The way the tied in the other book

All the the different voices annoyed me but loved the ending when Harry was mentioned

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Not worth the read

I came across this book whilst searching for Hellraiser comics. The price of the book seemed really expensive so when I found it on Audible I immediately downloaded it. How disappointing. The narrator was good, the other readers were good too but the story is dire.
For a Hellraiser novella it just doesn’t go anywhere. I felt very much short changed after this. It should have been much better.

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not bad

very short and rushed not much substance to the story, but the voice acting was good

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Classic Clive barker at his best

I love the hellraiser books I would like to meat Clive barker to shake his hand

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who is this made for?

I'm European but I speak English pretty well, and have never had an issue (before this) comprehending narration. But Holland reads the text like an AI robot, in fact a lot of worse than one, since he mumbles so much. It's impossible to keep up with the mumbling at times, and it's sad cause this story itself is very good and rest of the cast is also great. Just a really really poor choice of narration. Audibooks especially rely on clear narration that is understandable to everyone. This definitely was not.

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A worthy sequel.

Unlike many of the films in the ‘Hellraiser’ movie franchise, this audiobook has an interesting story and it captures the atmosphere and flavour of Baker’s original novella ‘The Hellbound Heart’. It is very well-written in lush and lyrical prose, and has an intelligence and style which elevates it above mere fan fiction.

The narrator sounds very similar to Lance Henriksen as he has a weathered, world-weary voice which fits well with the darkness of the story. However, the pace of the narration could have been slowed to allow the listener to more easily absorb all the information in the often dense text. At the end of the audiobook I had some questions regarding plot details and character motivation. The answers to these I felt were in the text, but I had missed them because they had been rushed over in the narration.

An interesting style technique in this audiobook is to have the narrator read the text and have other actors read the dialogue. This does add variety, but it does sometimes feel stilted and artificial as it draws attention to the fact that this is a reading of the book – akin to a table read-through for a movie. As such, I think this audiobook would have flowed better if all parts of the text had been read by the same narrator.

Also, although the sound effects and music matched what was happening in the story, sometimes the sound design was too intrusive and threatened to drown out the actors’ voices.

In conclusion, I recommend this audiobook to all Hellraiser fans – you will not be disappointed.

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Good story but terrible narration

I enjoyed the story but found the main narrator to be very poor. Their style of reading made it very hard to follow the story. That is a shame as the ‘actors’ were not bad. If they re-recorded this with a different narrator it would be so much better.

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Nice cover, not so sure about the story...

First things first: I received this free for an honest review.

Mark Alan Miller's Hellraiser: The Toll is a strange mixed bag.

I'm really tempted to leave the review at that single line, as I genuinely think it sums up this book/audiobook as much as any review needs to; but I guess I'll go on.

Hellraiser: The Toll isn't a book that bridges The Hellbound Heart and The Scarlet Gospels, regardless of what you might have heard. Its a strange melding of a sequel to both the novella itself and the movie that came from it and it is best read in such a light.

Taken on its own merits, ignoring its strange lineage, it is still somewhat mixed up. It spends far too much time retelling the events in Hellaiser (the 1987 movie) apparently unaware that anyone reading a book called Hellraiser: The Toll would probably be very aware of what led us to this point. In itself this retelling isn't a chore to sit through, and it does at least clarify which version of Pinhead we will eventually meet, but it literally takes up half the books length and reduces this new story to little more than a longish short story.

When we do get to the story we find that we are in pure Hellbound: Hellraiser II (the 1988 sequel) territory in that a doctor enlists our hero, Kirsty's, help to contact the Cenobite leader; this time in an attempt to defeat him. It all ends up being a little something-of-nothing storyline wise, and after finishing it I had a profound sense of missed opportunity. There are some good ideas lurking within this tale. Hints at earthly covens doing the Cenobites wishes and places of evil and depravity forming crossroads into their hellish world, but the story is too short and, once the recap is over with, seems to much in a rush to get to the end, leaving us with something that feels more like an outline to a longer work; or perhaps the synopsis to a movie script. So it wasn't a surprise to me when I realised who the author was and his connection to Clive Barker, his films, and the recent comic book based on the Hellraiser franchise.

Ultimately Hellraiser: The Toll reads like a rejected story arc from the Hellraiser comics, which in themselves feel like fan-fiction rather than anything truly connected to Barker's universe; but after all this is said it doesn't necessarily mean that Hellraiser: The Toll is actually "bad".

I know, sounds like I'm contradicting myself doesn't it!

I think a readers enjoyment of Hellraiser: The Toll greatly depends on what they are reading it for and what they might be expecting from the story. If you're familiar with the movies more-so than the novella, or if you're looking for a dip into Barkerville that's not going to leave you breathless and looking over your shoulder than Hellraiser: The Toll will do the job just fine. However if you are a seasoned fan of Barker's early works then your opinion might be a whole lot harsher, and you might spend the remaining day spitting and cursing under your breath.

Personally I'm glad I took the time out for this story but I'll almost certainly never revisit it. There were some nice ideas, unfortunately unexplored, and it was kind of nice to catch up with Kirsty after all these years; but I have to admit that it left behind more sadness than fear, sadness that the Hellraiser franchise was finally over.

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An absolute mess

This was hard to finish, Tom Holland sounded so bored and the audio was really bad, it was like they've recorded this in a cubbard. the story is like a bad fan story, it's clear that Clive doesn't care about the hellraiser franchise anymore and only did this to make a quick buck from the fans. it's set between the scarlet gospels and the 1987 film though it completely ignores the continuity of the second film and one of their later films Kirsty appears in which really threw me off and confused me. it's ironic Clive hated how the studios screwed up the franchise when he screws it up with this and the scarlet gospels

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Buy the book instead!

The story itself is good as youd expect from Clive barker but the guy doing the narration was terrible, slow raspy voice and the sound quality was ridiculously bad, I found myself straining to understand what the guy was saying except when the story characters voices said their parts they were loud and clear but the general narration was terrible, I found myself annoyed at how bad it was rather than enjoying the story itself and I wished I bought the book instead, I was so annoyed I was listening just to decipher the end of the book just to finish it so I could be done with it. If it was a normal sized book rather than the less that 2hr short story I would have gave up listening to it.

I would not recommend to get this audible get a clearer sounding one it sounds like the guy done it at home with an old style cassette recorder.

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