Rating: 
Summary: His worst by far
Review: This is the first book by Clive Barker I haven't finished, and I have read all of his previous ones twice! Unlike any of his other books, I just didn't care what happened next, the main character was the most unlikeable one I have ever "encountered" and the whole story lacked coherence and most of all: a point. Definitely one for the fireplace. Unfortunately, his next one, "Galilee" is of similar un-Barker-esque pointlessness. How can you write "The Great and Secret Show" or "Weaveworld" and then churn out this tripe? Maybe he's been getting in touch with his "feminine" side too much?
Rating: 
Summary: Mesmerisimg!
Review: This novel is well worth reading. It draws you into the story and you then find it unputdownable. I personally came away from the book with a better understanding for gay people. The gay side to the book does NOT ruin this book in any way. Bravo Barker!
Rating:
Summary: A powerful, intimate, touching metaphysical adventure...
Review: What a marvelous work! Clive Barker outdoes himself with this story of Will Rabjohns, a homosexual British artist (hmmm....) who, for some unknown reason, allows himself to suffer a trauma in the natural world. It's pretty interesting, so I won't give that away. While in a coma, he dreams/remembers/revisits a strange couple he knew as a boy. Once he is well again, Will travels back to England, to confront the mystery of his past, his estranged father, and his boyhood friends. What we have here is a metaphysical mystery tale, as a man confronts the past and the present, his art and the world, and the strange powers that seem to power them all. As with all of Barker's fiction, it is this confrontation that drives his characters. What transformation awaits at the heart of this mystery? Who are Jacob and Rosa Steep? They live fictions, through decades. There is a dark, violent power that lies in their fingers, in their seductive charms. In Will's photography of the world's wildlife, they see a "conduit"--he brings to Jacob an unwelcome vision of a 19th century artist named Thomas Simeon. (It's my guess that Simeon is a stand-in for William Blake; it's no secret that Barker is besotted with the man, and with good reason). There is a lineage from Simeon's art and writings to Will's photography: life is hidden and waiting for apocalypse in Simeon's work; its aftermath and extinction in Will's. I think this books is magnificent. I'm shocked and appalled upon learning of some readers' distaste for its homosexual depictions--they have no business reading Clive Barker. I found this aspect to be incredibly well-done and insightful, particularly scenes with Will and his lover.Will has an ache for transcendence (as do so many of Barker's men and women--see Gentle and Jude in "Imajica," Cal Mooney in "Weaveworld," or Fletcher and the Jaff in "the Art" series), as does Jacob Steep. One man who creates to get closer to God, one man who destroys. How many novels are written these days about such longing for God, for transformation, to confront the mystery, to find out, "Why have I lived?" Barker writes that perhaps, at the end, "There'd be understanding, there'd be revelation, there'd be an end to the ache in him." The final scenes in the living heart of the world--the Mundus Domini--are terrific; Barker's prose is masterful, pure, poised. Here is his Thomas Simeon, in one of the book's most wonderful passages: "It seems to me, we must invent religion every moment, as the world invents itself, for the only constant is inconsistancy....It seems to me the purpose of religion is to say: All things are so. An invented thing and a thing we call true; a living thing and a thing we call dead; a visible thing and a thing that is yet to be: All Are So." How about THAT? Barker is simply an excellent, lyrical writer, whose works reflect upon the spiritual mysteries of our lives. That sometimes spirituality is a dark and violent thing (see the Cenobites in "Hellraiser" or Immacolata in "Weaveworld") in no way diminishes its importance. I'm so glad that Barker continues exploring these themes, fiercely imagining what others deny. Critics and readers who continue to refer to Barker as a "horror writer" are sadly, pathetically ignorant, lazy, and closed-minded. Don't allow yourself to be the same!
Rating:
Summary: Yes, it's worth reading
Review: Writing a review for "Sacrament" is hard, because this is essentially a book without a genre. I found it in the horror section of the bookstore, but it isn't a horror novel, nor is it fantasy. It has elements of both, not to mention psycho-drama, love story, environmental message, essay on human sexuality, and so on. Believe it or not, all these jigsaw-puzzle elements combine to form a well-paced, vivid, and absorbing read. The hero of the book, Will Rabjohns, is a gay wildife photographer who specializes in chronicling the death throes of endangered species, often to am excruciating degree. He seems to be just as adrift as the animals he records, fighting his own mortality and rejecting the natural rules of order and chaos. Then he's attacked by a polar bear and enters into a coma, where he revisits the turmoil of his childhood in England. It is at this point that three very supernatural characters makes their appearance: Jacob Steep, a mysterious fallen angel of a man who spends his days executing the last members of dying species; Rosa McGee, Steep's seductive companion, who is more of a predator than any polar bear; and Lord Fox, a talking, enigmatic red fox who makes cryptic visits to Will's bedroom in the dead of night. Will first met this odd trio as a boy. Now they've entered into his life a second time, and after he awakens from the coma, he is steered away from his old life to a voyage of self-discovery. I won't discuss the plot any more; it would take more space than Amazon.com allows, and I don't want to reveal the book's various secrets. Let me just say that the narrative carried me all the way through and the conclusion left me thinking for a long time. There are many parallels between nature and sexuality, and no one can make you believe it like Clive Barker. He uses subtle things to provoke raw emotion and unease (despite its looming presence in the story, the word "AIDS" is never used once in the entire book), and I, for one, was captivated. Some people may not like this book. Some will undoubtedly hate it. I enjoyed it immensely, and I'm recommended it to anyone brave enough to probe the dark corners of the human psyche.
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