|
Clive
Barker’s The Great and Secret Show will
expand your Mind.
I
have reviewed this book as I have always been intrigued
with Clive’s work. Ever since Steven King was
quoted as saying “I have seen the future of
Horror, his name is Clive Barker,” He had
my attention. It was then I took a good look his way,
and found that he does not only write horror-the hellbound
heart, but also children’s books-The Thief
of Always and the beautiful moment, and this month’s
genre-Fantasy.
This
book starts in a dead letter office in Omaha, Ne, where
something small starts, and begins to fester, and goes
over to the unsuspecting small town of Palomo Grove.
It starts out slow, and kind of stays that way, yet
allows the breadth of the story to develop to an incredible
width. There are a multitude of in-depth characters
that are throughout the story. I had a really good feeling
about this story when I read the quote “no such
thing as too much.” that is when the story went
deeper and wider than ever.
Then
there was the character development. There wasn’t
any character that was just given a brief description
of. Everyone is given a back story, each character shared
their inner most personal thoughts, and feelings. There
are some surprises with this as a few times I wondered
why there was so much emphasis on some of the people
in the book, yet it became abundantly clear that everyone
matters. This was the stories best part.
The
chase for the great and secret show slowly drove me
to turn the pages as well. If you are looking for a
story with a dual with good and evil, with unlikely
heroes, this story delivers. I loved the descriptions
of all that happened, showing the most deprived and
shocking acts happening before your eyes. Everything
is mind blowing yet stays within reach of being something
we can imagine. The slow development helps us all. It
was as if clive shares his visions, and in a way we
can understand, comprehend, and just sit back and enjoy.
To keep this real, I did have to re-read a few places,
yet was all but too glad to. I would rather have this
than have a book dumb down a fantastic story.
The
only knock on it is the dialogue. That was good, but
not great.
That
being said, it does stretch the bounds of fantasy, and
is worth your time. I recommend this and look forward
to reading the sequels, as I just read this is the first
part of a trilogy.
Clive
Barker's Website
Charles
Stross’s Halting State will waste your
time.
This is not easy to say as I really wanted to like this.
This was a strange read that was rather poorly written.
It had a few moments of humor and some well thought
out science fiction parts that at least warranted me
giving this a one star rating. That being said, the
whole thing was for the most part was confusing and
herky jerky. It had no flow. The story switched from
first person to third person throughout. The descriptions
had me scratching my head trying to picture the scenery
the author was trying to have as the backdrop. Subsequently,
I was lost a lot as I read. I barely finished, and that
was an arduous task to do that.
Bottom
line, this author could learn a lot by reading a real
science fiction writers stuff (someone like Ted Iverson)
before another attempt is tried at writing. I recommend
not reading this book. Period.
Charlie's
Blog
|
