Hellbound Hearts

by Paul Kane (Editor), Marie O'Regan (Editor), Clive Barker (Contributor)

Clive Barker's iconic masterpiece The Hellbound Heart, the novella adapted into the film Hellraiser, unleashed a new mythology of horror, brilliantly conceived and born of the darkest imagination. Now, enter this visionary world -- the merciless realm of the demonic Cenobites -- in this collection of stories inspired by The Hellbound Heart. Featured here is the graphic work "Wordsworth," from bestselling author Neil Gaiman and artist Dave McKean, who unlock an explicit way to violate innocence -- one torturous puzzle at a time.... New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong logs on to a disturbing website for gamers, where the challenge is agonizing, and the solution beyond painful. When his father disappears, an Oxford student returns to his family's mansion, where a strange mechanism in the cellar holds a curious power, in a haunting illustrated work by Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola.

Genres: Horror, Anthologies, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Supernatural, Thriller

354 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 8, 2009

About the author

Paul Kane has been writing professionally for almost fifteen years. His genre journalism has appeared in such magazines as Fangoria, SFX and Rue Morgue, and his non-fiction books are the critically acclaimed The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and Voices in the Dark. His award-winning short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic (as well as being broadcast on BBC Radio 2), and has been collected in Alone (In the Dark), Touching the Flame, FunnyBones, Peripheral Visions, Shadow Writer, The Butterfly Man and Other Stories, The Spaces Between and GHOSTS. His novella Signs of Life reached the shortlist of the British Fantasy Awards 2006, The Lazarus Condition was introduced by Mick Garris - creator of Masters of Horror - RED featured artwork from Dave (The Graveyard Book) McKean and Pain Cages was introduced by Stephen Volk (The Awakening).

As Special Publications Editor of the British Fantasy Society he worked with authors like Brian Aldiss, Ramsey Campbell, Muriel Gray and Robert Silverberg, he is the co-editor of Hellbound Hearts for Pocket Books (Simon and Schuster), an anthology of original stories inspired by Clive Barker's mythos - featuring contributions from the likes of Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola, Kelley Armstrong and Richard Christian Matheson - The Mammoth Book of Body Horror (Constable & Robinson) - featuring Stephen King, James Herbert and Robert Bloch - and the Poe-inspired Beyond Rue Morgue (for Titan).

In 2008 his zombie story 'Dead Time' was turned into an episode of the Lionsgate/NBC TV series Fear Itself, adapted by Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (SAW II-IV). He also scripted The Opportunity which premiered at Cannes in 2009, The Weeping Woman - starring Fright Night's Stephen Jeffreys - and Wind Chimes (directed by Brad '7th Dimension' Watson. He is the author of the novels Of Darkness and Light, The Gemini Factor and the bestselling Arrowhead trilogy (Arrowhead, Broken Arrow and Arrowland), a post-apocalyptic reworking of the Robin Hood mythology gathered together as the sell-out Hooded Man omnibus. His latest novels are Lunar (which is set to be turned into a feature film) and the short Y.A. book The Rainbow Man (as P.B. Kane). He currently lives in Derbyshire, UK, with his wife - the author Marie O'Regan - his family, and a black cat called Mina. You can find out more at his website www.shadow-writer.co.uk which has featured Guest Writers such as Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, Dean Koontz, John Connolly and Guillermo del Toro.

Reviews

[Blair Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a collection of short stories inspired by Clive Barker’s novella, The Hellbound Heart. Multiple writers pay homage to the LeMarchand Configuration, the Cenobites, and the Hellraiser franchise. As with any anthology circling a similar topic/theme, some of the stories were great, some not, but all were similar.

Nancy Holder’s description of the puzzle box is my favorite, “... it shone like a black-hearted Rubik’s Cube limned in damascene. Symbols and scrollwork glittered like molten promises.”

[Rajiv Ashrafi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I honestly don't know what the other reviewers were smoking, but most of the stories in this book were not good. I won't say trash - although many of them were - because some stories had redeeming qualities.

