Barker is always so unique. I love how his most interesting works do not limit themselves to being about horror, but using horror to talk about really human emotions like love, desire or purpose. Thank you so much for this video.
I have always loved Imajica. It has always sparked a feeling in me that I cannot name or explain. Like a mourning for something I never lost, and then the joy and satisfaction of regaining it.
The first scene with Mick and Judd was really heartbreaking for me. I’ve known many couples that aren’t abusive or dysfunctional, just apathetic and ill-matched. They’re constantly at the verge of collapse or at the verge of taking a turn for the worst, and the tension rises with every moment of silence. There are small moments of happiness that keep them together, but there’s the underlying understanding that it won’t last forever, and the tension will inevitably seep back in.
I appreciated the vividness of the characters, even though we know that they are doomed, we still feel the need to finish the story, if not for ourselves, but for these two fictional humans who were victims of a real human's imagination.
I’m terrified this is how my relationship is. It’s my first, so I have no clue what to do, but I have a feeling it might be like that, or it could just be that the honeymoon phase ended. How can I know?
I would call that dysfunctional, not abusiv, no maliciousness, but yoxic since both starve togeather, never quite feeling connected, never quite getting what they need while knowing they are never enough ...
I absolutely love these audiobook-type of videos. It introduced me to a whole lot of new books that I for sure will get! Thank you Tale Foundry, we love you and your amazing super cool robo-narrator.
Before watching video... I'm assuming by thumbnail that this is "In the Hills, the cities" one of the most just PURE ORIGINAL ideas I've come across in any genre.
Actually, there IS a tradition involving such human engineering in Catalonia, they call it "castell", which means "castle": groups of some 100-500 people organizing themselves in "towers" several meters high. I believe this could be the source of Clive Barker´s visual inspiration; but indeed, the image he creates surpasses all inspiration, giving it quite an uncanny twist. To speak about the meaning of it all, I´d like to point out some items that might contribute to the whole picture. First, it's the totalitarism and its romantic aura (being part of something great and mighty). Second, we still could view the giants without the "political" conception, then it would be something like the death/life impulses dychotomy in psychoanalysis. Third, the most shocking moment, for me, is when Mike, who previously had begged Judd the cynic to turn away from the horror, becomes the one attracted to it. This is quite horrific and unsettling.
Yesss!! I’m from Catalonia and I’ve seen the Castelles in person (particularly in the annual festa major in Vilafranca del Penedès, near Barcelona). It’s truly awesome! My favourite part is that the person at the top of the tower is always a kid, and they can be 10 people tall! There’s also a similar tradition somewhere in India where people climb into towers to retrieve a hanging yoghurt.
Awesome, man. I 'm from Catalonia, and i was going to write about that. But you described it perfectly What's remarcable about those human structures is the coordination, comunal effort and colective strenght towards a simple goal. It really feels like it's just one entity. Or this ants colonies that build bridges and stuff. Also, what matches Clive Barker's story is that there are contests between different towns/cities to see which one is best. But without the death and blood. Just tons of swept jajaja Adeu! (bye)
This is one of the rare stories that I read when I was a teenager and still remember clearly to this day. It had a huge effect on what actually scares me in horror and defined the feeling I always try to evoke in my own writing.
Oh I would absolutely adore it if you covered Clive Barker‘s Abarat . It’s in desperate need of attention and it’s basically Harry Potter mixed with Star Wars! It’s fully illustrated by him in beautiful oil painting! It’s surreal and captivating! No one knows anything of it.
So much this! One of my favourite series by him and it’s so magical and beautiful and it does not get the recognition it deserves. My English teacher recommended it to me in public school almost 20 years ago and it’s still one of my favourite books to this day.
It reminds me of the Junji ito story in which more and more people were stitched to each other and societys while the people a lower part of a giant is composed of represent people in a lower class and the ones that an upper part of the giant is composed of represent people in an upper class
@@alonassoolin2968 I have to ask, what about this channel interests you? Because you clearly aren’t a writer, unless your native language also doesn’t have punctuation
@@sullygroot924 Eh It’s debatable. I think they both have their strengths, on top of that they both actually have a mutual respect for each other. Kings character work is often in a tier of his own, while Clive is really good at raising questions about morals or society and has a better general prose in some aspects. I love both writers either way.
@seppuku- I also love both, but I'd rather read clive barker as I've gotten older. I think Stephen King has the same issue as Lovecraft, he can write a good story but his characters and endings are a bit lacking. I still love kings short stories either way.
We left a lot of details out to keep the story palatable to the majority of viewers, but here's the excerpt: "Mick saw the leg raised; saw the faces of the people in the shin and ankle and foot - they were as big as he was now - all huge men chosen to take the full weight of this great creation. Many were dead. The bottom of the foot, he could see, was a jigsaw of crushed and bloody bodies, pressed to death under the weight of their fellow citizens."
Y'all have really stepped your game up over the last year. Don't get me wrong your older videos are great but ever since you went to a weekly schedule the quality has only gone up! Keep up the great work!
