Clive Barker

[MadBoJangles]

One happy little Barker fan here, I used the money I received as a leaving gift (I start a new job tomorrow!) and managed to bag a copy of the Cemetery Dance publication of The Damnation Game. Really happy as I missed out when it originally released. It sold out via pre-order in less than 8 hours apparently. I managed to pick up a copy for the original publication price, including shipping from the US to the UK too!

....and now the eternal wait for delivery begins!!

 

[kingricefan]

One happy little Barker fan here, I used the money I received as a leaving gift (I start a new job tomorrow!) and managed to bag a copy of the Cemetery Dance publication of The Damnation Game. Really happy as I missed out when it originally released. It sold out via pre-order in less than 8 hours apparently. I managed to pick up a copy for the original publication price, including shipping from the US to the UK too!

....and now the eternal wait for delivery begins!!

This is my favorite Barker novel.

 

[Gerald]

The Damnation Game still gets mentioned a lot, but I never found it all that special. It's an early book (I think it's his first full novel, but not absolutely sure) and it shows. It's been very long since I read it, but I recall it as rather slow and uneventful compared to Books of Blood or his later novels.
The plot was about some Faustian pact, but I hardly can't remember what the pact was about. I remember it as one of those books that's a bit plodding, like the writer isn't too sure where he wants the story to go and is trying to figure that out while he's writing.

On the other hand, because it's not as wild as his other work may be the reason people like it for whom his other work is just a little bit too much and out-there, Damnation Game doesn't fully feel Barker yet, as I remember, it could perhaps also have been a James Herbert novel, as I recall it. But, like I said, I read it very long ago.

 

[Gerald]

I always thought Barker took the name of the antagonist of Damnation Game, Mamoulian, from Rouben Mamoulian, the director of the 1931version of Dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde.
It can't be a common name. When you search for Mamoulian on Google, all you get it that specific director.

Actually what stayed with me more than the main plot were the cannibalistic aspects of the story, which weren't even part of the main plot as I recall.

 

[Gerald]

A typical aspect of Barker's work by the way is his use of unusual names for his characters and unusual names for his monsters and creatures. I'm not sure where he gets all those names from, but it's probably a combination of existing names and things he made up.
For example, cenobite originally refers to monks:

cenobite - Wiktionary

I think he generally picks things that are not that well known, because cenobite is now mostly known for his use of it. But his use of unusual names contributes to his work feeling more original than most and puts it directly in a category of total fantasy. I would describe a lot of his work as dark fantasy rather than horror. Books of Blood I would describe as horror, but a lot after that is too fantastical for horror, and dark fantasy describes it better, in my opinion.

 

[MadBoJangles]

It finally arrived! She really is a thing of beauty, had to rearrange an entire bookcase as this didn't fit on the shelf that housed my Barker collection!