It's like they focused mostly on the pain and suffering the Cenobites bring, with the writers engaging in orgiastic detail on the types of tortures the Cenobites can dish out. Barker's Hellraiser story was compelling because it focused on human emotions and desires and how they play out in the real world. The Cenobites are mostly in the background in his story, taking on an almost symbolic nature in the context of the characters' sufferings.

The stories in this collection throw this out the window. Instead, they offer shallow, hollow people who are damaged beyond repair and somehow come across the Cenobites, thus accepting their fate. That's pretty much almost all the stories right there. However, some of them are quite interesting to read, but they are far too few to atone for this pitiful collection.

[GD · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this more than I thought I would. It was much better than some random collection of modern "Lovecraft" stories I read a couple of years ago. The plots of these stories could be come a little repetitive, almost all of them had someone discovering THE BOX and opening it, and bad vanilla smells, shafts of light, bulging walls, and gruesome Cenobites followed. Here are some individual reviews:

"Prisoners of the Inferno" by Peter Atkin, started off great with creepy rare movie footage, then flopped.

"The Cold," by Conrad Williams, started off great with creepy dude stalking around in the streets, then flopped.

"The Confessor's Tale," by Sarah Pinborough, awesome story about a kid who grows up with no tongue and, because he can't talk, gets to hear all the village's confessions, guilt, etc. Becomes a Cenobite later, and this story kicks ass.

"Hellbound Hollywood," by Mick Garris, a little too postmodern for me, is basically about some guys making the Hellraiser movie, but MAYBE IT'S REAL. Reminded me of Wes Craven's New Nightmare.

"Mechanisms," by Christopher Golden and (pointlessly) illustrated by Mike Mignola. This is the best story in the book, about a weird dad who just went missing, and his son trying to figure out where he went. In the basement is this bizarre machine, a conglomeration of pipes that run directly into walls, valves and shit all moving around, and he can't figure out what the fuck it is. The little pictures that went along with this story were kind of pointless, they all looked the same, just close ups of machinery for the most part. But the story is freaking badass, and I won't tell you how it ends.

"Every Wrong Turn," by Tim Lebbon, this was okay, but I get a little tired of "hell being inside of us all along" stories.

"The Collector," by Kelley Armstrong, a little too self-consciously modern, and one of a few stories where people feel the need to include the internet, but it's a pretty good story, about a badass puzzle master who can solve THE BOX.

"Bulimia," by Richard Christian Matheson, a crazy, really short, almost un-Hellraiser-related piece of badassery by the son of horror titan Richard Matheson. I loved it.

"Orfeo the Damned," by Nancy Holder. I had to start this one twice because I got so bored by the first part, but when the ball finally gets rolling, this is one of the better stories in the collection due to just how insanely fucking violent it gets.

"Our Lord of Quarters," by Simon Clark, again not really connected to the Hellraiser mythos, but still a pretty interesting period piece, set during a Byzantine war, with a weird ass demon offering to win the war for them if he can have a quarter of the population afterwards to torture in hell.

"Wordsworth," by Nei Gaiman and Dave McKean. The Sandman dudes just didn't quite get it with this one, due mainly to the obscure way the story is told and the illustrations that would probably be too hard to make out even they weren't printed on pulpy paper in black and white. Something about a crossword puzzle filled with clues about bad things you did in your life and that will take you to hell when you finish it. Great idea.

"A Little Piece of Hell," by Steve Niles. This shortish story about some modern low-level LA criminals and THE BOX was actually really good, and makes me want to give 30 Days of Night a chance, which I haven't so far because I hate non-Brian Lumley vampires.

"The Dark Materials Project," another fucking stellar story written by a woman named Sarah (see "The Confessor's Tale"), this competes with "Mechanisms" for best story in the book, about, wow, a genius scientist who fucks around with dark matter (and dark DNA), and causes crazy shit to happen. Stanford University accidentally opens a black hole that must be dealt with via nukes, power's going out, human DNA's dark DNA map turns out to resemble a monstrous face, basically everyone's going to die.