I can absolutely not believe that I am watching a video about this crazy ass visual novel from Clive Barker… An absolutely mind boggled right now! I bought this story on my nook something close to 12 years ago while I was still in high school and was on a huge Clive Barker phase. I just read through all of Orson Scott cards Enders series And really needed something to pacify my hunger. I scour in through the catalog of Barnes & Noble‘s nook repertoire and bought just this single story because of the compelling illustration on the front of it. Absolutely tragic. About as eldritch as possible. And it’s somehow even more startling that now I am watching a video of it and that at least 10,000 people Are going to also know about it through you.
That story was more like an SCP than a Clive Barker story, but if it were an SCP there would probably just be a mass of flesh held together by the power of body horror rather than ropes and collective will.
The city could just keep wandering the hills for years collecting new citizens to replace those who expire. That could be a horror that the Foundation needs to intervene on.
I’d honestly love a story about some old god who’s presence compels those around to form it a body to wield. As it reaches more people this primordial god creates a horror from the maddened followers who know nothing but their role in the great ones machine of flesh.
Not SCP, but I learned about this story due to an homage to it featured in the horror podcast series "The Magnus Archives." It's an episode from the last season, though, one that wouldn't make sense out of context. Spoilers for those who care. It basically describes a similar scenario, except with a much, much bigger colossus of human bodies, describing both the perspective of people on the ground unable to comprehend the inescapable force that they're fleeing from, so large that they can't even tell the shape of it, as well as the perspective of people trapped within it, making up its body but not in control of it, wanting so badly to escape only to remember that they're so high up that to do so would be to do, forcing back into a writhing mass of human bodies, not even ropes to hold them up in this version.
A lot of times when I’m out shooting photos, this specific RUclips channel is playing on my phone as I shoot. There’s something so inspirational about this channel. I love this channel.
In the Hills, the Cities is probably one of my favorite Barker tales. Its the first I read from Books of Blood and it made me a lifelong fan of his work.
I wish I could go back and relive the moment I first read this story. The sheer creativity and imagery it evokes, I was in awe and had to catch my breath after reading it, I remember I took a train right after finishing this story and I was just numb for the entire 45-minute ride, could hardly find my way to work afterwards. Absolutely brilliant writing here, and the channel does it justice. 👏
Oooooh, I've read this story. I've read a lot of Clive Barker's delirious horror fiction. (In one of his novels, he wrote that he noticed his friends refused to leave their children alone in the room with him any longer. I wonder what made them so nervous...) All that aside, I keep hoping someone will make a movie out of his novel "The Thief of Always". Some people compare it to "Coraline" but I think Barker's novel could stand on its own. Gaiman's children became ghosts; Clive's become fish people. There's room for both interpretations.
This is my favorite entry in Books of Blood! I took ONE look at the thumbnail and recognized it immediately, and couldn't wait to get home to watch the video! I love all of Books of Blood (yes, even Yattering and Jack; it made me laugh), but THIS one is just a mind-freak! It really does give you this "...Whoah!" sensation as you try to imagine the scope and scale of everything, so I highly recommend picking up the full anthology collection. But be warned: it is also much more gruesome in its details! Though that may also be a selling point. It's Books of Blood, not Books of Butterflies. That also makes the book interesting because it's sort of a time capsule of Clive Barker's life. The updated introduction of the book mentions that he's changed, as his later books are less about horror and more about fantasy, or "the fantastique". But man, was he good at horror! This was the book that started it all for Barker.
WORLDSMITHS ➤ nebula.tv/videos/talefoundry-worldsmiths-the-blood-artist Go see our video on Clive Barker himself! There's a lot to this author, and a lot you may be assuming about him that just... isn't the case. It's actually part of our series Worldsmiths, which I totally recommend you go give a watch!
I wonder if the author was inspired by the town of Centuripe in italy that looks like a giant that felt down to the ground... rigolotes.fr/img/normal/20210219/BJZY/20210219.jpg
This is one of his best stories in the books of blood. I love this story so much, he writes such good characters. Thank you for covering this master class in writing.
Jud exemplifies something I don't understand about some characters in horror. That willingness to cling so hard onto a preconceived notion of "reality" or "believability," which only leads to their fragile mind shattering harder if the story goes in that direction. Like... Bruh. You saw the million gallons of blood flooding the street, you saw the hundreds of thousands of bodies, freshly dead, all at seemingly the same time, strapped together, and sprawled out in a humanoid shape. I'd think "believability" is no longer on the table. Maybe I'm missing something in the symbolism and his characterization, and should probably read it before making a statement on it.
Nah, I get what you mean. This is an issue for me with most horror, the characters that see some unbelievably messed up stuff and yet refuse to allow their minds to adapt and change when given the chance. I know I would have been questioning things the moment that first weird thing occurred. Yeah, a flood ov blood? I would probably be curious, to be honest, but the second I see thousands ov dead people, all forming the image ov a humanoid... I'm fvcking gone 😂 But I even highly doubt I would have stayed after the river ov blood flows from a forest! That's not a normal natural event 😅 But I get it. Story.
