Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker
Published by HarperCollins
256 Pages
24.95
Reviewed by Andrew Fersch
When you are considered one of the masters of horror you better be doing something pretty innovative to give folks the heebie-jeebies, especially considering that so much has already be done, coming up with a new and clever idea is going to be no easy task. This much, Clive Barker has most certainly done in “Mister B. Gone”, his most recent horror story aimed at an adult audience.
Jakabok Botch, aka Mister B is a devil in a book. Now, just how he got into said book you will have to read some 250 plus pages to find out, suffice to say that he’s in it, and he’s itching to get a piece of you. And so from page one you find yourself at once being pulled in by the deceitful, manipulative, yet sometimes even likable little demon who couldn’t. See, Mister B is no normal demon; he is a failure of one. He is not a pure breed; he gets picked on by his peers, and abused by his horrific parents. So much so that he ends up a mutilated mass of scar tissue who happens, by random chance, to end up being caught in a net, dragged from hell, and given an opportunity to see what’s he’s made of. Turns out, not that much when he’s all alone.
Written as a first person narrative, “Mister B. Gone” gives new meaning to the term disappointment when it comes to innovation. It is the Segway of books, seems like a great idea, in reality, it ends up coming off as relatively lame and disappointing. And that is truly unfortunately in this case because Clive Barker is capable of scaring the crap out of just about anyone when he tries (this is the same guy who did Hellraiser for Christ’s sake!)
Mister B has a tendency to repeat himself, telling you to burn the book, and eventually, parts of you will want to listen to him. Mister B also turns from a pretty average demon to a sidekick for a pretty hardcore demon, and there certainly are times when the two sicken with their acts, each time though, Barker insists on bringing it back to a more sensitive side of Mister B which just comes off as not particularly respectable for a demon.
What is most disappointing about the book is what could have been its most genius point. Throughout the book, Jakabok slowly but surely begins to tell the reader that if they finish the book, he will be there, ready to slit their throat, and if read late at night, this can have the proper spine tingling effect. Barker wusses out though and calls Mister B’s bluff for him, albeit for a logical reason, still, taking away the one truly scary aspect of the novel.
For a twelve year old who likes a good scare before bedtime, this might just be a perfect book (albeit a little graphic in some of it’s violence), for an adult though, the spine tingling sensation you are likely to feel once or twice during the book wont make up for the rest of it, which is thoroughly lackluster. Hopefully, out there, in Demonation, somewhere, some up and coming demon novelist read this and plans to show Jakabok Botch and Clive Barker how it’s done, as one can only hope this isn’t the best the underworld has to offer for entertainment.