"Demon's Design," by Nicholas Vince. This was fantastic till literally the last page when he ruined it by having the narrator being the person is who is the missing link in the mystery, that's a cheapo move a lot of mystery writers do and it bugs the shit out of me, but otherwise, great great story, a Satanic artists builds like a 60 by 60 by 60 feet cube that is, YEAH!, Lemarchand's box, on a big scale, where people can walk around inside it. Everyone dies. Except the bogus narrator.

"Only the Blind Survive," by Yvonne Navarro, so-so story, I never liked it when modern people describe Native Americans in their stories, like their inner monologue, it's so like, "Oh, the great spirit fathers have guided my hand," blah. The monster is pretty cool though, a cactus Cenobite, though the ending was hokey, and I don't understand how they could kill the monster with arrows.

"Mother's Ruin," by Mark Morris. Even though it had internet, I still liked this crazy story. S&M guy follows a trail of bondage starting on the internet, like in that Cradle of Filth movie, and ends up getting the fuck tortured out of him by the Cenobites, and he meets his parents who disappeared when he was a kid, totally ravaged beyond recognition as humans or even animals, and there's a crazy giant white woman witch demon that constantly gives birth to placenta monsters, seems slightly influenced by Weaveworld.

"Sister Cilice," pretty good story about a masochistic nun who calls up the bad guys in black and joins them.

"Santos del Infierno," pretty good story that needs a little tweaking, because the whole subplot of tha main character being an alcoholic because his wife and kid got killed by a crazy driver was pointless, and it was unbelievable the driver would go to such extents to get "revenge" on the guy who ruined his life by distracting him while he was driving.... anyway, ignore that needlessly complicated part, the rest of the story is pretty good, with a new twist on bringing out the Cenobites that doesn't involve a box, but profane figurines arranged a certain way. Also, Cenobite priest, that's awesome.

"The Promise," by Nancy Kilpatrick. Actually a pretty good story despite the Bauhaus and Cure name-dropping, a group of goth kids 20 years later reunited and pulls out and re-arranges some bricks in a crypt to raise the Cenobites again. It's actually better than it sounds, if you can GET OVER THE WRITER USING THE HORRIBLE 2ND PERSON VOICE!!!!!!! God I hate that!

"However," by Gary A Braunbeck and Lucy A. Snyder. This would make a cool short film, but it's kind of unbelievable that three young people still talking to each other and sane in a basement could have already endured what a Cenobite would do to them over eternity. Seriously, the Cenobite leaves them alone and says, "Oh, my god, you've already suffered or imagined everything we could possibly do, you're no fun," I'm like, WHAT? Go back and learn from the Cenobites in "Orfeo the Damned, a couple hundred pages back, dude.

"'Tis a Pity He's Ashore," kind of boring story with a cool setting by Chaz Brenchley, who loves to make homosexuality a defining characteristic of his fiction, which is also kind of boring. Though in this particular case, it wouldn't have mattered.

[~Cyanide Latte~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't even know where to adequately start with this one, just know I'm in love

[Clinton Reed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have maybe two more stories to go in this but I feel pretty confident that I can give it a review at this point. While not a total waste of time or complete garbage this collection isn't at all what I was hoping for. As other reviewers have stated, too much time and attention has been given to the horror, pain, torture and suffering aspects of the "mythology" and not enough time dedicated to the real focus of the original source material. While there is always an underlying sexual depravity to Clive Barkers work to many of the writers in this collection focused more on S&M torture porn than the higher concepts addressed in The Hellbound Heart. Instead of desire, lust and the feeling that the world doesn't have any more joy to offer thus the victim seeks out other less conventional means of release you get a lot of stories about how cenobites have mutilated genitals or how they are mutilating someones genitals.