Very interesting sociological subtext here. Though I believe one must look past the imagery and display to see where the mistake both roads made that doomed them. We must look to the past to walk safe into the future even as we must build anew.
I really like the fact that there is no clear answer in this story. It's been a while since I've read it, but I remember being struck by the beauty in both types of dissolution. Clive Barker made sure to show the beauty in both of them or at least write about them in a way befitting something beautiful (or miraculous). And that's the thing, Clive Barker can write profane. He knows how. He can write in ways that inspire disgust or in ways that inspire awe, the kind of awe the biblical angels were said to inspire. Terrible beauty.
Now you could argue that either influenced the other but this short story has total Junji Ito vibes lol not just the cosmic element but even in its structure, very very good
"Brace yourself for one of the strangest horrors ever written" Oh...he's going to talk about the Lix. "I present to you in the hills, the cities" Oh thank god.
@@breadisarting4044 Summoned by sorcerers, these snake-like demons come in all sizes. Ravenous for flesh, they consume their victim from the inside out, entering in through the eyes and mouth. These creatures can be found in Clive Barker's famous horror-fantasy novel "Everville". They also appear in The Great and Secret Show where they are made from highly evolved semen. 😧
The idea still goes back way farther. There’s an old Japanese myth that the bodies of dead soldiers who weren’t buried would coalesce into the Gashadokuro, a giant skeleton
Good stuff - I remember the first time I read this. Wasn't even sure what was going on at first, but when I understood, I was blown away. This channel feels like it was made just for me, some days.
Omg I've loved this story forever! I'm so glad more people are learning about it! I still think about it whenever I am in a small town! Thank you so much for this!
I found this excellent tale far more melancholic than horrifying. Sure, the details are super-gory, but at the story's heart is a more existential sorrow, examining the underlying fragility, perhaps even the absurdity, of individuality, as demonstrated by the birth of the city-being and the eventual fates of Judd and Mick. Judd loses his individuality the same way the vast majority of us will: by dying, decomposing into basic elements for use elsewhere in the universe. We think of ourselves as individuals, as a single unit, but we are made of billions upon billions of individual cells, which are in turn made up of a billion times more molecules, made up of a billion times more atoms, and so on down to the basic energy fluctuations of space-time which create the building blocks of matter. The matter flows through time and space, building upon itself until, for a brief second in the cosmological timeline, it becomes aware of itself, and starts thinking of itself as an individual. The moment passes, and it becomes a multitude of smaller pieces again, rushing off into new forms. Meanwhile, Mick loses his individuality by joining something greater than himself, if just as confused and ephemeral as anything else in the universe with self-awareness. I have lately been toying with the idea of how what we call "divine" may be something that emerges from the connections and actions of humans, similar to how individual human consciousness is believed to emerge from the connections and communications between our neurons. Anyone who has been part of a highly passionate group may know the odd feeling of somehow losing yourself in the group, becoming almost one with it, if only briefly. Somehow, possibly due to the shock of seeing the only other entity like it die, both as a being and as human components, this particular city-creature reached a certain critical mass to not only become a unified entity, but aware of itself and its fragility. Now, like any other creature, and much like ourselves, it has a drive to continue its existence however it can, however brief, lonesome and confusing it may be. A brilliant story, and I'm glad to know an author with better writing chops than I currently have was able to explore these themes! (A semi-related side note for any of you who have seen the bizarre 2009 film "9," I was fully expecting the central conflict to be resolved in a manner similar to Mick's fate... and was _royally_ pissed when it outright refused to!)
Yeah it’s definitely a top of the line Short Story, I mean it’s like 30 pages but it’s so dense with material and substance it doesn’t feel like it. It seems and feels to me like an ancient allegory aligning (of the two cities) with the new/modern mess of troubled relationships.
Reminds me of a monster I came up with: The Flesh Tsunami. It’s basically a pile of rotting human corpses that act as a single entity, moving across landscapes with surprising speed, like a body of water, if the water was decomposing flesh, screaming faces with skin falling off, and flailing limbs with most rotted to stumps.
i reckon you can find so many angles at the human experience in this one because it is replicating the same effect a scale up. "like so many cells" puts the perspective in place nicely
I want to say I remember reading this story in a comic book anthology. This was one of my favorite from this fascinating comic book. It was illustrated so beautifully!
I'm from Serbia and I never heard of Tapping the Vein series by Barker. Will have to look more into this. It's rare to see an author write a story set in my part of the world.
A lot of this would be confusing without narration even if the story is just going along with these people's reasoning. The last giant is the embodiment of yolo. Thirsting for death but not doing anything to laboring to achieve it. Just walking along starving itself till death. It could just disassemble and live as Life as a proper City .. making more babies to then also run that city but no...mass suicide through starvation. It's almost like once everyone became a city they wanted nothing else to do with life. I guess that makes sense... no one said the fight between the two giants wasn't a death match.
