Revelations

Rating:
Summary: Stylish and Adult
Review: A collection of powerful, chilling stories. Much effort has gone into the language and tone of these works, and the book is dense with atmoshere and insight.

Thank God the authors eschew the typical horror trope, the monster. What we get instead are human beings struggling in a dangerous world during a dangerous century, many of their lives marred (never blessed) with glimpses of the worst catastrophes still to come. Only "Dismantling Fortress Architecture" fails to measure up to the standards set by the other stories.

This is an excellent anthology.

Rating:
Summary: An incredible anthology!
Review: Doug Winter has outdone himself. This assemblage of writers and stories is guaranteed to thrill and chill you. The Joe Lansdale story is worth the purchase price alone. It will (allegorically and literally) blow you away. Clive Barker's "bookend" pieces are also fantastic. There are no weak links in the century long chain in this book. This is what an anthology should be like

Rating:
Summary: A stunning fictional journey of Pre-Millenial Tension
Review: Douglas E. Winter waited a long while to return with an anthology to match his excellent Prime Evil; so rather than retread old ground he creates a celebration of the coming Millenium. We are left with Revelations: a volume which brings together some of the best contemporary horror talent in a non-genre experiment to build an anthology novel covering the final century of our current Millenium. Its scope reaches even beyond this, with Clive Barker's tale of openings and closures which wraps about the tales of our century, taking up to the stirrings of the Millenia we currently inhabit.

As an anthology it is surpassed by few, and as a novel it is a work which renews important events of the previous century ready for the onset of the future Millenium. So it prises open a few graves; airs the woes of some of the centuries ghosts; takes us into the depths of many of our recent history's defining moments. Natural disasters and far more human ones, the full range of human emotion. Each author makes a decade live in the present for a while, and history phases past with the turning of each page. What can the future hold? Where better to look and draw inspiration from but the past.

Do the authors matter? In a work like this they should, but the individual voices merely combine to create a greater whole. Once Barker's unique vision of the past has receeded we move into the twentieth century, and a pair of devestating natural disasters wrought fresh by Joe Lansdale and David Morrell; storm and pestilance. Next F. Paul Wilson brings us face to face with one of the centuries greatest evil, and a man that can possibly avert it; or can he? Then to the Chinese Opera, and a secular world from which two young lovers escape - a collaboration between Poppy Z. Brite and Christa Faust. Charles L. Grant brings a unique vision of the man in black and Whitley Strieber takes us on a nuclear trip. Richard Christian Matheson takes the seventies and the charts by storm, with a band who downward spiral carries them to devestation. David J. Schow and Craig Spector bring down the Berlin wall, while the shades of old conflicts look on. It takes Ramsey Campbell's charting of this, our current decade, to bring an obscure author into the limelight with the greatest book ever written; barr none. So it's over. Yet it is merely the beginning, so Clive Barker again takes us on his encapsulating vision.

At the end of this enrapturing journey you have been shown where we have been and where we are going, that the darkest of literary visions is still conscious of the light. A forfilling meal you'll shelve for perusal again, and again - a book which will outlast the Millenia that spawned it.

Rating:
Summary: What a gathering of great writing talent!! What results!!
Review: I just wanted to say i think this is such a great showcase for horror writers both new and older. Although i haven't finished all the stories i must say my favorites so far, the excellent Joe R. Lansdale and Pobby Z. Brite and Christa Faust. I would also say Douglas E. Winter should be commended for his choice selections and vision.

Rating:
Summary: Yikes that was bad
Review: I think this is the most useless, pointless, and very frequently unintelligible book I have read in a long time. Although I admit I was expecting the stories to be more inclined toward Apocalyptic scenarios, my mind was open; but this book asks the reader to go almost as insane as some of its collaborators. It is comprised of 10 stories, and a wrap-around story written by Clive Barker (if you don't get that, it means the first part of it starts the book, the second ends it). Besides Barker's story, the others take place in successive decades of the Twentieth Century. Overall it is an attempt to create a book of short stories attempting to be short novels that contemplate the nature of humanity and send out a "prophetic warning and a visionary answer for all humankind."

Barker's story "The Chiliad" (referring to the passage of 1000 years) is original, if not a little confusing at times, especially because the first half leaves the reader a bit confused, and is overall a worthy read. The second story, called "The Big Blow" takes place in 1900. It involves a prize fight in Galveston, Texas, that is interrupted by one of the worst hurricanes in Unites States History. There's really no story here, no "revelations" except my realization that author (Joe R. Lansdale) likes to use misplaced vulgarity and homosexual scenes to compensate for spans where the lack of talent is apparent.

The story following it, called "If I Should Die Before I Wake" is one of the better stories in this book, possibly be the best. David Morrell did a good job here showing the turmoil of the influenza pandemic, and the personal agony it caused. There is a small amount of personal revelation here, and it complements the story in a way I can't fully explain. The 1920's story that follows it written by F. Paul Wilson is also fairly good. Titled "Aryans and Absinthe" it regards the real story behind the "staged" assassination attempt of Hitler in Munich, which caused a riot and started the political uprising that Hitler rode from prison to the writing of Mein Kampf and eventually all the way into the Reichs Chancellery. Although it has some annoying bouts of economic jargon, the "revelation" part led to a very original, as well as interesting interpretation of history.

