Clive Barker - Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

Pros: What a story! It's impossible not to be caught up in it.

Cons: Should have ended about 100 pages before it did.

The Bottom Line: Pick this up, you won't be disappointed. Though, there are very mature themes, so it's not for the prudish.

Review: Clive Barker is one of my favorite horror authors, besides Stephen King. And like Stephen King, he is unfairly branded as "merely" a horror writer, when in reality he is extremely gifted at blending many different genres and constantly suprising us....

Pros: Barker's powerful imagination is in full force

Cons: The very graphic nature of that imagination may be off-putting.

The Bottom Line: You almost have to read this on a dare...but if extreme, twisted violence and sex (intertwined) doesn't scare you...ENJOY THIS!

Review: Clive Barker is a writer who never takes the subtle way out. It's a cliche that sometimes the scariest things are those things which are only hinted it or suggested (shower scene in PSYCHO is often trotted out as an example). Barker seems to believe that ...

Pros: A fine book, with fine charcters, with an unexpectedly emotional ending...

Cons: Don't let kiddies read this unless you want them asking about unspeakable sexual depravity...

The Bottom Line: I can't sum it up. You can't really do that with Clive. To try and classify or genre-fy him would be an insult. God save the Queen.

Review: When I was little, I would run and cower from anything that was scary. Scary movies, scary places, scary people, scary anything. I'd hide in the corner of the dining room at my house while the rest of my family sat in the living room watching the ...

Pros: Mesmerizing, horrific, erotic -- true Clive Barker

Cons: None

The Bottom Line: If you love horror and can deal with mature themes, this is the novel for you.

Review: Clive Barker is a true literary master whose prose flows like poetry. When you add to this that he is also a master at delving into the deepest recesses of our psyche and bringing all of our greatest fears and most forbidden fantasies out into the light...

Pros: Dazzling imagery.

Cons: Terrifying and bestial imagery.

The Bottom Line: Good, but not best effort by one of the world's most devastating masters of the horror/fantasy genre.

Review: A number of years ago, I took a road less traveled in my local bookstore, and discovered the bizarre, brilliant and troubling world of English fantastical horror author, Clive Barker.

Learning that the prolific writer, was also...

Pros: Barker has an electric imagination

Cons: Something seems to have short-circuited

The Bottom Line: While the writing is crisp and--at times--shocking, the end result is a novel that doesn't know when to say "Get me rewrite!"

Review:
I can imagine Clive Barker falling asleep on the sofa one night while watching Sunset Boulevard, then waking in the wee hours halfway through a showing of Splatter Cinema Showcase and getting a very bright idea for his next...

Pros: seductive and nightmarish

Cons: loosely plotted; overblown climax

The Bottom Line: Begins to weigh on you, but worth a look.

Review: Years ago, back in my college days, I met a science-fiction writer. He came to this class I was taking, to discuss a book of his that we were assigned to read. The book, Beyond Heaven's River wasn't a very good one, I'm afraid, and the author,...