Rating: 
Summary: What Happened?
Review: Clive Barker is one of the most accomplished storytellers working today, arguably our premiere fantasist...but you'd never know it from reading this book. The Books of Blood, Weaveworld, Imajica, and Sacrament, just to name a few, are literate, thrilling and strikingly original page turners.Coldheart Canyon, inexplicably, is none of these things. If someone had sent me a blinded manuscript I might have guessed it a poor knock-off of Barker, not the man himself. As another reviewer notes below, it's more like a hollow "greatest hits" of Barker's mannerisms. Unlike almost all of Barker's other work, there's little passion in this book. The problem is not that the characters are unsympathetic, but that they're boring and unconvincing, one-note stick figures who's adventures completely fail to earn our interest. Only once or twice, in the more over the top bits in the Devil's Country, does the real Barker fleetingly appear. For a few pages we feel that unique mix of wonder, terror, and fascination, but it evaporates all too soon. I hope that this is simply an honest mis-step, and not a calcuated effort to appeal to a wider, more mainstream audience, as the overwrought, Emperor's New Clothes ad campaigns for the book indicate. For Barker fans, definitely check it out -- you'll draw your own conclusions. But for curious first-timers I'd recommend starting with almost any other of his marvelous works.
Rating: 
Summary: The Devil's Country
Review: See Storyline above. Well it’s good to see Clive Barker back with another epic tale. This time around it revolves around Hollywood. The old and the new. Barker’s stories generally involve all sorts of depravities. This one definitely has its share. Explicit sex, along with stunning and shocking visuals, lets you know you’re reading a Barker novel. Barker seems to create a great depth to his stories, and this is no exception. A ghost story that portrays Hollywood as a sort of sexual asylum. The talent that Barker has in bringing you into his fantasy worlds exceeds that of most contemporary horror writers, as well as most novelists. The violence as well as the sexual explicitness (nothing forbidden), will bring out a weird range of emotions in the reader, so beware. Highly recommended, even though I liked the UK cover much better.
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been great at half the length
Review: Clive Barker's first new book in three years, Coldheart Canyon, opens with the discovery of a fascinating objet d'art: a living wall. Like the world-encompassing rug in Weaveworld, Coldheart Canyon gives us a perversely grotesque mural made of painted tiles that have the ability to move, breathe, and exude life.
Katya Lupi, a Romanian-born American silent movie star, purchases the mural while on a trip to the Romanian village where she was born and has it transferred, tile by tile, to her home in the canyons of the newly-established dreamland of Hollywood. After showing off her latest acquisition to the many A-list movie stars who frequent her decadent parties, Lupi discovers a not-unpleasant side effect of prolonged exposure to the mural: it has the ability to keep its admirers young and beautiful. Loathe to share these possibly finite benefits with just anyone, Lupi retreats into the selective seclusion of her home in Coldheart Canyon, nick-named for the chilly reputation of its mistress, where she slowly fades from the public's memory, but continues to possess her coveted youth and beauty far past her natural term. Meanwhile, in the present day, not all that much has changed in Hollywood. Youth and beauty are still more valuable than oxygen, and movie stars addicted to the drug of fame will do just about anything to get another hit. Enter Todd Pickett, a Bruce Willis-style action hero who has his biggest successes firmly behind him. Pickett is starting to show his years, and as he begins to lose out on important roles, he decides he must do something to keep himself in the game. After a botched attempt at plastic surgery, Pickett finds himself horribly scarred and in need of a place to hide out until his most valuable asset, his face, has healed. Re-enter the secluded, all but forgotten house in Coldheart Canyon. Pickett buys the apparently deserted mansion and secretly moves in, only to discover that he is not alone in his new hideout. As the half-phantom Katya Lupi, still young and beautiful after all these years, makes herself known to Pickett, the ghosts of Hollywood past and present mingle (more than mingle, really) and this long ghost story of a novel gets rolling. Similar in tone to Barker's earlier Hollywood novel, The Great and Secret Show, Coldheart Canyon is more adept at bringing Tinseltown's fame-hungry personalities to life, or half-life, as it were. Which makes sense since Barker has had plenty of first hand exposure in the interim, living in Hollywood for a good part of the decade separating the two books. Half dark fantasy, half ghost story, Coldheart Canyon succeeds in laying bare the hungry, needy, dark side of Hollywood. Barker does an admirable job with most of the main characters, particularly with Tammy Lauper, a dowdy, starry-eyed Todd Pickett fan-club president-cum-heroic moral compass. Tammy is probably the most likable character in a long book filled to the seams with unsavory types. But unfortunately, a shortage of sympathetic characters isn't the book's only flaw. At nearly 700 pages, Coldheart Canyon is just much longer than it needs to be. The book overly relies on uninspired action sequences, which tend to undermine the heavier religious themes and metaphysical premise. The story is also encumbered with a second climax that could have easily been deleted or else quickly summed up in an epilogue. I felt there were some great ideas in this book that never made it fully to the surface. Barker plays with the idea of Hollywood as a Garden of Eden and weaves interesting themes of innocence and corruption throughout the several story lines and characters, but the finer bits of the writing tend to get lost amid the plot's sound and fury.