Here's where the book takes a turn for the worse, with the atrocious piece of "work" called "Triads," taking place in 1930's Hong Kong as well as mainland China, during the start of the Chinese-Japanese hostilities. It's the story of two young lovers, put into a Hong Kong dance school as young children, who end up defying the Triads...blah, blah, and more blah. It sucked! Oh, and by the way, the two lovers, they're both men, and the story is written by two women. Perhaps they're trying to make the story seem more sincere or they're trying to make some insinuations into male lives. There is a minute revelation here, lasting for about a paragraph, and having no other connection with the plot. Besides that, it seethed ineptness bordering on incompetence, the story being so disjointed it was not worth the read.

Charles Grant's story taking place in the 1940's was pretty good. It was a bit strange, especially because of the ambiguity regarding the strange cowboy living on the edge of a desert town, but was definitely worth the read. The 1950's story written by Whitley Strieber is the worst piece of writing (I could've used other words besides worst to describe it) that I have ever read. It makes no sense at all, and reads like a four-year old with hallucinogens in its formula wrote it. It has something to do with a nuclear scientist, and simply thrown in there as a minimal point, the ever-present Strieber theme: aliens! I don't know how anyone could interpret this as anything other than inane babble.

The 1960's story is pretty good, having to do with a camp devoted to ensuring the peace, love, and well-being of individuals during a time of war and unrest. However, it is not as tranquil as it seems, and society is actually being manipulated by a guarded evil...The 1970's story is more crap, written by Richard Matheson, called "Whatever." It is an incoherent mass of news clips and short narratives about a revolutionary band that aspired to change the world. The 1980's story is mediocre, though I agree with another reviewer here, it is missing a degree of something, and the ideas put forth in it are not fully developed. The premise is the Fourth Reich's rise from the dust still new on the ground from the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the attempts of some to prevent that rise. The 1990's story is called "the Word" and chronicles the release of a new book (called The Word) which puts the whole world in an uproar. Everyone feels that it is Earth-shattering, when it actually says nothing at all, and only one man knows it, because he knew the author before he wrote this book, and what type of person he is. I still haven't figured out what The Word (the imaginary book in this story) heralds: the coming of the new messiah or the apocalypse, but (the story) sure ends strangely.

This book is overall amazingly strange and has very little in the way of revelation in it, and when it does it is mainly clouded by bad writing and vague terminology, which results in a very sub-literary book, which it seems to constantly attempt to be. It ultimately comes off as exactly what it is: nothing much at all, save for perhaps the meager good stories which carry the overpowering dead weight of the many horrible stories in this ineffective anthology.

Rating:
Summary: Professes to be far more than it actually is
Review: I think this is the most useless, pointless, and very frequently unintelligible book I have read in a long time. Although I admit I was expecting the stories to be more inclined toward Apocalyptic scenarios, my mind was open; but this book asks the reader to go almost as insane as some of its collaborators. It is comprised of 10 stories, and a wrap-around story written by Clive Barker (if you don't get that, it means the first part of it starts the book, the second ends it). Besides Barker's story, the others take place in successive decades of the Twentieth Century. Overall it is an attempt to create a book of short stories attempting to be short novels that contemplate the nature of humanity and send out a "prophetic warning and a visionary answer for all humankind."

Barker's story "The Chiliad" (referring to the passage of 1000 years) is original, if not a little confusing at times, especially because the first half leaves the reader a bit confused, and is overall a worthy read. The second story, called "The Big Blow" takes place in 1900. It involves a prize fight in Galveston, Texas, that is interrupted by one of the worst hurricanes in Unites States History. There's really no story here, no "revelations" except my realization that author (Joe R. Lansdale) likes to use misplaced vulgarity and homosexual scenes to compensate for spans where the lack of talent is apparent.

The story following it, called "If I Should Die Before I Wake" is one of the better stories in this book, possibly be the best. David Morrell did a good job here showing the turmoil of the influenza pandemic, and the personal agony it caused. There is a small amount of personal revelation here, and it complements the story in a way I can't fully explain. The 1920's story that follows it written by F. Paul Wilson is also fairly good. Titled "Aryans and Absinthe" it regards the real story behind the "staged" assassination attempt of Hitler in Munich, which caused a riot and started the political uprising that Hitler rode from prison to the writing of Mein Kampf and eventually all the way into the Reichs Chancellery. Although it has some annoying bouts of economic jargon, the "revelation" part led to a very original, as well as interesting interpretation of history.

Here's where the book takes a turn for the worse, with the atrocious piece of "work" called "Triads," taking place in 1930's Hong Kong as well as mainland China, during the start of the Chinese-Japanese hostilities. It's the story of two young lovers, put into a Hong Kong dance school as young children, who end up defying the Triads...blah, blah, and more blah. It sucked! Oh, and by the way, the two lovers, they're both men, and the story is written by two women. Perhaps they're trying to make the story seem more sincere or they're trying to make some insinuations into male lives. There is a minute revelation here, lasting for about a paragraph, and having no other connection with the plot. Besides that, it seethed ineptness bordering on incompetence, the story being so disjointed it was not worth the read.