Your channel is always so fascinating. I love Clive Barker's range, he's such an amazing creator and your visuals and your voice and way of presenting are so engaging. I'll look into Nebula and Curiosity Stream right away!
The weirdness of the concept of this "monster" is giving me Dead Space vibes; a single form composed of thousands of human bodies, the idea that all a part of it are one mind - one body, the appeal of unity...it's not as gory or horrifying as anything from that franchise, but the similarities are identifiable.
What an interesting creature; TALE FOUNDRY speaking of creatures and monsters, one question; Have you ever heard about THE SHRIKE from the book HYPERION?
I thought about this story for a long time after reading it. 30+ years ago, it was the logistics of the "creation," over the meaning of it, that I was stuck on. Now, I can appreciate the metaphor a bit more.
Now that i think about it, our bodies are basically the the same thing. No? We are made of trillions of cells and microorganisms working in unison for our daily lives.
Stellar video as always. As a fan suggestion, World War Z and The Zombie Survival guide have technically been around long enough to take a serious look at. Max Brooks being the son of Mel Brooks I think made these titles passed over by many people. When's the last time you heard anyone bring up the Zombie Survival Guide?
Barker is always so unique. I love how his most interesting works do not limit themselves to being about horror, but using horror to talk about really human emotions like love, desire or purpose. Thank you so much for this video.
Indeed
I have always loved Imajica. It has always sparked a feeling in me that I cannot name or explain. Like a mourning for something I never lost, and then the joy and satisfaction of regaining it.
Mr B. Gone is one of my favorites mainly because I can relate
I've heard of a tight knit community but this is a whole new level! Jokes aside I really loved this video.
holy shit
😂
I’ve heard of a tight knit community but this is a whole new level! Jokes aside I really loved stealing this comment.
‘The jumper granny knitted’
Too lazy to find the full joke but I’m sure there’s one there
The first scene with Mick and Judd was really heartbreaking for me.
I’ve known many couples that aren’t abusive or dysfunctional, just apathetic and ill-matched. They’re constantly at the verge of collapse or at the verge of taking a turn for the worst, and the tension rises with every moment of silence. There are small moments of happiness that keep them together, but there’s the underlying understanding that it won’t last forever, and the tension will inevitably seep back in.
I was in a relationship like this and it definitely lasted longer than it should’ve. The moment stuck with me as well.
@@NightmareRevised I’m sorry. I hope you’re doing a lot better now
I appreciated the vividness of the characters, even though we know that they are doomed, we still feel the need to finish the story, if not for ourselves, but for these two fictional humans who were victims of a real human's imagination.
I’m terrified this is how my relationship is. It’s my first, so I have no clue what to do, but I have a feeling it might be like that, or it could just be that the honeymoon phase ended. How can I know?
I would call that dysfunctional, not abusiv, no maliciousness, but yoxic since both starve togeather, never quite feeling connected, never quite getting what they need while knowing they are never enough ...
I absolutely love these audiobook-type of videos. It introduced me to a whole lot of new books that I for sure will get! Thank you Tale Foundry, we love you and your amazing super cool robo-narrator.
Before watching video...
I'm assuming by thumbnail that this is
"In the Hills, the cities" one of the most just PURE ORIGINAL ideas I've come across in any genre.
Congrats on being correct then
Actually, there IS a tradition involving such human engineering in Catalonia, they call it "castell", which means "castle": groups of some 100-500 people organizing themselves in "towers" several meters high. I believe this could be the source of Clive Barker´s visual inspiration; but indeed, the image he creates surpasses all inspiration, giving it quite an uncanny twist. To speak about the meaning of it all, I´d like to point out some items that might contribute to the whole picture. First, it's the totalitarism and its romantic aura (being part of something great and mighty). Second, we still could view the giants without the "political" conception, then it would be something like the death/life impulses dychotomy in psychoanalysis. Third, the most shocking moment, for me, is when Mike, who previously had begged Judd the cynic to turn away from the horror, becomes the one attracted to it. This is quite horrific and unsettling.
Yesss!! I’m from Catalonia and I’ve seen the Castelles in person (particularly in the annual festa major in Vilafranca del Penedès, near Barcelona). It’s truly awesome! My favourite part is that the person at the top of the tower is always a kid, and they can be 10 people tall! There’s also a similar tradition somewhere in India where people climb into towers to retrieve a hanging yoghurt.
Awesome, man.
I 'm from Catalonia, and i was going to write about that. But you described it perfectly
What's remarcable about those human structures is the coordination, comunal effort and colective strenght towards a simple goal. It really feels like it's just one entity. Or this ants colonies that build bridges and stuff.
Also, what matches Clive Barker's story is that there are contests between different towns/cities to see which one is best. But without the death and blood. Just tons of swept jajaja
Adeu! (bye)
Everyone REALLY outdid themselves with this one, it turned out so beautifully!!
This is one of the rare stories that I read when I was a teenager and still remember clearly to this day. It had a huge effect on what actually scares me in horror and defined the feeling I always try to evoke in my own writing.
