Helpful Score: 5
This was the first book I've read from this author.It is very raw and erotic. Not for the faint of heart. The beginning is a bit slow, but it allows the reader to understand the history that causes any evil you can imagine. I was caught up in the story line, but make sure you have the stomach to read this one.
Helpful Score: 3
From evidence in the author's introduction, I do wonder if this book was more difficult to produce than his others. I guess it does lack the liquid flow of imagery and energy that some of his other pieces have; but, to be fair, he is puppeteering an immense cast in this work, and some of the clumsiness almost goes hand-in-hand with that effort. Still, it was a page-turner, and had both Barker's shuddering horrors and his dry humour in spades.
The book's format is really interesting. A climax comes early, and then Barker follows the characters well into the aftermath. The climax is so savage it's almost as if he's holding you afterwards, comforting you, soothing you; certainly the characters soothe each other. A reference to human sexuality? Well, maybe. The book does has its fair share of explicit sex. And if you don't know anything about the artist Hieronymus Bosch, you will at the end of this volume.
I definitely recommend this book.
The book's format is really interesting. A climax comes early, and then Barker follows the characters well into the aftermath. The climax is so savage it's almost as if he's holding you afterwards, comforting you, soothing you; certainly the characters soothe each other. A reference to human sexuality? Well, maybe. The book does has its fair share of explicit sex. And if you don't know anything about the artist Hieronymus Bosch, you will at the end of this volume.
I definitely recommend this book.
Helpful Score: 3
Clive Barker has the terribly wonderful gift of melding sexuality and horror, and he has honed this skill to an art in this book. Coldheart Canyon gives us characters that are flawed and all too human and immerses them in a world of terror and debauchery, but it's done in such a way to make it ever so slightly alluring to the reader. An excellent ghost story and a highly recommended read!
Helpful Score: 3
Fine Little Gem of a Book, January 7, 2006
Reviewer: Ivan (Jacksonville, NC)
This book was so good that I actually wondered if it hadn't already been written before the beginning of time, before the universe itself was born and Mr. Barker didn't actually just discover it for us, and translate it for us from the pure language of the cosmos that it was written in. Perhaps it was originally written upon papyrus in some ancient tongue and buried deep in a crypt only for Clive Barker to have been led there by an angel (or a demon). Perhaps it miraculously survived the burning of Alexandria and through a long sequence of coincidences and synchronicities wound up in the hands of Mr. Clive Barker.
However the book actually came to pass I still kept wincing and my stomach kept turning at all of the perverted and gory details of the book, only for me to realize in the end that they were all necessary for us to still understand the possible condition of the afterlife that he was suggesting, and the development of his characters and the drama of souls struggling after death to overcome the channel to anguish and torment in the region of the dead that people dig for themselves in life.
Reviewer: Ivan (Jacksonville, NC)
This book was so good that I actually wondered if it hadn't already been written before the beginning of time, before the universe itself was born and Mr. Barker didn't actually just discover it for us, and translate it for us from the pure language of the cosmos that it was written in. Perhaps it was originally written upon papyrus in some ancient tongue and buried deep in a crypt only for Clive Barker to have been led there by an angel (or a demon). Perhaps it miraculously survived the burning of Alexandria and through a long sequence of coincidences and synchronicities wound up in the hands of Mr. Clive Barker.
However the book actually came to pass I still kept wincing and my stomach kept turning at all of the perverted and gory details of the book, only for me to realize in the end that they were all necessary for us to still understand the possible condition of the afterlife that he was suggesting, and the development of his characters and the drama of souls struggling after death to overcome the channel to anguish and torment in the region of the dead that people dig for themselves in life.
Helpful Score: 2
A good read from Clive Barker. I've had trouble following a few of his books in the past, but that is not the case of this book. A very good read, and very hard to put down.
