I have now read the book, watched the movie and now listened to the audiobook. This is another brilliantly imaginative story by Clive Barker where he creates an amazing dark fantasy world inhabited by the Night Breed.
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Just read it. Don't ask questions. ( )

It was fine. I wanted to read it and I have but I'll stick with the movie the next time I get an urge to visit Midian and the Nightbreed. ( )

Cabal is a metaphor for the place Clive Barker takes the reader. Is it an imaginary place for the overactive imagination or does it bring us somewhere very real? Where is this place of monsters. This may not be Barker's best story, but it might just be his most important one. By writing this so early in his career, Mr. Barker makes it clear that the place called Midian is not just this book but will be all of his books to come and Midian will be unique to every individual on every journey imaginable. It may be pleasant but might just be fractured, violent and dark. But in CABAL you will be sure to know that you will have a guide into whatever realm it is you are going. But how do you get back from CABAL? Easy answer...you don't. Each CABAL is yours and yours alone, although it may not seem that way...it is. Of course you will share it with a multitude of Demons, and other wondrously warped personalities, it is still yours. You can ask the writer and question your own intuition while reading this but please be warned and remind yourself just whose work you are dealing with. You will find your answers, either in the dark or etched upon your bloody skin. When you commit to a Clive Barker novel certain elements must first be understood. A mood is going to be set and chances are it will be in a room much darker than you might be used to. So before opening this book take a moment, strip yourself bare, emotionally, physically...it matters not because what is in your inner self is what will allow you to be molded, shaped and recreated into whatever lies upon your heart. Welcome to the world of Mr. Barker. The gates to Midian are open, but don't forget to notice who is closing them behind you. The downside to this book is the second half. It seemed rushed, once the magic of Midian wears off and the extremely overt sexual descriptions show up, the book becomes pornographic. This should not surprise anyone familiar with Barker's work, but it is distracting. I don't think he has ever or will ever realize that he is a good enough writer to stand on his own without the graphic sex. ( )

Nightbreed, the Clive Barker-directed adaptation of his own novella Cabal, was on one of the streaming services, and after finding it more that casually dull, I decided to reread the novella instead.

The book remains a lot of fun. Barker was still in the closet at the time, but there's a queer aesthetic to the descriptive prose that distinguishes the author's work from the rest of the sub-King cohort that dominated horror in the '90s. As with the best novellas Cabal has few extraneous characters, and those left are interesting and individuated.

It's interesting to recall how scandalizing Barker's tight link between sex and horror was at the time. Now that link is just assumed in most of literary horror, and in this, our time of Rule 34, old-timey cultural prudishness feels quaint. ( )