Oh I would absolutely adore it if you covered Clive Barker‘s Abarat . It’s in desperate need of attention and it’s basically Harry Potter mixed with Star Wars! It’s fully illustrated by him in beautiful oil painting! It’s surreal and captivating! No one knows anything of it.
Abarat is one of my favorites! Baker's illustrations are captivating
I read it once a LONG time ago. . . I remember nothing about it, and wouldn't have remembered it if I hadn't seen the name.
sounds interesting
So much this! One of my favourite series by him and it’s so magical and beautiful and it does not get the recognition it deserves. My English teacher recommended it to me in public school almost 20 years ago and it’s still one of my favourite books to this day.
It was going to get an adaptation at one point but as I understand Mr. Barker gave Disney the finger
This sounds more like a sad story instead of a horror story.
more like both actually
This feels like something I could also see Junji Ito writing.
I was thinking this the entire time i was watching this
It reminds me of the Junji ito story in which more and more people were stitched to each other and societys while the people a lower part of a giant is composed of represent people in a lower class and the ones that an upper part of the giant is composed of represent people in an upper class
@@alonassoolin2968 I have to ask, what about this channel interests you? Because you clearly aren’t a writer, unless your native language also doesn’t have punctuation
@@themostdiabolicalhater5986just why tf do you need to ask it? When formulated like this, your statement sounds like something pointless and impolite
Frrrrr I was waiting to find this comment
I love Clive Barker’s work; so glad to see a new vid about his stories ❤
He's a very talented writer.
Honestly, a better writer then Stephen King.
@@sullygroot924 that’s a pretty hot take but I agree 🥰
@@sullygroot924 Eh It’s debatable. I think they both have their strengths, on top of that they both actually have a mutual respect for each other. Kings character work is often in a tier of his own, while Clive is really good at raising questions about morals or society and has a better general prose in some aspects. I love both writers either way.
@seppuku- I also love both, but I'd rather read clive barker as I've gotten older. I think Stephen King has the same issue as Lovecraft, he can write a good story but his characters and endings are a bit lacking. I still love kings short stories either way.
The question in my mind right now :
What happens to the people in the feet part of the body?
Imagine being on the interior of it
@@lilyhoch269 not worse than thousands of people pushing me to the ground... Not talking about all the stuffs on earth
We left a lot of details out to keep the story palatable to the majority of viewers, but here's the excerpt:
"Mick saw the leg raised; saw the faces of the people in the shin and ankle and foot - they were as big as he was now - all huge men chosen to take the full weight of this great creation. Many were dead. The bottom of the foot, he could see, was a jigsaw of crushed and bloody bodies, pressed to death under the weight of their fellow citizens."
@@TheTaleFoundry I knew there was something up... But thanks for the answer
@@TheTaleFoundry Oh well i definitely do not want to take that job
Y'all have really stepped your game up over the last year. Don't get me wrong your older videos are great but ever since you went to a weekly schedule the quality has only gone up! Keep up the great work!
Ah yes, cold autumn, a freshly bought coco and a Tale foundry video, this evening is going to be amazing
Two villages be like:
It's Kaiju time?
ITS KAIJU TIME!!!!!
It's like the world's worst combiner mecha.
And now I'm thinking about Clive Barker doing Evangelion and I have seen the face of madness
I can absolutely not believe that I am watching a video about this crazy ass visual novel from Clive Barker… An absolutely mind boggled right now! I bought this story on my nook something close to 12 years ago while I was still in high school and was on a huge Clive Barker phase. I just read through all of Orson Scott cards Enders series And really needed something to pacify my hunger. I scour in through the catalog of Barnes & Noble‘s nook repertoire and bought just this single story because of the compelling illustration on the front of it. Absolutely tragic. About as eldritch as possible. And it’s somehow even more startling that now I am watching a video of it and that at least 10,000 people Are going to also know about it through you.
I am croatian and I can confirm this is what we do for fun in the summer.
That story was more like an SCP than a Clive Barker story, but if it were an SCP there would probably just be a mass of flesh held together by the power of body horror rather than ropes and collective will.
The city could just keep wandering the hills for years collecting new citizens to replace those who expire. That could be a horror that the Foundation needs to intervene on.
I’d honestly love a story about some old god who’s presence compels those around to form it a body to wield. As it reaches more people this primordial god creates a horror from the maddened followers who know nothing but their role in the great ones machine of flesh.
Isn't SCP, in the end, just a Clive Barker knockoff? xD
Not SCP, but I learned about this story due to an homage to it featured in the horror podcast series "The Magnus Archives." It's an episode from the last season, though, one that wouldn't make sense out of context.
Spoilers for those who care.
It basically describes a similar scenario, except with a much, much bigger colossus of human bodies, describing both the perspective of people on the ground unable to comprehend the inescapable force that they're fleeing from, so large that they can't even tell the shape of it, as well as the perspective of people trapped within it, making up its body but not in control of it, wanting so badly to escape only to remember that they're so high up that to do so would be to do, forcing back into a writhing mass of human bodies, not even ropes to hold them up in this version.
It would probably be mount everest.