Charles Grant's story taking place in the 1940's was pretty good. It was a bit strange, especially because of the ambiguity regarding the strange cowboy living on the edge of a desert town, but was definitely worth the read. The 1950's story written by Whitley Strieber is the worst piece of writing (I could've used other words besides worst to describe it) that I have ever read. It makes no sense at all, and reads like a four-year old with hallucinogens in its formula wrote it. It has something to do with a nuclear scientist, and simply thrown in there as a minimal point, the ever-present Strieber theme: aliens! I don't know how anyone could interpret this as anything other than inane babble.

The 1960's story is pretty good, having to do with a camp devoted to ensuring the peace, love, and well-being of individuals during a time of war and unrest. However, it is not as tranquil as it seems, and society is actually being manipulated by a guarded evil...The 1970's story is more crap, written by Richard Matheson, called "Whatever." It is an incoherent mass of news clips and short narratives about a revolutionary band that aspired to change the world. The 1980's story is mediocre, though I agree with another reviewer here, it is missing a degree of something, and the ideas put forth in it are not fully developed. The premise is the Fourth Reich's rise from the dust still new on the ground from the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the attempts of some to prevent that rise. The 1990's story is called "the Word" and chronicles the release of a new book (called The Word) which puts the whole world in an uproar. Everyone feels that it is Earth-shattering, when it actually says nothing at all, and only one man knows it, because he knew the author before he wrote this book, and what type of person he is. I still haven't figured out what The Word (the imaginary book in this story) heralds: the coming of the new messiah or the apocalypse, but (the story) sure ends strangely.

This book is overall amazingly strange and has very little in the way of revelation in it, and when it does it is mainly clouded by bad writing and vague terminology, which results in a very sub-literary book, which it seems to constantly attempt to be. It ultimately comes off as exactly what it is: nothing much at all, save for perhaps the meager good stories which carry the overpowering dead weight of the many horrible stories in this ineffective anthology.

Rating:
Summary: A Fine Anthology
Review: The title piqued my interest. Most of the authors listed in the contents, I had heard of or read before. My favorites in the group are "If I Should Die Before I Wake", which involves a small town dealing with the deadly Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and "Whatever", which deals with a cultist society. Both sent chills. The rest of the stories provoked a good response in me, but those two continue to stand out. Clive Barker's wraparounds were very good. Be sure to add this to your collection.

Rating:
Summary: A Fine Anthology
Review: The title piqued my interest. Most of the authors listed in the contents, I had heard of or read before. My favorites in the group are "If I Should Die Before I Wake", which involves a small town dealing with the deadly Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and "Whatever", which deals with a cultist society. Both sent chills. The rest of the stories provoked a good response in me, but those two continue to stand out. Clive Barker's wraparounds were very good. Be sure to add this to your collection.

Rating:
Summary: A sad summary of the state of horror
Review: This book is one of the most poorly written and shoddily compiled collections I've ever read. Additionally, it is a sad commentary on the field of horror today. Barker is fast becoming a parody of himself: his bookending "stories" in Revelations, if you can call these underplotted and overpretentious works "stories," are foolish and dumb, as is every story here with the exception of Richard Christian Matheson's story, which stands out like a jewel in a pile of garbage. In general, these stories are unconnected except in vague ways, are poorly written (even Joe Lansdale's story is pretty crappy, which quite surprised me), and are self-important to the point of hilarity. For true horror, read Thomas Ligotti or Kim Newman. For contemporary dreck that almost makes Ann Rice look decent (quite an achievement, believe me), try this weighty book of self-important nonsense.

Rating:
Summary: surprisingly, substandard
Review: Well, I finished revelations ed by Douglas E. Winter. I appreciate what he tried to do here, a novel of short stories, and it was a good idea, but it just seemed to fall flat. I could never quite see the connection between the stories. But it fell short. And I was surprised that this wasn't that great, because Winter put together _Prime Evil_, which I truly enjoyed.

Clive Barker's wraparound story wasn't very good. It had some interesting parts to it, but really, not his best work. Landsdale, who wrote the first story (each story took place in a different decade...but I'm not sure when barker's story took place) wasn't too bad. David Morrell's story I'd say the same about. F. Paul Wilson's story about Nazi Germany was excellent. Probably the best in the book. Poppy Z. Brite and Christa Faust's story was a good one. charles grant's story wasn't bad. Whitley Streiber wrote an unintelligable, very bad story for the 50s decade. I never really caught on to what was happening. Elizabeth massie wrote what would be the second best story in the book, it too was excellent. Matheson, who I know is a good writer wrote some garbage for the book...it sucked. David J. Schow and Craig Spector wrote a story for this book that was okay, it was almost good, but something is missing from it (hmm...I wonder if that'd be Skipp). And since at least half of this book was bad, I was worried when I got to the last decade/story which was written by ramsey campbell. Luckily he wrote a pretty good story.