Acid Blood Books 3

The third volume of Books of Blood continues to take the reader down the paths of fantasy and horror in the way only Barker knows how: by tearing the veil of the real. Adopting techniques from theatre, literature and the visual arts, it presents an image of the world not as it is offered to our senses but as it really is and illuminates the essence of the real which exists as a set of structural contradictions. Barker creates a completely believable universe that he takes care to decorate with monstrous images. King Rex, a monster that evokes a phallic symbol and causes atrocities by destroying the city of Gilles, a savior statue that steals the body and soul of a gigolo, are some of the protagonists of his short stories that reverse and revise reality as the we know His texts focus on the marginal, the outcast of society, precisely wanting to emphasize the need to change the way we perceive the world, diversity, other species. For Barker, our hell is not others but, neither more nor less, ourselves.