Rating: 
Summary: a bit of titllating fun...
Review: ...a short work...a little grisly, but intriguing. the film "Hellraiser" was based on this novella. If you can get your hands on a copy, it's worth a read...esp. for Barker fans.
Rating:
Summary: you can see a movie
Review: all four of them and be sufficiently scared or you can read this book,which inspired them.I must say I'm still far more impressed with visual representation of the author's ideas,then with his books.He's a good writer with great command of the language,however british that might be:)he's very graphic and his ideas are original and scary enough to make for a good book,the downfall of which lies,in my opinion,in the poorly developed and dislikable characters.From my experience with the author's books,it's a constant problem,he has a great feel and concept for horror and on occasion a great feel for words as well,but the characters around it serve merely as furniture and are about equally exciting,which makes great movies,but dull books.This book,however,is much closer to the movie,then "last illusion" was to "lord of illusions",so it might appeal to die hard fans of "Hellraiser",it's a quick read and is very scary,but it lacks human touch,a quality that makes an ok book a great book.
Rating: 
Summary: Time to Play!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: Amazing, dark and poetrical. Mr. Barker has created a horror classic and with it amazing movies as well.Thank you sir!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Imaginative and unique.
Review: Barker explores pleasure and pain and the extent a person will go to for the unltimate experience in this short novel that later became the film 'Hellraiser'. The film is very faithful but even if you have seen it several times already (as I had), there is still more to be found here, those demons and visions that each reader's mind can only create for itself.
Rating:
Summary: A masterful allegory of SM pleasure.
Review: Barker has been usually classified as a splatterpunk for his extreme imagery. This small masterpiece doesn't dissapoint. I liked this book a lot more than the Hellraiser movie. Though Barker adapted his own novella, the expansion of the tale to fit a feature lenght film made for ludicrous scenes. None of those here. This is a story that deals mainly with human desire, the need for love and the need for pleasure, and the search to fulfill sexual appetites, while keeping a very kinky sadomasochist subtext. The Cenobites are displays of pain as pleasure taken to the extreme. And the "conditions of the nerve endings" they mention... engrossing! Barker uses an almost poetic language that makes for enjoyable prose. I highly recomend this book.
Rating:
Summary: one of the best horror novels ever penned
Review: Barker plays with the english language as if it were his own personal toy in this short novel that cuts all the bs and pointless insipid dross and gets straight to the point with gruesomely poignant detail. story focusses around Frank who tires of earth's trivialities and decides to experiment w/a puzzle box which can unleash pleasures greater than any experiencable in our dimension. he is greeted by a quartet of demonic heirophants who bring unto him excruciating pain + pleasure: indivisible; then rip him apart. later revived by his brother's (Rory's) spilt blood (and transforming into a skinless monstrosity) he coaxes Rory's wife and his own ex-lover Julia into killing for him, so they can be together again. i have only read 2 of his books so far (this and The Theif of Always) and i am currently reading Cabal and i must confess to not reading that often (almost never!!) until being turned on to Barker through Hellraiser, i liked it so much that when i found it was based on his book i had to read it. and beleive me i was anything but disappointed. his style of writing is so entrancing i just couldn't put it down i couldn't wait to read more. the first chapter is a tour de force, the last is almost as good. bottom line: anyone who wants to read an explicit novel that's not afraid to cross the boundries of conservativeness and deliver horror in its __true__ form read this.
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Summary: A must read for Clive fans.
Review: Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant. Remember what the nuns told you back in grade school-If you're not a good boy/girl you will go straight to hell. Well, here it is. Frank is your typical bad boy who goes a little too far down the path of the flesh and winds up suffering at the hands of demons. It may seem basic, but Mr. Barker always makes that trip to hell so fabulous. If you like Clive Barker, or if you're just into the horror genre, don't miss this one.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best pieces of horror I've read in years
Review: Clive Barker crafted one of the best pieces of modern horror to come along in quite some time with this shocker novella. The Hellbound Heart tells the tale of the human heart and all of it's pain and ecstasy contained within. When Frank solves the puzzle of the Lemarchand box, he discovers the vastness, and the cost, of pleasure and pain. Upon his encounter with otherworldly creatures called the Cenobites, Frank is left as quite a mess to say the least, and when his ex-lover Julia and her husband Rory move in to Frank's old home, that's when we see Barker at his best. Despite the lack of character development and the novel itself is way too short; The Hellbound Heart is some of the most compelling horror stories I have ever read, and it helped cement Barker as one of the genre's true masters. In 1987 Barker would take this story to the big screen (and would also serve as screen writer and director) re-naming it Hellraiser; which would go down as one of the best horror films in the past few decades. All in all, if your into horror literature but have never entered the world of Clive Barker, this is one of the best places to start.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best pieces of horror I've read in years
Review: Clive Barker crafted one of the best pieces of modern horror to come along in quite some time with this shocker novella. The Hellbound Heart tells the tale of the human heart and all of it's pain and ecstasy contained within. When Frank solves the puzzle of the Lemarchand box, he discovers the vastness, and the cost, of pleasure and pain. Upon his encounter with otherworldly creatures called the Cenobites, Frank is left as quite a mess to say the least, and when his ex-lover Julia and her husband Rory move in to Frank's old home, that's when we see Barker at his best. Despite the lack of character development and the novel itself is way too short; The Hellbound Heart is some of the most compelling horror stories I have ever read, and it helped cement Barker as one of the genre's true masters. In 1987 Barker would take this story to the big screen (and would also serve as screen writer and director) re-naming it Hellraiser; which would go down as one of the best horror films in the past few decades. All in all, if your into horror literature but have never entered the world of Clive Barker, this is one of the best places to start.
Rating:
Summary: Clive Barker's Literary Collision of Pleasure and Pain
Review: Clive Barker is one of the most fascinating horror authors of his generation. His stories contain an intriguing combination of literate prose and graphic violence. Like the works of such genre masters as H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, Clive Barker writes horror stories that are masterfully written and genuinely effective. THE HELLBOUND HEART is a gruesome tale that falls somewhere between Barker's brilliant short stories (The Books of Blood) and his epic novels. At it's simplest, this is a story about a puzzle box that deals pleasure and pain (brought by hideous creatures called the cenobites) and the damage that it causes a dysfunctional family. Fans of the film HELLRAISER (which was inspired by this book and directed by Barker) will be familiar with the story as it is a very faithful adaptation of this work. However, this book still manages to intrigue because Barker captures one aspect of the story that's notably absent from the cinematic version... the human heart and it's many emotions (ecstasy and pain). Clive Barker takes the reader into the thoughts and feelings of the characters and as a result, the macabre tale is all the much more effective. As is to be expected with such a story, the violence is strong and graphic, but the emphasis here is on the characters and their reactions to the explicit horrors. THE HELLBOUND HEART is a brief novella that runs about 160 pages. The fairly brief length makes for a fast read and is perfect for those rainy afternoons. Despite the limited number of pages, Clive Barker does a great job establishing the characters and the pace is fast moving throughout. For a quick and gripping read, THE HELLBOUND HEART comes highly recommended.
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