Your voice has no right to be so comforting
A lot of times when I’m out shooting photos, this specific RUclips channel is playing on my phone as I shoot. There’s something so inspirational about this channel. I love this channel.
In the Hills, the Cities is probably one of my favorite Barker tales. Its the first I read from Books of Blood and it made me a lifelong fan of his work.
I wish I could go back and relive the moment I first read this story. The sheer creativity and imagery it evokes, I was in awe and had to catch my breath after reading it, I remember I took a train right after finishing this story and I was just numb for the entire 45-minute ride, could hardly find my way to work afterwards. Absolutely brilliant writing here, and the channel does it justice. 👏
Oooooh, I've read this story. I've read a lot of Clive Barker's delirious horror fiction. (In one of his novels, he wrote that he noticed his friends refused to leave their children alone in the room with him any longer. I wonder what made them so nervous...) All that aside, I keep hoping someone will make a movie out of his novel "The Thief of Always". Some people compare it to "Coraline" but I think Barker's novel could stand on its own. Gaiman's children became ghosts; Clive's become fish people. There's room for both interpretations.
This is my favorite entry in Books of Blood! I took ONE look at the thumbnail and recognized it immediately, and couldn't wait to get home to watch the video!
I love all of Books of Blood (yes, even Yattering and Jack; it made me laugh), but THIS one is just a mind-freak! It really does give you this "...Whoah!" sensation as you try to imagine the scope and scale of everything, so I highly recommend picking up the full anthology collection. But be warned: it is also much more gruesome in its details! Though that may also be a selling point. It's Books of Blood, not Books of Butterflies.
That also makes the book interesting because it's sort of a time capsule of Clive Barker's life. The updated introduction of the book mentions that he's changed, as his later books are less about horror and more about fantasy, or "the fantastique". But man, was he good at horror! This was the book that started it all for Barker.
Oh that's cool. Books of blood. I'll look it up.
I really liked the Yattering and Jack, it was a great palate cleanser
I mainly see the parallel between the couple and the 2 cities
Legion in Castlevania.
Nito in Dark Souls.
Rotten in Dark Souls 2.
The One Reborn in Bloodborne.
There is one in super meat boy as well
Thaddius in World of Warcraft
Army of One in Junji Ito
Granfaloon in Castlevania
Another one: mega baby from Invader Zim (and yes it is made out of babies)
The conformity by john hornor jacobs
WORLDSMITHS ➤ nebula.tv/videos/talefoundry-worldsmiths-the-blood-artist
Go see our video on Clive Barker himself! There's a lot to this author, and a lot you may be assuming about him that just... isn't the case. It's actually part of our series Worldsmiths, which I totally recommend you go give a watch!
of course they aren't compatible. they're two men.
why would you read aloud this lghd TV smut.
Wondered if it's inspired by the music video "DyE - Fantasy"?
I wonder if the author was inspired by the town of Centuripe in italy that looks like a giant that felt down to the ground...
rigolotes.fr/img/normal/20210219/BJZY/20210219.jpg
This is one of his best stories in the books of blood. I love this story so much, he writes such good characters. Thank you for covering this master class in writing.
Loving the Clive Barker content. One of my favourite storytellers, and severely under appreciated.
Best sport ever, have your entire city become one giant monster for pretty much no reason and fight your neighbour.
Clicked so fast. Your video about Imajica made me finally dive into clive's work and I'm so in love ❤️ thank you
Oh wow, this is one of my absolute favourite Clive Barker stories!
Jud exemplifies something I don't understand about some characters in horror. That willingness to cling so hard onto a preconceived notion of "reality" or "believability," which only leads to their fragile mind shattering harder if the story goes in that direction. Like... Bruh. You saw the million gallons of blood flooding the street, you saw the hundreds of thousands of bodies, freshly dead, all at seemingly the same time, strapped together, and sprawled out in a humanoid shape. I'd think "believability" is no longer on the table. Maybe I'm missing something in the symbolism and his characterization, and should probably read it before making a statement on it.
Nah, I get what you mean.
This is an issue for me with most horror, the characters that see some unbelievably messed up stuff and yet refuse to allow their minds to adapt and change when given the chance.
I know I would have been questioning things the moment that first weird thing occurred.
Yeah, a flood ov blood?
I would probably be curious, to be honest, but the second I see thousands ov dead people, all forming the image ov a humanoid...
I'm fvcking gone 😂
But I even highly doubt I would have stayed after the river ov blood flows from a forest!
That's not a normal natural event 😅
But I get it. Story.
One of my favourite short stories of all time. It's always stuck with me since I read it. It's such a brilliant idea.
If you can get hold of it, Tapping the Vein (the graphic novels based upon the Books of Blood) visualises this in all its disturbing glory
Very interesting sociological subtext here. Though I believe one must look past the imagery and display to see where the mistake both roads made that doomed them. We must look to the past to walk safe into the future even as we must build anew.
I read this story a few months ago, and this is one of the only ones that stuck out in the whole anthology.
