I am not sure how I found my way to reading and “collecting” Clive Barker`s books, but I suppose my bookshelf bears testimony of a certain consistency in my shopping for books – either Gnostic and esoteric subjects (becoming more and more eclectic) or books by such authors as Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (the latter two having co-operated on a peculiar little thing called Good Omens, so I really should have two of it),
In fact, in terms of Barker and Pratchett who are quite odd combinations, I have almost the complete works.. except they are paperbacks, far from mint condition.. and read more times than I can actually account for.
I was planning to read a lot of serious things,but then I got distracted by the arrival of Clive Barker`s Coldheart Canyon in the shelves at some store I would never suspect of peddling such goods (and which I am sure wouldn`t peddle such goods, if they could read the book.. but thankfully, such people as exercise censorship here does not possess the linguistic skills of figuring out anything about the contents of foreign language paperbacks and kindred goods.. except if the covers somehow betray their content.. such as Jamie The Naked Cook or somesuch..).. I am far too distracted a fellow to write a review of the book, and I have only traversed 600 pages of it, so I couldn´t do it justice.
The storyline is far more Gothic than the preceeding books Sacrament and Galilee..Hollywood must be familiar to Barker since he has been at hand as director and creative advisor for many cinematic productions, some of which were produced out of the blueprint of some story or other made by him (if only Philip K. Dick could have had as good creative controll over his legacy..)..but Hollywood is only actually embodied by the unfortunates who trespass into the forbidden..the most central character being Todd Pickett, Hearthrob, who have been talked into plastic surgery that goes terrible wrong…
So goes the journey into the shelter of the wildernesses exterior and interior, in a hidden canyon, in a dream palace..to the discovery of a terrible legacy from the Golden Age of Cinema and beyond..
It is not the best Barker novel I have read, it is the most recent, and the fact that he is so productive is reassuring, since I find I come back to reading his books again and again..