Clive Barker

[rune]

I have read a couple of his books and gave up on Weavers World, finding it too complicated.

However I was looking for some feedback on Abarat. Anyone read it

 

[littlemissattitude]

Oh, no. I thought "Weaveworld" was a great book. Haven't read "Abarat" yet. But I think my favorite of all Barker's books is "Coldheart Canyon", followed closely by "Galilee".

 

[Brian G Turner]

I had comic adaptions of some of his stories, but never actually read any novels...

 

[littlemissattitude]

Well, Brian, don't start with "Imagica" then. Good book, but it's over a thousand pages long, and in fact has been published in two volumes in some editions.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I have no idea what I read, atually - some short stories that seemed more concerned with gore than story - and an adaption by Dark Horse, involving a group of mutants living in some kind of city away from humanity, or something - a bit pulp, really.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Well, Barker's collections of short stories aren't called the "Books of Blood" for nothing. Some of them are very gory, and some of them seem to have been written just for the shock value. They were my first introduction to his work, and sometimes I wonder than I went on to read any of his novels. But mostly, Barker's novels aren't quite so gratuitiously bloody. Not that they don't have their share of splatter, but it's usually there for a reason. I've quite liked most of his novels I have read: "Damnation Game", "Weaveworld", "Imajica" (although I've never gotten around to reading the last hundred pages or so - as I said, it's very long), "Galilee", "Coldheart Canyon". Seems like I'm missing something, but I can't think of what right now.

I think the real point is, if you can get past Barker's penchant for gore and some, shall we say interesting, sexual content, he really is a good writer, with some interesting ideas to share. But he isn't a writer that I would recommend for everyone.

 

[Brian G Turner]

That was it - Books of Blood were the short stories (sort of like Neil Gaiman, but without plot), and Weaveworld just seemed pretty pulp - almost cartoonish - but it was a comic adaptation.

 

[Lord Bish]

I have recently seen a movie made by Barkers novel "Saint Sinner" and the plot was promising, but it wasn't too good.
Anyway Barker is an amazing horror writer.

 

[rune]

I've started reading Abarat Was lucky to find it at my local library. It's different, as seems to be normal for Barker. This is suppose to be YA book (I think) though at times the writing style does lean towards a YA reader I am not sure the content of the story wouldnt disturb the very young. Especially the illustrations

 

[rune]

I've just got my hands on the 2nd book in the Abarat series. I have to be honest they do look lovely with the shiny paper and paintings in the books

 

[Leto]

Anyway Barker is an amazing horror writer.

And an horror director, he's the father of the Hellraiser saga too.
I've recently Sacrament, and I loved it. was quieter than his regular work but very enjoyable.

 

[polymorphikos]

I've only read The Thief of Always, but I thought it brilliant. No gore (I think it was aimed at the childrens/young adult market) but genuinely creepy and with some striking imagery which certainly wasn't hurt by Barker's illustrations.

 

[Space Monkey]

I think Clive Barker is great but sometimes takes a lot of effort.

First CB novel I read was The Great and Secret Show, and I loved it. Next up came the Damnation Game, and I loved that too, but then I finally got hold of Everville, the sequel to the great and secret show, and could only get halfway through it. It wasn't 'bad', but it was long and laborious and I didn't have the patience.

I started Coldheart Canyon and enjoyed what I read, but for some reason that got shelved too - although I think it was circumstances that interrupted that rather than the book making me quit.

And I remember enjoying the Books of Blood, but remember very little about them except for a cool story about a coven of Vampires living in some underground railway sheds...

 

[Circus Cranium]

Barker being the father of Hellraiser, will always be a god to me; although why he sold the rights and let them make hack sequels is beyond me. The most recent of his I've read is Coldheart Canyon, which was very good aside from the meaningless, author intrusive 3 chapters about the character's dog dying at the beginning.

 

[littlemissattitude]

I just couldn't read "The Great and Secret Show". You see, he used Simi Valley, the place where I grew up, as a location, and he got the geography all wrong. While I understand about artistic license and everything, I also believe that if a writer is going to make a place up, he or she should make the name up as well. It really irritates me, as I think I've said a couple of times around here, when a writer calls a location the name of a real location that I know and then I cannot recognize the place as it is written about.

Just a little hang-up of mine, I suppose.

 

[rune]

I've finished Nights of War, the 2nd book in the abarat series. I was kinda disappointed, it wasnt as good as the first book. I thought Barker waffled a bit at times

But I can't complain about the visual description of is world Abarat, it's very unusual and i really liked his strange characters

 

[Shoegaze99]

That was it - Books of Blood were the short stories (sort of like Neil Gaiman, but without plot), and Weaveworld just seemed pretty pulp - almost cartoonish - but it was a comic adaptation.

Well, yeah. A comic adaptation. I don’t see how you can judge the man’s work based on something that, well, isn’t his work.

I’ve read Barker’s Weaveworld, and while it had some very interesting concepts and characters, prompting me to tear through the first 300 pages, I found that it ultimately fell flat. A plot twist or two felt “cheap” to me, and twice the book ground down to a near halt, almost as if I had finished one book and had begun another. His pacing was very poor and his narrative was often disjointed.

There is a lot to recommend here – his inventive ideas are often like nothing else out there, and what clichés he does use are turned on their head – but ultimately I found that I was left with no desire at all to read more of his work. I’ve picked up Imajica a few times, but thought better of buying it after reading Weaveworld.

I've heard good things about his short stories and his recent children's work.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Quite right about the adaptation issue - but I'm a big fan of plot. I just never really got a compelling sense of story in the adaptations, so I never really took up his print work.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Excuse me - not too clear here - what was a comic adaptation - the Books of Blood or Weaveworld? BTW, I had similar problems with Weaveworld as Shoegaze99 did. Here's what I said about the book in my blog:

I'm finding it very hard to get back into Barker's WeaveWorld. Have you ever felt like a story was being extended way too far, that the second-last knock out confrontation was just fine by you already? I'm getting a bit of that feeling here. I do care for the two main human protagonists, but somehow the fate of the Weave World and its magical denizens doesn't engage me so much - while some of the creatures of magic are appealing enough, mabe Barker made them a little too alien to really matter. Or maybe I'm just tired of the constant upping of the apocalyptic ante - the weave is unravelled! No, it's been preserved! Oh no, it's been unravelled for good now! Well, the inhabitants are still mostly OK. Oh no, Shadwell is about join hands with that dread old nemesis, The Scourge! What next? Oh, come on...

 

[Rane Longfox]

I bought a book by this author recently. Imajica, it was called. It looks quite promising