There are a few bright points to the collection but they are sadly few and far between. Meanwhile there are several stories that left me scratching my head and wondering how the hell they even got included in the first place having little or nothing to do with the established mythos besides... somebody dealing with a demon. A few of the stories are creative and entertaining adding different ideas and twists to the established "cannon" however again some of them gave me the feeling that the author went back after the fact and added a few key words to "Barker" it up so that the story could be included in this book.

Sadly this falls into the realm of many other collections where people try to hard to recapture the lighting in a bottle of the original. Like many Lovecraft mythos collections I've read the author feels like adding a few tentacles and non-euclidean geometry is all it takes to write a Lovecraft story. But it takes more than unpronounceable names and unspeakable horror to do it justice. Likewise here it takes more than a puzzle box and a few rape demons to make a worthwhile read.

[Orrin Grey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really, really want to say that this was a great book.

Not because I have any personal stake in it being great, but because it came so close to being. Most of the stories in it are pretty great. The high point for me was certainly "Mechanisms," an original story by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden illustrated in the same hauntingly atmospheric style as their novel Baltimore. But there were countless other great stories, by folks like Sarah Pinborough, Peter Atkins, Chaz Brenchley and others. But, unfortunately, mixed in among the great stories (and a few merely good ones) were a handful of truly awful (at least, for my money) stories that, like the proverbial rotten apples, spoiled the bunch.

In the interest of not saying anything at all if I have nothing nice to say, I'll refrain from naming names on the stories I didn't like, save one that seems particularly safe. Perhaps surprisingly or perhaps not, I have never been a fan of Steve Niles, and his work here doesn't do anything to change my mind.

That said, the good stuff in this book is often very good, and it's a nicely put-together themed anthology. I wish I could've felt good about giving it another star. If you've got an interest, I'd definitely recommend picking it up, I just wish the contents hadn't been quite so... uneven.

[Vicente Ribes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of stories inspired in Pinhead and the Lemarchand's Configuration.
The book is huge and contain a great amount of tales: some are quite good and include new elements like Santeria, tribes and original cenobites, others are similar to this crappy hellraiser films we have seen during the last years.

My favourite ones:

Mick Garris's "Hellbound Hollywood, A once famous director, feeling that he now has to accept whatever work he can get, reluctantly accepts the directorial role on a horror film to be shot at a single location, which happens to be the house from Barker's novella.

Barbie Wilde's Sister Cilice, a nun search for sex and pleasure opening the box.


"Our Lord of Quarters," by Simon Clark, Hellraiser mythos in a Medieval or Renaisancce environment. Great tale.

"Mother's Ruin," by Mark Morris. Set in the internet era. A sex addict find pleasure and torture following the instructions of a misterious web.

[Daniel Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hellbound Heart is a horror novella by Clive Barker. It was the basis for the movie Hellraiser. It was originally published in 1986 by Dark Harvest in the third volume of their Night Visions anthology series (the volume also included seven short stories by Ramsey Campbell and three by Lisa Tuttle) but was re-released as a stand-alone title by HarperCollins in 1988 after the success of the movie. It retains the gory, visceral style that Barker introduced in his series of collected short stories The Books of Blood and distorts clichéd narrative devices to depict ordinary people drawn into a confrontation with spiritual terror beyond traditional definitions of morality. Wikipedia

And after the movies, the figurines, the t shirts, the masks and the breakfast cereal (well, not the last one, but little wholegrain hooks with a splash of milk would be quite tasty!), we now have this anthology: Hellbound Hearts, a collection of stories from some quite prolific writers all based on the mythos from Barker's The Hellbound Heart.

I first heard about this on Facebook before its release, and the news swept through the statuses like wild fire. People love Hellraiser, and this was a hotly anticipated book. Kudos to Paul and Marie for putting this one together.

I wanted this book to be perfect. It...isn't, but then again, with a mix of writers, and indeed with any anthology (and I include King and even Barker's Books of Blood in this opinion) there's bound to be a few not to your taste.

