‘They were good at the game of giants. It took many centuries of practice: every ten years making the figure larger and larger. One always ambitious to be larger than the other. Ropes to tie them all together, flawlessly. Sinews . . ligaments . . . There was food in its belly . . . there were pipes from the loins, to take away the waste. The best-sighted sat in the eye-sockets, the best voiced in the mouth and throat. You wouldn’t believe the engineering of it.’

‘I don’t,’ said Judd, and stood up.

‘It is the body of the state,’ said Vaslav, so softly his voice was barely above a whisper, ‘it is the shape of our lives.’

There was a silence. Small clouds passed over the road, soundlessly shedding their mass to the air.

‘It was a miracle,’ he said. It was as if he realized the true enormity of the fact for the first time.

What an enjoyable set of stories, culminating in a work of genius. There's definitely a pulpy quality to his writing - his prose is unsubtle, with some purple descriptions of horrors and the occasional one of emotion but mostly focused on action - but he really pulls it off, with great ideas and a sprinkling of (again, unsubtle) parallels to real world situations that give you a little to chew on. The Midnight Meat Train is probably the most clearly pulp horror style story in the book but it's playing on an effective horror about being defenceless and lacking escape on a train while also hinting at the destruction of marginalised people to keep big cities running. He also has a good sense of humour - The Yattering and Jack and Sex, Death and Starshine are clearly lighthearted (especially the first) even though they also contain horrific moments. A friend objected to the politics of Pig Blood Blues but it reminded me most of something like The Wicker Man - the ex-copper main character does some "heroic" things but the whole setup seems designed to mock him and present him as to an extent intruding on a fine society, while also poking holes in the particular kind of hierarchies "rehabilitative" prisons have and the strange cult around young boys that exists through society. Barker's gayness also shines through - as an undercurrent in that story, very explicitly in the final story.

In the Hills, the Cities is a brilliant story. It has a brilliantly horrific concept at the heart of it that will stay with you forever while surrounding it with so many unsubtle parallels around our relationship with nature, the state, the pain of breakups and arguments, the desire to be part of something bigger (not a coincidence one of the characters is wanting to go across Yugoslavia to see religious icons despite being gay), the Cold War, endless competition, the meaningless of a certain kind of harmless dinner table politics, being gay, tradition, having no future, the desperation to impose normality on human tragedy... everything is explicitly stated, pretty much, and yet the more you think about it the more you see the connections and realise there's much more to it than you thought. I can't say enough good words about it. You should absolutely read it for yourself, even if it's the only story from this you read. Incredible.
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I mean…it was alright. Maybe I’m just too desensitized, I didn’t find anything too horrific. Then again, I’ve always been much more susceptible to a jump scare than a blood and gorefest. The stories were interesting, and well written, just not really what I expected delving into the literary horror genre. ( )

3.6 ( )

Azrael a Jack 4,5/5
Města v horách 3,5/5
Půlnoční vlak smrti 3,5/5
Sex, smrt a hvězdy zář 3,5/5
Mrtví mají své dálnice 3/5
Blues prasečí krve 4/5 ( )

Di sicuro non mi aspettavo di meno dal maestro dell'orrore.
Nel mio mondo personale non c'è sfida tra Barker e King ma una sorta di regno governato da entrambi equamente, alla ricerca della vera origine del Male.

Primo della serie di raccolte di racconti "Libri di Sangue", ennesima edizione italiana, non è male, peccato che, come era prevedibile, si sono fermati col secondo volume che leggerò a breve.

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