This is one of Clive Barker's best and most interesting short piece. The concept of it all is just as majestic as it is terrifying.
I really like the fact that there is no clear answer in this story. It's been a while since I've read it, but I remember being struck by the beauty in both types of dissolution. Clive Barker made sure to show the beauty in both of them or at least write about them in a way befitting something beautiful (or miraculous).
And that's the thing, Clive Barker can write profane. He knows how. He can write in ways that inspire disgust or in ways that inspire awe, the kind of awe the biblical angels were said to inspire. Terrible beauty.
Teamwork makes the nightmare work.
Sometimes your videos kind of make me think about life, like on how your story kind of makes sense about what I'm questioning about the world...
It’s the greatest short story ever written,imo. Of any genre! Imagine Ridley Scott or Villaneuve making the film!
Now you could argue that either influenced the other but this short story has total Junji Ito vibes lol not just the cosmic element but even in its structure, very very good
Or both drew inspiration from same predecessors.
@@retrohanska4441 conjecture, as is my statement.
Having your voice in my ear makes me question things about myself
"Brace yourself for one of the strangest horrors ever written"
Oh...he's going to talk about the Lix.
"I present to you in the hills, the cities"
Oh thank god.
What's that? I tried googling it and found little!
@@breadisarting4044 Summoned by sorcerers, these snake-like demons come in all sizes. Ravenous for flesh, they consume their victim from the inside out, entering in through the eyes and mouth. These creatures can be found in Clive Barker's famous horror-fantasy novel "Everville". They also appear in The Great and Secret Show where they are made from highly evolved semen. 😧
@@Sorrowdusk Thank you!
That concept of a giant monster made out of human bodies was actually a Clark Ashton Smith idea
Was actually going to post this, but you beat me to it. I like Barker a lot, but I LOVE Smith - and he did this weirder.
The idea still goes back way farther. There’s an old Japanese myth that the bodies of dead soldiers who weren’t buried would coalesce into the Gashadokuro, a giant skeleton
@@tylercoon1791 keyword coalesce they weren't distinct like cells they were all formed into a single mass.
People compacting like that reminds me a bit of of what the infected of Shaggy Dreadlocks Proposal of SCP-001 "When day breaks"
I knew exactly what you were gonna talk about by the thumbnail and I am so pleased. I threw my book reading this story and it is one of my favourites!
That's just a regular October in Yugoslavia.
I truly loved this story. It was one of those that really comes out of left field and leaves you with an, odd enduring splinter in your brain.
I think the thing that got the most reaction out of me in this video was the fact that it was two men on a honeymoon
Good stuff - I remember the first time I read this. Wasn't even sure what was going on at first, but when I understood, I was blown away. This channel feels like it was made just for me, some days.
this story is awesome. I have never heard of this before. thanks!
Omg I've loved this story forever! I'm so glad more people are learning about it! I still think about it whenever I am in a small town! Thank you so much for this!
I found this excellent tale far more melancholic than horrifying. Sure, the details are super-gory, but at the story's heart is a more existential sorrow, examining the underlying fragility, perhaps even the absurdity, of individuality, as demonstrated by the birth of the city-being and the eventual fates of Judd and Mick.
Judd loses his individuality the same way the vast majority of us will: by dying, decomposing into basic elements for use elsewhere in the universe. We think of ourselves as individuals, as a single unit, but we are made of billions upon billions of individual cells, which are in turn made up of a billion times more molecules, made up of a billion times more atoms, and so on down to the basic energy fluctuations of space-time which create the building blocks of matter. The matter flows through time and space, building upon itself until, for a brief second in the cosmological timeline, it becomes aware of itself, and starts thinking of itself as an individual. The moment passes, and it becomes a multitude of smaller pieces again, rushing off into new forms.
Meanwhile, Mick loses his individuality by joining something greater than himself, if just as confused and ephemeral as anything else in the universe with self-awareness. I have lately been toying with the idea of how what we call "divine" may be something that emerges from the connections and actions of humans, similar to how individual human consciousness is believed to emerge from the connections and communications between our neurons. Anyone who has been part of a highly passionate group may know the odd feeling of somehow losing yourself in the group, becoming almost one with it, if only briefly. Somehow, possibly due to the shock of seeing the only other entity like it die, both as a being and as human components, this particular city-creature reached a certain critical mass to not only become a unified entity, but aware of itself and its fragility. Now, like any other creature, and much like ourselves, it has a drive to continue its existence however it can, however brief, lonesome and confusing it may be.
A brilliant story, and I'm glad to know an author with better writing chops than I currently have was able to explore these themes!
(A semi-related side note for any of you who have seen the bizarre 2009 film "9," I was fully expecting the central conflict to be resolved in a manner similar to Mick's fate... and was _royally_ pissed when it outright refused to!)
Deep down, aren’t we all made out of bodies?
The first time I read the story I was terrified by it, utterly inhuman, the best Clive Barker’s story ever written
Yeah it’s definitely a top of the line Short Story, I mean it’s like 30 pages but it’s so dense with material and substance it doesn’t feel like it. It seems and feels to me like an ancient allegory aligning (of the two cities) with the new/modern mess of troubled relationships.
