The Scarlet Gospels
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Scarlet Gospels is a novel by horror/fantasy writer Clive Barker, expected to be published in late 2007 or 2008. Originally it was intended to be the title of a selection of short stories, including a novella-sized story that would have been a sequel to his groundbreaking horror story, first told in a novella called The Hellbound Heart, and then in a highly successful feature film called Hellraiser. As Barker got further and further into writing the story, he decided that the material deserved more, and gradually, the other non-related short stories were put aside in favor of the main story becoming a single self-contained novel of its own.
[edit] Plot summary
The story centers on two characters Barker has used in his previous work. The first is the private investigator Harry D'Amour, a character seen in several previous stories. The second, Harry's adversary in The Scarlet Gospels, is known only as Pinhead, leader of the Cenobites, a pseudo-priestly order in Hell devoted to exploring pain and pleasure - at least, pleasure as they themselves define it. The first meeting between these two characters actually occurs in the past, when Harry is twelve or thirteen years old and in Catholic school, and this encounter with Pinhead is said to be a prime cause in Harry's disturbed demeanor later.
In the present day, a friend of Harry's is taken hostage by Pinhead, and Harry, accompanied by four mismatched companions (including the blind medium Norma Paine, who has appeared in Barker's stories before) and an animal, must track his friend down into the lowest levels of Hell. Roughly two thirds of the story will take place in Hell itself, and much is expected to be learned about the nature of Hell, its creator, its inhabitants, about the Order of Cenobites and Pinhead's place in it. By the conclusion, Pinhead will have been irrevocably killed off (revealed by Barker to be the result of a brutal and humiliating suicide) and Harry will have been wounded, fundamentally and irredemably changed as a character.
[edit] Known facts about The Scarlet Gospels
Though the full course of the story is not known, Barker himself has been forthcoming with small facts about the story in various telephone and print interviews.
- The Lament Configuration puzzle box and others like it, which in The Hellbound Heart and the Hellraiser films are used to summon the Cenobites, will be present in The Scarlet Gospels and will be explored in slightly more detail than in The Hellbound Heart, but not in any great detail. The same goes for their creator, Philip Lemarchand. Quite possibly, just as the story will mark the end of Pinhead, it may also mark the end of the puzzle boxes that have been associated with him and his order. In Barker's words, "This book is not about Lemarchand. It's about what happens when Hell puts down its machinery, meaning the little boxes, and takes up its older ways."
- The Pinhead character and his true role in the order of Cenobites will be explored.
- Pinhead will be given a genuine Cenobitic name in the story. This is significant since the character was never officially named in any story, nor were any other Cenobite characters. Pinhead was identified only as the "Lead Cenobite" in the first film, and in subsequent films the name "Pinhead" has been used as a placeholder.
- Barker will not be following the continuity established in the Hellraiser sequel films.
- One location in the book will be a Viking cemetery, located in the Aberdeen islands off the western coast of Scotland.
- Barker has said that The Scarlet Gospels will include numerous mytho-historical characters from the New Testament and early Christian lore. One of these will be Jesus of Nazareth, whose crucifixion on Golgotha will be seen in the book. Another is Joseph of Arimathea, who is said to have brought the Holy Grail to a tin mine in Cornwall, though Barker has not said in what way Joseph will be featured in the story.
- The book will make reference to something called the Lazarus Requiem, though Barker does not say what role it will have in the story (this is actually Barker's name for his own notes, and would have been his name for the story itself had he not decided it sounded too much like a science fiction title).
|
|
| Novels, novellas, and Short story collections |
|---|
| Stand-alone: The Damnation Game | The Hellbound Heart | Weaveworld | Imajica | Books of Blood | The Thief of Always | Sacrament | Galilee | Coldheart Canyon |
| Books of the Art: The Great and Secret Show | Everville |
| The Abarat Quintet: Abarat | Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War | Abarat: Absolute Midnight | Abarat: The Eternal | [untitled fifth book] |
| Short story collections: Books of Blood | Cabal | In the Flesh | The Inhuman Condition | The Scarlet Gospels |
| Films |
| Directed by Clive Barker: Salome | The Forbidden | Hellraiser | Nightbreed | Lord of Illusions | Tortured Souls: Animae Damnatae |
| Directed by others: Rawhead Rex | Underworld | Candyman | Saint Sinner |
| Other |
| Art collections: Clive Barker, Illustrator | Illustrator II: The Art of Clive Barker | Clive Barker Visions of Heaven and Hell |
| Plays: Incarnations: Three Plays | Forms of Heaven: Three Plays |
| Video games: Clive Barker's Undying | Demonik | Clive Barker's Jericho |
| Recurring characters |
| Cenobites | Pinhead | Harry D'Amour |
