Colten Otto > Recent Status Updates

I totally understand and appreciate the choice being made here, but trying to parse anything Joseph is saying is actually headache inducing. It's just a symptom of a 2025 American reading an 1800's british person's interpretation of a Scottish(?) person's accent but DAMN it's really a slog

I forget how insanely good and relevant this book is, until I reread it and in the first ten pages we get shit like, "Government and religion United, and breaking a law became sin. A smell of blasphemy arose like smoke around any questioning of governmental edicts. The guilt of rebellion invoked hellfire and righteous judgments.

Yet it was men who created these governmental edicts."

"sooner or later pain becomes too great for fear and when the fear has gone the regime will have to go."

"How could two sides use the exact same words to describe what they were fighting for and at the same time consider each other enemies?"

"Nothing so unites us as gatherings with one mind to murder someone we hate, unless it is coming together to share in a meal."

"Orikan hated few things more than wasting energy, and to question fate was the most inefficient use of energy he could imagine."

My thoughts so far are that The Great God Pan is excellent, and The Three Impostors is an absolute tedious mess with some sections and ideas I really love, but I can't recommend to anyone a story which includes multiple sections of a character explaining what happened to them, and then proceeding to recite a letter that was written to them verbatim, switching POVs constantly, and ending with a total wet fart

In the Hills, the Cities: 5/5 This was the first Barker thing I ever read and it's still great. I wanna see people-mechs fight irl

Dread: 5/5 Feels like a classic creepypasta in a good way

Hell's Event: 5/5 Would make a great short film

Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament: 100/10 Truly a banger. Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss

The Skins of the Fathers: 100/10 Also peak, this and Jacqueline are my favorites so far

The Yattering and Jack: 5/5 This is the story that has made me a fan of Clive Barker, the absolutely perfect marriage of comedy and depravity is so very for-me.

Pig's Blood Blues: 3.5/5

Sex, Death, and Starshine: 5/5 Between this and Pet Sematary, zombie girlfriend stocks are through the roof for me right now.

The Book of Blood and Midnight Meat Train: 5/5 Insanely good opening, especially considering this was among Clive Barker's first works from what I can tell. Love the fact that in-fiction this is all being read off of a dude's skin.