My main problem this this anthology was that each and every story is to be within the Hellraiser mythos, and I didn't find this to be the case. Yes, there's the argument that you have to look deeper. For example, The Cold, by Conrad Williams. A detective is on the hunt for a killer, and this ultimately leads him to Hell. Yes, his hunt for the killer may be perceived as his 'puzzle' and the desire and obsession gets him to hell...but I don't quite buy it. Stories such as this gave me the feeling that when the author was contacted, he already had the story lying around and thought 'I've been asked to write a story for a Hellraiser anthology. I have this. It's not a Hellraiser story..but it's similar. A bit. I'll just stick a few more hooks in...'

Not that it isn't a good story (sorry if you're reading this Mr Williams. I picked your story at random from the contents page) but my concern is that if this wasn't in an anthology called Hellbound Hearts, inspired by the novella The Hellbound Heart, I doubt anyone would make the connection. I feel this is also the case with such stories as Mechanisms by Christopher Golden and Mike Magnola, Our Lord of Quarters by Simon Clark and the biggest disappointment, Prisoners of the Inferno by Peter Atkins. This guy is a Hellraiser headhoncho, having written screenplays for Hellraiser 2-4 I believe as well as playing a cenobite in #3. I expected a story closer to the source material.

But again, these were NOT bad stories! I thoroughly enjoyed them, but the link to the novella was tenuous at best.

The stories that didn't do it for me were Bullimia by Richard Christian Matheson which so clunky and abstract that, I shamefully admit, I gave up on half way through and skipped to the next story. 'Tis Pity He's Ashore by Chaz Brenchley also didn't float my boat (sorry, bad pun)and I found it quite dull.

Now, the winners of this anthology...and what winners they are.

Santos Del Infierno by Jeffrey L. Mariotte I read the piece this morning while sitting in a stinking hot car in a driveway surrounded by parrots. True story. But the story made me forget all that. It had remarkable depth and a sensitivity that quickly breaks down into obsession, with a few surprises to keep things on edge. I enjoyed this one immensely.

Next up, Barbie Wilde and her story Sister Cilice. No surprise here that Wilde's subject matter is the part she played with such gusto in Hellraiser 2, that of the simply named 'Female Cenobite'. The story tell of how the devout sister became the open-throated queen of hell. Hauntingly written, and with a certain...melancholy. You feel sorry for the protag, and I actually felt a little better after her transmutation because it's what she needed and wanted. I especially liked the whole back story idea, and I would love to see one written on my favourite cenobite Butterball (was his name Laslo? I think I got that from the figurine box. Geek alert! And proud). Mr Bamford...step up?

My outright winner however was a gem called Orfeo the Damned by Nancy Holder. This caught my attention as it held very close to the mythos and just didn't give one fuck about holding back. It made me rethink the whole Hellraiser world in that...we know the denizens of Hell will suffer and be tortured for all eternity, but Holder gets that across so well. It was exhausting to scope so much pleasure and pain! It makes me want to go back and reread the Barker novella with a new appreciation for Frank Cotton, as the guy has been through so much more then I originally thought!

honourable mentions to Gary A Braunbeck and Lucy A Snyder, Sarah Pinborough, Kelley Armstrong and Neil Gaimon and Dave McKean (Wordsworth is by far the most artistic and intelligent piece in this collection).

A great collection that I highly recommend. With just a little more focus on the source material, this would have been 5 stars, easily. I hope there's a second collection (pick me, Paul! Pick me! I have a great idea about Hellraiser cereal: Flakes of the Damned. No, seriously, pick me) and how about this...instead of releasing more shit movie sequels...let's have a series based on these tales akin to Masters of Horror or Fear Itself. Mick Garris is in the collection. Make some calls, Mr Garris?

[Weez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many short story collections some of the tales in this book were great and some not so much. The stories explore the Hellraiser/Hellbound Heart universe and they varied wildly.

