CLIVE BARKER'S FIRST TALES First Tales, the inaugural self-published release from Clive Barker's SeraphimInk is a book that contains two original stories of fantastic fiction penned by Clive when he was a young man of 17... The book begins with "The Wood on the Hill", a short story about a bourgeois woman who is soon to learn a terrifying lesson concerning her complete disregard for anyone other than herself. The second tale, "The Candle in the Cloud", is a novella of dark fantasy which follows three children who discover a magical candle that transports them to a world where a plague-cloud is destroying everything in its wake. These two tales, the first ever written by Clive, are offered here for the very first time. Their production has been lovingly supervised by Clive himself to ensure that these are not mere books, but works of art to be cherished. Complete with original illustrations and appendices on select editions, First Tales is sure to delight everyone from longtime fans to new readers. In his own words: "These two stories represent the two essential structures of fantastique literature. ’The Wood on the Hill’ is about an incursion of unearthly elements into an approximation of our world. ’The Candle in the Cloud’ is about a journey taken by people from our world into another reality. Yin and Yang, if you like. Forces pulling in opposing directions but to achieve the same end: Revelation."

Space is a central topic in cultural and narrative theory today, although in most cases theory assumes Newtonian absolute space. However, the idea of a universal homogeneous space is now obsolete. Black holes, multiple dimensions, quantum entanglement, and spatio-temporal distortions of relativity have passed into culture at large. This book examines whether narrative can be used to represent these "impossible" spaces. Impossible topologies abound in ancient mythologies, from the Australian Aborigines’ "dream-time" to the multiple-layer universe of the Sumerians. More recently, from Alice’s adventures in Wonderland to contemporary science fiction’s obsession with black holes and quantum paradoxes, counter-intuitive spaces are a prominent feature of modern and postmodern narrative. With the rise and popularization of science fiction, the inventiveness and variety of impossible narrative spaces explodes. The author analyses the narrative techniques used to represent such spaces alongside their cultural significance. Each chapter connects narrative deformation of space with historical problematic of time, and demonstrates the cognitive and perceptual primacy of narrative in representing, imagining and apprehending new forms of space and time. This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the connection between narratology, cultural theory, science fiction, and studies of place.

One of the most popular horror movie series of all time spawned a landmark comics anthology edited by the Master of Horror himself. Featuring short stories illustrated by top-drawer comics talent like Alex Ross, Mike Mignola and Colleen Doran, and written by New York Times best-selling authors Neil Gaiman and Barker himself, among others, this long-awaited collection contains the absolute best of the Hellraiser stories, hand-selected by Barker himself, in one gorgeous full-colour package.

A gripping collection which offers for the first time a chronological overview of the popular contemporary sub-genre of body horror, from Edgar Allan Poe to Christopher Fowler, with contributions from leading horror writers, including Stephen King, George Langelaan and Neil Gaiman. The collection includes the stories behind seminal body horror movies, John Carpenter's The Thing, David Cronenberg's The Fly and Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator.

Fictional war narratives often employ haunted battlefields, super-soldiers, time travel, the undead and other imaginative elements of science fiction and fantasy. This encyclopedia catalogs appearances of the strange and the supernatural found in the war stories of film, television, novels, short stories, pulp fiction, comic books and video and role-playing games. Categories explore themes of mythology, science fiction, alternative history, superheroes and "Weird War."

Focusing especially on American comic books and graphic novels from the 1930s to the present, this massive four-volume work provides a colorful yet authoritative source on the entire history of the comics medium. Comics and graphic novels have recently become big business, serving as the inspiration for blockbuster Hollywood movies such as the Iron Man series of films and the hit television drama The Walking Dead. But comics have been popular throughout the 20th century despite the significant effects of the restrictions of the Comics Code in place from the 1950s through 1970s, which prohibited the depiction of zombies and use of the word "horror," among many other rules. Comics through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas provides students and general readers a one-stop resource for researching topics, genres, works, and artists of comic books, comic strips, and graphic novels. The comprehensive and broad coverage of this set is organized chronologically by volume. Volume 1 covers 1960 and earlier; Volume 2 covers 1960–1980; Volume 3 covers 1980–1995; and Volume 4 covers 1995 to the present. The chronological divisions give readers a sense of the evolution of comics within the larger contexts of American culture and history. The alphabetically arranged entries in each volume address topics such as comics publishing, characters, imprints, genres, themes, titles, artists, writers, and more. While special attention is paid to American comics, the entries also include coverage of British, Japanese, and European comics that have influenced illustrated storytelling of the United States or are of special interest to American readers.

A deep dive into the creative world and personal archive of the master of horror Clive Barker, from Hellraiser and Candyman to today "I've seen the future of horror . . . and his name is Clive Barker." In the mid-1980s, Stephen King inducted a young English novelist into the world of great genre writers, and since then, this genius creator has only continued to expand his field of activity. Created by his two most loyal collaborators, Phil and Sarah Stokes, Clive Barker’s Dark Worlds is the first book to shed light on the massive scope of Barker’s creative work. With the help of Barker himself, this book contains exclusive insight from those who have worked with him creatively and professionally, alongside analyses of his works and comments over four decades from industry contemporaries and friends such as Ramsey Campbell, Quentin Tarantino, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Peter Straub, Armistead Maupin, J.G. Ballard, Wes Craven, and many more. The book spans Barker’s world, highlighting classics such as the character Pinhead, an icon in the pantheon of horror cinema; the Hellraiser series of ten films and a forthcoming HBO miniseries; and the cult films Nightbreed and Candyman, the latter of which was rebooted as a Jordan Peele production in 2021. In literature, Barker has written the horror anthology series Books of Blood, which was recently adapted by Hulu, as well as numerous fantasy sagas. Weaveworld and The Great and Secret Show have become instant genre classics, and Abarat is a beloved bestselling series for young adults. In the world of comics, Barker has partnered with major publishers such as Marvel and BOOM! Studios. This tireless creator has also dipped his toes into the worlds of toys, video games, and art, and his incredible collection of paintings, drawings, and photographs have been exhibited in galleries over the world.

The book is the result of an idea conceived in 2006 and the writing itself begun in October 2007 and took almost two years. Sources for the project, which included official FIFA publications were numerous and varied. These together with other publications and studies published by other authors that proved to be of great use were consulted and are listed in the Bibliography. An essential guide for the 2010 World Cup and beyond, The Story Has Been Told traces the idea of a World Cup from its conception, inception and how it has evolved over the years as an event to what has become a multibillion-dollar spectacle.

A baby blown out of an upstairs window by a WWII bomb lives to hear others tell the tale… A woman embarks on a long-term obsession with a city landmark, abandoning her lover for the Liver… A bricklayer working on the foundations of a never-built cathedral becomes its evangelist, its full splendour soaring only in his mind… Bringing together fiction from some of the city’s most celebrated writers, The Book of Liverpool traces the unique contours that decades of social and economic change can impress on a city. Set against key historical moments from the Second World War to the Capital of Culture year, these stories question what ‘belonging’ and ‘home’ mean in the Liverpudlian context, from the regenerated city centre to satellite suburbs, from the sparring cathedrals to the no-go concrete housing estates. Liverpool emerges in these short stories as a city in constant flux: haunted by ghosts, buoyed up by myths, and shifting with an ebb and flow like the Mersey itself. "A literary gem that will share a niche in my library with M.R. James and E. F. Benson..." - Metapsychology online Read review. "Words thrive here, carried on the saline breeze of the Mersey and twisted round agile tongues into sentences as resilient as the sandstone blocks in the Town Hall walls..." - The Liverpool Daily Post, 11 Jul 08 Read review.