreted as cautionary tales, as could Bethany Bled , and who doesn't like those? Be careful what you wish for and all that.

These stories did make me miss (and long for) the Clive Barker of old with big old door-stopper books like Imajica or Weaveworld, where there was plenty of time for Mr. Barker to weave his spell.
However, Infernal Parade did give me a taste of the wild imagination and words of Mr. Barker, so how could that be bad?

Recommended for fans of the Clive Barker of old!

*Thanks to Subterranean Press and NetGalley for the e-ARC of this collection in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it. *

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Whilst I enjoyed this collection of interconnected stories I believe that this would have benefitted from an additional piece bringing all the stories together. I am aware that the stories originally came with a series of McFarlane toys but I think it would have been awesome to have read of the infernal parade in procession with all the characters brought together. The art throughout is brilliant but I also would have liked to have seen more of each of the characters each tale is based upon or maybe some concept art of the toys. Despite these criticisms the book is well written dark fantasy that Barker fans will definitely enjoy.

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In reading Clive Barker's Infernal Parade, it's important to remember that these stories were originally published and packaged (much like the Tortured Souls collection from 2015) with the McFarlane toy line. That means they were designed to serve as stand-alone stories, connected, but not necessarily forming a linear narrative.

What that means for fans is that we get an all-too-rare serving of vintage Barker, with stories written during the very early days of Abarat, long before his 2012 brush with death. In putting the collection together, however, I feel like there's a missed opportunity here - one that would have made this collection truly memorable. We're introduced to Tom Requiem and the freaks of his Infernal Parade, but we never get to see them brought together. With the opening story suggesting a Books of Blood feel to the collection, I would have loved to see a new story at the other end to tie it all together.

That's a minor quibble, however, and not a criticism of the stories themselves. These are short, but powerful stories of torture and transformation, true horror with a freakish, monstrous feel. They have an almost fable-like feel to them, being stories of human cruelties and supernatural retribution. Sometimes it's the who and what they are that makes them freaks, but the stories are at their best when it's how and why they die that casts them into the Infernal Parade, doomed (or perhaps blessed) to endlessly relive pain for pleasure.

The stories of Bethany Bled, with its fateful wish that dooms a pair of lovers, and the Golem Elijiah, with it's dark twist of an ill thought-out command, are probably closest to that fable feel, but it's the stories of Mary Slaughter and Tom Requiem himself that remind me the most of Barker's most classic tales.

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Infernal Parade by Clive Barker- This book is assembled around a series of short stories, some of which are directly connected, like the first two and some which are connected to the tale by minimal association. The Infernal Parade is suppose to be a gala of freaks and oddities that drives normal people either insane or crawling back to their chosen religion to no effect. The stories themselves are for the most part fables of misconduct and misfortune in face of the darker cruelties of mankind. Some blood is spilled and some innocents are sacrificed, but the irony of the outcomes bear the brunt of the lesson. A mild not too scary read from a horror master.

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A novella of sorts comprised of tales of the lives of some terrible people who are chosen for the Infernal Parade. The stories themselves are short, gruesome, and memorable, but I often wanted more and the overarching story feels very incomplete. Still, Barker at his most creepy and intense.

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I have read most of Clive Barker's writings, and in this short piece he continues to excel. He combines a masterful story line with some excellent artistry. This is a book I would recommend to all.

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