Clive on Lost Souls

It was Cha'Chat, of that Harry had no doubt. And to prove the point, the demon took off at a run, the limbs and prodigious buttocks stirred to a fandango with every step. By the time Harry had cleared his way through the crowd the demon was already turning the corner into Ninety-fifth Street, but its stolen body was not designed for speed, and Harry rapidly made up the distance between them. The lamps were out in several places along the street, and when he finally snatched at the demon, and heard the sound of tearing, the gloom disguised the vile truth for fully five seconds until he realised that Cha'Chat had somehow sloughed off its usurped flesh, leaving Harry holding a great coat of ectoplasm, which was already melting like overripe cheese. The demon, its burden shed, was away; slim as hope and twice as slippery. Harry dropped the coat of filth and gave chase, shouting Hesse's syllables as he did so. Surprisingly, Cha'Chat stopped in its tracks, and turned to Harry. The eyes looked all ways but Heavenward; the mouth was wide and attempting laughter. It sounded like someone vomiting down an elevator shaft.
"Words, D'Amour?" it said, mocking Hesse's syllables. "You think I can be stopped with words?"
"No," said Harry, and blew a hole in Cha'Chat's abdomen before the demon's many eyes had even found the gun.

Oops. We've drawn a complete blank on meaningful comment from Clive - or even passing reference ! All help gratefully received. We look forward to the introductions being written for the Collected Short Stories (see the 'Books Still To Come' section of this site).

...other comments

Robert Parkinson : "Probably the strongest asset Cutting Edge has is the variety of fiction it contains...Though [it] has to sell itself on the big names it features, no-one should dismiss the stories from the lesser-known writers. Each story has been carefully chosen for its quality and not just to make up the 300 pages the book stretches to. For any serious reader of macabre fiction this is the sort of book that publishers would describe as a must to lure the reader but in this case they happen to be telling the truth."

A Book At Bedtime - Cutting Edge review

By Robert Parkinson, Samhain No.8, April 1988

D. Kuraria : "[Cutting Edge] is a real treat; a feast truly worth devouring by anyone addicted to the Horror drug... Messrs Bloch, Matheson, Straub and Barker deliver their goods in the delicious way that is expected of them. Clive Barker's Lost Souls is reminiscent of his earlier story The Yattering And Jack; but like the latter, it is refreshingly original in its treatment of the possession theme."

In The Bad Books - Cutting Edge review

By D. Kuraria, Terror Australis Issue Vol 1, No 1, Autumn 1988

Lost Souls bibliography...