"I have seen the future of the horror genre, and his name is Clive Barker," Stephen King was quoted as saying in
Publishers Weekly following the publication of one of the first books in the series. "What Barker does makes the rest of us look like we've been asleep for 10 years." Fellow Briton Ramsey Campbell offered a similar view as quoted in
Books and Bookmen, terming Barker "the first true voice of the next generation of horror writers." Barker continues to make publishing history with his "Abarat Quartet," targeted for young adults as a competitor to J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" books and bankrolled to the tune of $8 million by the Walt Disney Studio for film, multimedia, and theme park rights.
Liverpudlian by Birth
Journalists who meet Barker observe that despite his nightmarish imagination, he seems very well adjusted: smiling, personable, and boyishly enthusiastic. In fact, Barker did not always intend to write horrific short stories. Born in Liverpool, England, in 1952, not far from the Penny Lane made famous by those other famous Liverpudlians, the Beatles, Barker came of age in an England still struggling to find its place in the postwar world.
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