Clive Barker's books of blood Volume Four (1990) Parents Guide: Is the book OK for kids?

The story 'The Age of Desire' is built entirely on sexual content: a test subject named Jerome is dosed with an experimental aphrodisiac and is driven into an uncontrollable, agonizing frenzy that turns into brutal sexual assault and murder. It is written to be repellent rather than titillating, but it is graphic and prolonged, describing the subject's physical arousal as a source of extreme pain and anatomical distortion. Sexuality and bodily appetite thread through the other stories too, usually fused with…

Extreme and central to the 'splatterpunk' aesthetic. 'The Body Politic' has hands severing themselves from their owners' wrists, such as Charlie George's amputation, and a mass revolt of amputated hands described in wet, anatomical detail. 'Down, Satan!' depicts systematic, mechanical torture in a purpose-built facility where victims are broken in the dark. 'The Inhuman Condition' releases monstrous, knotted creatures that maim and kill characters like Karney's associates as each knot in a string is untied. Barker…

Frequent strong profanity throughout, including numerous uses of the f-word and other vulgarities, plus explicit sexual language in 'The Age of Desire.' The dialogue includes crude, degrading speech from several characters, particularly the street-wise youths in 'The Inhuman Condition' and the fanatical Gregorius in 'Down, Satan!'. The register is contemporary, blunt, and often used to punctuate moments of extreme terror or disgust. Even the more 'literary' passages do not shy away from using visceral, coarse…

Alcohol appears socially throughout the stories, with characters drinking to cope with the stresses of their surreal environments or as part of their established lifestyle. The experimental drug at the center of 'The Age of Desire' functions as the story's engine, acting as a chemical catalyst for the horror that follows rather than a traditional narcotic. Recreational drug use is briefly mentioned among the delinquent characters in 'The Inhuman Condition' but is not a primary focus of the plot. The focus remains…

Barker's recurring subject is the body as an unreliable, rebellious thing - hands that want independence from their owner in 'The Body Politic,' and chemical appetites that consume the person who has them. 'Down, Satan!' follows a rich man named Gregorius who tortures people in a purpose-built hell in the hope of provoking God's attention, which is as bleak a piece of theology as the collection offers. 'Revelations' sets a revival preacher's abuse of his wife, Virginia, against a pair of ghosts named John and…