Worms of the Earth
The dark masterpiece of Howard's canon, fusing sword and sorcery with Machen-style little-people horror; Lovecraft himself praised it warmly.
Book Entry · Horror
What is The Books of Blood about?
Six volumes (1984–85) that rewired horror's possibilities in one go: 'The Midnight Meat Train' (a Manhattan abattoir line serving the city's true fathers), 'In the Hills, the Cities' (two Yugoslav towns assembling themselves into striding giants — the great single image of 1980s horror), 'Rawhead Rex' (a pre-Christian appetite in a Kentish field), 'The Forbidden' (urban legend as participatory faith, filmed as Candyman), and the framing conceit of stories carved into a fraudulent medium's skin. Barker's monsters desire and are desired; the transgression is the attraction. 'Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red.'
Why it matters
World and British Fantasy Award-winning collections that announced horror's most original new voice since King — who said so, in the most famous blurb the genre owns — and founded modern body horror's literary wing.
Read next
Alone with the Horrors
Winner of both the World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award for collection: the canonical one-volume Campbell and a standard text in any serious horror education.
American Gods
Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus and Bram Stoker awards in one sweep — the codifying text of the gods-among-us genre — and a Starz television series besides.