Can we just stop and recognize Barker’s incredible talent? I had not read this, and I hung on the whole story.♥️
You are so good at narrating stories! Would love to see more!
Creatures like these, amalgamations of other things, always fascinate me.
I can still remember this story and 'that' imagery/sequence, so powerful!
Dude. I love this story. Books of blood 1-3 is an amazing story collection.
In the Hills the cities...
read this story when I was in 6th grade...still gives me shivers... horror master piece better than Hellraiser
I love this story. I read it 15 years ago and still think about it. The books of blood had some great short stories
the 2 towns reflect the 2 men as one town falls apart as well as jud, the other man runs off after the 1st man's death
I loved this story from the books of blood.
The yattering and Jack is also pretty good.
Reminds me of a monster I came up with: The Flesh Tsunami. It’s basically a pile of rotting human corpses that act as a single entity, moving across landscapes with surprising speed, like a body of water, if the water was decomposing flesh, screaming faces with skin falling off, and flailing limbs with most rotted to stumps.
That is a really cool idea!
So a tsunami. Just with less debris 😂
@@OriLOK2 No, the debris is just organic this time. Mostly small bones, like finger and ear bones.
@@syrathdouglas1244 oh I see! That's really cool! Would be an interesting challenge to represent it visually.
You should do "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" sometime!
my favourite horror short story, thank you for talking about it
i reckon you can find so many angles at the human experience in this one because it is replicating the same effect a scale up. "like so many cells" puts the perspective in place nicely
FROM MY CHILDHOODDD I love this author. The thief of always was my favorite!
I want to say I remember reading this story in a comic book anthology. This was one of my favorite from this fascinating comic book. It was illustrated so beautifully!
This is my third time watching this video, and it JUST clicked that the main characters are a gay couple. How did I, a gay man, not realize this
😂😂😂
Yeah. Shame on you. I am straight and noticed it 😂.
They are
This is my favorite short story of Clive Barker
"we are like brick of the house"
the story is "what if every cell in your body could be independent"
Surrendering autonomy for a literal monster sounds like hell.
This video is a gift. ❤ Fascinating story!
Ah yes, the one reborn true origin story
I haven't even gotten to the cideo and already heard "enormous geographic genetalia". this is gonna be a good episode.
Great video. I absolutely love Clive Barker. Thank you.
I have read this story so many times. So intriguing!
I remember reading this story in Books of Blood and it always stuck with me.
Oh god, I love this story, and how sad it made me feel in the end.
What a fascinating tale. Thank you for such an interesting video today guys. 😄
I'm from Serbia and I never heard of Tapping the Vein series by Barker. Will have to look more into this. It's rare to see an author write a story set in my part of the world.
I also never heard of this book
@@Nightcore-336 apparently they are comic book versions of various Barker short stories
The way you portrayed the ending gave me massive In A Week by Hoizer vibes
A lot of this would be confusing without narration even if the story is just going along with these people's reasoning.
The last giant is the embodiment of yolo.
Thirsting for death but not doing anything to laboring to achieve it.
Just walking along starving itself till death.
It could just disassemble and live as Life as a proper City .. making more babies to then also run that city but no...mass suicide through starvation.
It's almost like once everyone became a city they wanted nothing else to do with life.
I guess that makes sense... no one said the fight between the two giants wasn't a death match.
OMG YES YES!!! This is my favorite story by him! I'm so glad I'm not alone with knowing it exists!
I think my old English teacher will absolutely love this channel.
Your channel is always so fascinating. I love Clive Barker's range, he's such an amazing creator and your visuals and your voice and way of presenting are so engaging. I'll look into Nebula and Curiosity Stream right away!
The weirdness of the concept of this "monster" is giving me Dead Space vibes; a single form composed of thousands of human bodies, the idea that all a part of it are one mind - one body, the appeal of unity...it's not as gory or horrifying as anything from that franchise, but the similarities are identifiable.
Very interesting question! I choose to be an island. Barker is one of my favorite storytellers, thanks for sharing 💕
What an interesting creature; TALE FOUNDRY speaking of creatures and monsters, one question; Have you ever heard about THE SHRIKE from the book HYPERION?
I thought about this story for a long time after reading it. 30+ years ago, it was the logistics of the "creation," over the meaning of it, that I was stuck on. Now, I can appreciate the metaphor a bit more.
I *just* listened to this in the "Books of Blood" audiobook here on YT a couple days ago.
Chill out, Carl Jung.
Now that i think about it, our bodies are basically the the same thing. No? We are made of trillions of cells and microorganisms working in unison for our daily lives.
"Destruction is the end result of everything, so why not choose the destruction that pleases you most".
Stellar video as always. As a fan suggestion, World War Z and The Zombie Survival guide have technically been around long enough to take a serious look at. Max Brooks being the son of Mel Brooks I think made these titles passed over by many people. When's the last time you heard anyone bring up the Zombie Survival Guide?