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| Hellbound Hearts by Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan (editors) Review by Jason Rolfe |
The twenty-one stories in Hellbound Hearts exude the same dark lust and loveless despair that defined Clive Barker’s original tale, The Hellbound Heart. The stories chosen by editors Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan might vary both in style and medium, but they remain true to the sense of utter hopelessness that Barker captured so well in his blood-chilling novella.
Perhaps the best illustration of this hopelessness can be found in “Mechanisms” by Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola. Here, Colin Radford is called back from Oxford to Norwich by the disappearance of his father. Upon his return, Colin learns of his father’s obsession with a strange mechanism he began building a year before his disappearance. As with the puzzle box in Barker’s novel, the Mechanism serves as a window through which we witness the unconditional despair embraced by those who seek its truths. Despite the folly of futility, Colin follows in his father’s footsteps, fueled by the same false hope that ensnared the elder Radford – love. It is the marriage of love and hopelessness in “Mechanisms” that is so reminiscent of Barker’s masterwork.
In Hellbound Hearts, Kane and O’Regan entwine tales of grotesque terror with the same cerebral, emotional horror that made The Hellbound Heart so appealing. In the graphic short story, “Wordsworth,” author Neil Gaiman and artist Dave McKean combine to paint a dark and dismal portrait of Wordsworth, a man who, like many of the protagonists in Barker’s world, is a puzzle aficionado. When he is given a ‘good puzzle’ by a faceless stranger, Wordsworth’s character is slowly revealed through the answers he provides. Gaiman is darkly poetic, illuminating the depths of his nightmare one word at a time. Dave McKean’s artistic style blends perfectly with Gaiman’s vision, making “Wordsworth” arguably one of the best additions to this anthology.
With “The Collector,” author Kelley Armstrong unveils yet another puzzle enthusiast. Much like Gaiman, Armstrong reveals Sarah Lane’s character slowly, with a subtleness that is absolutely seamless. Armstrong deftly weaves the dark undercurrents that define Barker’s world into this story, offering hints of that same twisted curiosity that led Frank Cotton to the puzzle of Lemarchand’s box.
Tim Lebbon is anything but subtle with his contribution. In “Every Wrong Turn” he introduces a nihilistic man with a mysterious map and a labyrinthine list of mortal sins. Lebbon’s tale blends the cleverness of Gaiman’s or Armstrong’s stories with darker hints of the grotesqueness found in Conrad Williams’ “The Cold” and Steve Niles’ “A Little Piece of Hell.” Lebbon is known for the depth and realism he breathes into his characters. The character he creates in “A Little Piece of Hell” is far more frightening than the Cenobite he encounters in the maze, because he is a deeply flawed and unmistakably human.
While many of the stories are understated, Sarah Langan’s “The Dark Materials Project” unloads an arsenal of dark and twisted thoughts in an apocalyptic tale of greed and selfishness. It is a heavy story, burdened by the weight of unbridled hopelessness. Langan captures a pervading sense of dread that draws the reader in and refuses to release them once the tale is done.
Throughout the anthology there are tales that touch on the terror offered by Barker’s Cenobites. In “Prisoners of the Inferno,” author Peter Atkins (who penned the scripts for the second, third, and fourth Hellraiser movies) takes us from an obscure movie still to a mysterious cabinet before he abandons us to the workings of our own imaginations. In “The Cold,” author Conrad Williams brings us slightly closer to the grotesque with a series of violent murders in the city of Manchester. But it is Steve Niles who best captures the graphic nature of the Cenobites with his story, “A Little Piece of Hell.” There is nothing restrained about the work of Steve Niles. There are no innuendoes, no undercurrents at all in “A Little Piece of Hell.” The author of 30 Days of Night writes with a graphic vividness that terrifies with its simple ferocity. His story is both explicit and grotesque and it captures those elements of the Hellraiser mythos perfectly. Niles writes with a clarity that terrifies, given the disturbing nature of his tale. Worse, his Cenobites linger long after the story is finished, as though they are waiting for the reader to solve the puzzle, to embrace the dark pleasures of their pain.
The stories collected in Hellbound Hearts remain true to the nightmarish mythology that inspired them. They are subtle and suggestive, violently unrestrained, and penned by writers perfectly suited to the task. Kane and O’Regan have done a wonderful job. “Hellbound Hearts” will delight and disturb the fans of Hellraiser, and those who first discovered The Hellbound Heart in George R. R. Martin’s Night Visions 3. Hellbound Hearts is highly recommended.
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Pocket (September 29, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1439140901
ISBN-13: 978-1439140901
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