New Cenobites are introduced (one is a cactus!) and also created. New ways of opening portals are explored including bone puzzle tiles, crypt stones, an acient map to a maze, an art installation, crosswords, religious icon-type statues, a strange machine and a compass, but of course the puzzle box also makes a number of appearances. Likewise the settings happen in a number of different places and centuries.

Without giving anything away, I will say that the stories I liked were excellent. The ones I wasn't crazy about felt more like gory porn than true horror and lacked depth. In the less-than-great stories the Cenobites were just gross-looking, sex-mutants; more yucky than frightening. Fortunately the good stories here vastly outweigh the weaker ones.

[Haralambi Markov · Rating 4 out of 5]

What can be said about “Hellbound Hearts”? The stories speak for themselves, but I feel compelled to summarize the experience for me. As a child the Hellraiser movies stroke unimaginable fear in my heart and I didn’t rekindle with the franchise until a later date, when I thought that the first two movies were in fact brilliant as in being something entirely else and bold and pretty damn good, even if they were dated.

As a writer and an idea person I am drawn to concepts. A world with these demonic beings and their hellish puzzles, chains and torture vomits bile and viscera, standing in stark contrast to other horror titles. This was the original torture porn horror, which now has found solid soil with series like Saw and Hostel. Hell has never looked crueler and at first glance the formula seems rather limiting to explore by others. Humans solve puzzles and sign their damnation, but what I didn’t count on was that a puzzle has many shapes, damnation has many masks and so do the executioners of that death sentence. Given that the authors assembled here had to work with the intellectual material of someone else to me presented a great challenge and the result is more than pleasing.

Horror itself as a genre is vast and so are the techniques to achieve the desired sense of fear, which on its own has many nuances. From blood stopping cold in the veins to the hopeless desperation to the stomach twisting revulsion fear, a person can experience a myriad of frights and the twenty one authors explore this wide range. At any rate this is not a book that people with weak psyches or bowels can stomach easily. It’s an anthology for the fans that love the gore, love the twisted stories and have had a long run with the genre.

[Nely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hellbound Hearts is an anthology celebrating Hellraiser creator Clive Barker and the world he created with his novella The Hellbound Heart. This is a collection of tales inspired by Barker with some well-known and some not-known authors such as Neil Gaiman, Steve Niles, Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Mick Garris, Richard Christian Matheson, Sarah Langan, Mark Morris, Nancy Kilpatrick, Peter Atkins, Tim Lebbon, Nancy Holder, Yvonne Navarro, Kelley Armstrong and Nicholas Vince - edited by Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan. The collection also features a foreword by Barker himself, who also painted the spooky, original cover.

This book is a treat for any horror fan. These are all twisted, gory and scary stories - that I will admit to having to watch some happy tv before hitting the sack because I was that spooked. Although not all the authors were known to me - I found it a good introduction to their work. I enjoyed all the stories - some more than others. This is the type of book where you can pick and choose the story you want or just read the whole thing through - but it’ll definitely have your heart racing, glancing over your shoulder every couple of minutes and terrified of things that go bump in the night. I loved every second of it.

[Missy (myweereads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We have such sights to show you..”

Hellbound Hearts is edited by Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan. It’s an anthology based on the infamous Hellraiser/Hellbound Heart mythos. This anthology contains several imaginative stories that will feed your need for some more evil from the Cenobites you know so well.

What is great about this collection is that although they all contain some aspect of the Hellraiser story, they each deliver on darkly twisted horror which will disturb you with gore and morbid writing. Some of these go to the very core of the mythos where others touch upon it. A few of the stories included are:

The Confessor’s Tale by Sarah Pinborough

Hellbound Hollywood by Mick Garris

Mechanisms by Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola

The Collector by Kelley Armstrong

Bulimia by Richard Christian Matheson

Wordsworth by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean

Mother’s Ruin by Mark Morris

Sister Cilice by Barbie Wilde

There are a lot more stories featured including an introduction by Stephen Jones, a foreword by Clive Barker and an afterword by Doug Bradley.

