By William Pattison
For Horror Bob's Blog
On Sunday and Monday I listened to the unabridged audio book of Clive Barker's The Scarlet Gospels. It took eleven long hours. Honestly, I think Clive did a far better job on his series of Hellraiser comics than he did on this novel. This novel had a lot of issues for me. For one thing it was very unbalanced and parts of it seemed very uninspired. I think there were exactly four scenes in this book (I won't go over them) that were brilliantly Barker, but that was it.
The major uninspired part of this book was Hell itself. The truth is there really wasn't anything hellacous about the Hell Barker describes, it could have been Middle Earth or Imagica for all you could tell.It definitely wasn't a place where Pinhead or his troops fit in. I definitely prefer the labyrinth and Leviathan in the films over the Hell in this book. Unfortunately, it is the trip through Hell that takes up the majority of the book.
I liked how Barker handled Lucifer, I think that was pretty much the best part of the book next to Pinhead's intro. I felt Harry D'Mour was wasted in this book, even though he was the main character. Really the only good part for D'Mour was when he entered the secret "party" house of his dead client. After that his part just didn't thrill me.
I felt Pinhead's anticipated death was completely lack luster and a waste. Also, that the entire end of the book was as drawn out as the end of Peter Jackson's film adaptation of Lord of the Rings.
So, in the end I can't recommend The Scarlet Gospels. If you want some really good Clive Barker/Pinehead action get the four part Clive Barker's Hellraiser comics that came out four years ago.
Keep on Creepin', Horror Bob's Blog