Rating:
Summary: Canyons of illusions
Review: Barker's new novel "Coldheart Canyon" weaves several stories together into a tapestry of stellar storytelling that is unlike his previous books. Hollywood superstar Todd Pickett sees his star is fading, and after a botched plastic surgery, he retreats to the nearly forgotten place nicknamed Coldheart Canyon to heal. The canyon was named for Katya Lupi, a forgotten star of Hollywood's silent era, who remains alive and young after all these years due to some trapped magic in the basement of her paradise palace. Once the sexually voracious Katya has Todd in her clutches, she won't let go, even when his number one fan Tammy tracks him down and tries to free him. Does Tammy have what it takes to free her beloved idol, or will she herself fall victim to the house's magics? And there's more to this tale than a ghost story. There's the commentary about the Hollywood star engine and how it consumes those it possesses (not that this is a new topic), as well as the power of redemption and forgiveness. This is a much more adult novel than any of Barker's previous books, and I can see its beginnings in "Sacrament" and "The Hellbound Heart". "Coldheart Canyon" proves that Barker is more than a teller of horrific stories, but rather a teller of tales that reach into our depths and pull out our common fears. I am a huge fan of Barker's works, and I can certainly say that this book does have a few flaws. I didn't always care for the characters, and the ending was a bit too tidy, but overall Barker's genius for telling a compelling story kept me interested, and that is what is at the heart of "Coldheart Canyon": bearing witness to every nuance of life.
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Summary: barker's new one was worth the wait
Review: I can't believe how long I had to wait to get this book. I've been a Barker fan for years. I was excited to get it. Coldheart Canyon is a little different than Mr. Barker's previous books, not quite as graphic as I'm used to, but the story was excellent and held my attention. I couldn't wait to finish reading it and yet was disappointed when I was done because I had no more to read. This to me is a sign of a good book. I would highly recommend it to any Barker fan. Just hope we don't have to wait quite as long for the next one.
Rating:
Summary: A LET DOWN
Review: THERE HAS NOT BEEN A BOOK OF CLIVE BARKER'S THAT I HAVE NOT LOVED, UNTIL NOW. HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS WEAVED SPELLS THAT SO PULLED YOU IN, SO ENTHRALLED THAT YOU COULD BARELY PUT THEM DOWN, LET ALONE LEAVE THEM, WHEN YOU HAD FINISHED. COLDHEART LEFT ME WITH JUST THAT, A COLD HEART. I DID NOT FEEL DRAWN IN AND INVOLVED, IN ANY WAY, AS I HAVE BEEN IN PREVIOUS BOOKS. WHAT A DISAPOINTMENT. I DIDN'T CARE ABOUT ANYONE IN THE STORY, EVERYTHING FELT CONTRIVED AND "SURFACY". CLIVE BARKER HAS THE MOST FANTASTIC IMAGINATION, BUT I FEEL IT WAS ON HIATUS IN THIS BOOK. I WILL HOPE FOR MORE THE NEXT TIME OUT.
Rating: 
Summary: Glad I didn't buy this book
Review: I checked this book out from my library as cover picture and blurbs made it sound like a good old-fashioned mystery. I had never heard of the author before. I quickly lost interest and stopped reading it. It's not my cup of tea.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: Just when I think I've written Clive off as writing more prosaic novels like Sacrement, he comes along and kicks me upside the head, reminding me how good he is. This was a darned good book. Read it!
Rating:
Summary: Another masterpiece by a misunderstood master
Review: "Coldheart Canyon" is nothing less than a bittersweet satire on the hidden hedonism during the Golden Age of Hollywood; an indicting portrait of the destructive vanity and artistic barrenness of modern day Hollywood; and, most importantly, it is a startling, erotic, metaphysical ghost story, with passages that rival the most profligate work in Mr. Barker's canon--bringing to mind the excesses of Fellini's "Satyricon"-- conincided with touching, thought provoking ponderings on the meaning of life. And still it remains laugh-out-loud funny at times, and never fails to entertain. "Coldheart Canyon" is one of Barker's most acclomplished works, continuing to solidify him, as Quentin Tarantino pointed out on the book's back cover, as the world's foremost imaginer. Come along for the ride if you like fiction that pushes the envelope of both craft and content--Barker is literature's undiscovered gem and the horror genre's misbegotten master. Like the characters in his books he lies on the threshold of uncertainty, a lost soul of sorts in a world that has no need for souls. To acknowledge Clive Barker is human, to read him divine.
Rating:
Summary: ADDED FUN FOR MOVIE BUFFS
Review: I really enjoyed this book, being a movie buff I guess there was extra pleasure to be found in here. All Barker's trademarks are here: the sex, the disturbing surrealistic gore. The characters are interesting, though not likable at first and as usual the prose is well crafted but tougher than his previous books. People expecting another WEAVEWORLD will be a bit disappointed, but hardcore horror fans & film buffs will have a ball. Read it.
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