I did enjoy this anthology and I think fans of Clive Barker would too.

[Britta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightfully sick and twisted little collection of short stories inspired, more or less, by the Hellraiser mythos. Varying degrees of quality and of horror, with a few only hinting at horror, like the final tale in which a typhoon sweeps away a young prostitute, and others engaging in all-out Hellraiser torture sequences.

The most frightening, oddly enough, are the ones that are the least inspired by Hellbound Hearts, and I still find myself shivering at a tale of mechanical transcendence gone awry. From nuns fleeing willingly into Cenobite arms to living gardens of Cenobite limbs, Hellbound Hearts is a very welcome addition to the Hellraiser mythos, and perhaps the perfect continuation of the original story.

[Canavan · Rating 3 out of 5]

✭✭✭

“Prisoners of the Inferno”, Peter Atkins ✭✭✭✭½
“The Cold”, Conrad Williams ✭✭✭
“The Confessor's Tale”, Sarah Pinborough ✭✭✭½
“Hellbound Hollywood”, Mick Garris ✭✭
“Mechanisms”, Christopher Golden & Mike Mignola ✭✭✭✭
“Every Wrong Turn”, Tim Lebbon ✭✭
“The Collector”, Kelley Armstrong ✭✭½
“Bulimia”, Richard Christian Matheson ✭✭½
“Orfeo the Damned”, Nancy Holder ✭✭½
“Our Lord of Quarters”, Simon Clark ✭✭½
“Wordsworth”, Neil Gaiman (Writer) & Dave McKean (Artist) (1993) ✭✭✭½
“A Little Piece of Hell”, Steve Niles ✭✭✭
“The Dark Materials Project”, Sarah Langan ✭✭✭
“Demon’s Design”, Nicholas Vince ✭½
“Only the Blind Survive”, Yvonne Navarro ✭✭½
“Mother’s Ruin”, Mark Morris ✭✭✭
“Sister Cilice”, Barbie Wilde ✭✭✭
“Santos del Infierno”, Jeffrey J. Mariotte ✭✭✭
“The Promise”, Nancy Kilpatrick ✭✭✭½
“However...”, Gary A. Braunbeck & Lucy A. Snyder ✭✭✭
“’Tis Pity He’s Ashore”, Chaz Brenchley ✭✭✭½

All stories first published 2009 except “Wordsworth” (1993).

[Hugo · Rating 3 out of 5]

With a couple of exceptions, a strong collection of well-written stories set within Barker's Hellraiser mythos (and a couple more that struggle to show their connection to the source, and would have passed unnoticed in any other horror anthology).

Sadly, and to the editors' demerit, a great many stories in this collection are largely identical in plot: a flawed protagonist in search of something (missing person, S&M club, snuff movie...), encounters a puzzle, solves it (all too easily), summoning Cenobites who inevitably tear their soul apart, and what have you. Over and over again. Stronger editors might have sent these token efforts back on submission - they seem inspired by only a generic and surface reading of Barker's original work.

Writers who buck this cookie cutter trend come out on top: Barbie Wilde's Sister Cilice offers an origin, and a name, to the Female Cenobite she portrayed in Hellraiser II; Sarah Langan applies a strange His Dark Materials overlay, with strong and strange results, in her The Dark Materials Project; and both Simon Clark's Our Lord of Quarters and Sarah Pinborough's The Confessor's Tale offer historical tales, both with a wealth of detail and invention.

[Alyssa Acula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark and insanely twisted and a lot of trigger warnings apply--especially for rape, violence, abuse of both child and women, torture, and a bunch of other gory stuff that one should be prepared for before delving into a story. The more graphic ones definitely made my skin crawl. Certain pieces shone though as precious gems with their uniqueness, amidst the pile of torture porn filled stories, resembling the style of classic fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm, and those typical of The NoSleep Podcast narrations. Those were my absolute favorites.

As this was inspired by Clive Barker's work 'The Hellbound Heart', and the Hellraiser movies, there were a lot of allusions to those that I completely didn't get as I onle became aware of those when I read the Intro and Afterword of this collection.

[SeveredTherapy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was like a date that was started because of OkCupid. It starts out well and you're really excited to see where it goes. But, then it becomes a chore. You find yourself wondering if perhaps Stephanie Meyer has responded to your tweet. Perhaps you should really call your mother. Then there's that knitting habit you picked up for a nanosecond 3 weeks ago.

Overall, this is one of those books you read as a palate cleanser. Leave it on the nightstand and come back to it occasionally. Don't make this the full-time book.

It was good overall, but just got extremely repetitive. Hence my recommendation to read a story a month or so.

[Joshua Begley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like any anthology, you're going to get a mix of quality, but I have to say that this one delivers. Many of the stories get at the root of pain and pleasure and the flimsy border between that made Barker's The Hellbound Heart such a fascinating and terrifying read. Some of the stories, though, don't fit at all and seem to have nothing to do with the core story, no matter how far you try to stretch the premise.

For my money, the real winners in this collection are "The Confessor's Tale," "Hellbound Hollywood," "Wordsworth," "Mother's Ruin," and "Sister Cilice." The strongest tale out of them all, though, is "Orfeo the Damned." That one haunted me well after I finished it.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, well, this book was actually probably good. Some of the short stories were intriguing and well written (some were strange, but I suppose that's par for the course here). But I hate short story collections. I really do. I don't want to give this too low a rating for my own personal opinions, but I also felt that none of the stories really stuck out to me enough to research any of the authors or look up their other work. Every story was totally and completely different than the next though, so that was fun. But otherwise, no more short story collections for me.

[Summer Seeds · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Some of the stories were really good. I especially enjoyed Pinborough's The Confessor's Tale and Lebbon's Every Wrong Turn. However, some of these stories were, honestly, awful. All in all, though, it was a decent collection of Hellraiser fanfic, one story going so far as to vaguely reference the characters of Barker's The Hellbound Heart. If nothing else, some of these stories were incredibly disturbing.

[Richard Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of short stories based on the mythos created by Clive Barker in his novella The Hellbound Heart- well, all but three of the stories, but even those were pretty interesting.
Of the whole collection there were only three that I didn't like (not the three mentioned previously) but they were not so bad that they ruined the overall experience.

[Alexa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 with the potential to be a 4 stars if I was in a better mood.
I had a hard time hiking through all of these. They were excellent short stories, but I personally am a fan of more pulpy short fiction. Action heroes, are plot driven, and while some satisfied this, some were just wordy and artsy and nice... but not phenomenal or special or OMG AmAzing

[Frederick Bodine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the stories were awesome! About 3 disappointed me but not to the point of wishing I did not read them just not relatable to me personally! I might check out some of the authors other works because of this book. Well worth it!

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of these are not good but I did enjoy the stories by Sarahs Pinborough and Langan. Added a star for Caligari references, Buttons the Cenobite, and Barbie Wilde finally giving the "Female" character a name. Also I can't believe they did that to McKean's art.

[Ian Newey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection. Despite it having some strong stories, some were weaker. I guess the best way to describe it is to say that it acted as foreplay to rereading the source material. Thank you “Hellbound Hearts” for bringing me back to “The Hellbound Heart”, which is genuinely brilliant.

[Eblison · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fair collection of stories, based on a damned fine mythos.

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely frightening. Graphically gory and psychologically scarring. Wow.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like Clive Barker

Short stories based on the hellraiser puzzle box. Very good.
Highly recommended for Clive Barker fans and horror fans alike.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a good collection.

[Vermillion · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been a fan from the start and most of the stories in this anthology did a very fine job at fanning the embers.