Rating: 
Summary: Pitiful
Review: The outside of the book looked good. The reviews on the back cover were stellar. I was unable to read more than thirty pages. I felt that I had stumbled into an adolescent ghost story told around a camp fire. Apparently, Mr. Barker tells better stories elsewhere, but as an introduction to this writer, this novel seems to distill misogyny and pointless vulgarity with no purpose but to "make fun". If one is not a devoted fan of Hollywood and its players, why bother?
Rating: 
Summary: House of Horrors
Review: When famous Hollywood A-lister Todd Pickett sees his popularity quickly decrease, he follows the advice of a producer and decides to have his face redone. Only, something goes wrong during the operation and Todd finds himself disfigured. While he recoups from the surgery, he moves to a mansion in what is known as Coldheart Canyon, a house which his agent, Maxine, found for him. The house was once owned by a famous and beautiful silent-era film star. It is big, beautiful and completely hidden from the rest of the world. So well hidden, in fact, that it is impossible to find without a map.The moment Todd moves into the house, he realizes that something isn't quite right with the place. First off, he encounters Katya Lupi, that famous silent film star herself, although she is still young and beautiful. And then, he encounters many strange looking creatures and sees hundreds of ghosts. Stranger still, those ghosts are the spirits of old, deceased Hollywood stars, souls that want something out of the Canyons, souls that won't rest until they get what they desire. Todd also has to deal with his number one fan, a woman who will come to play a major role in this opus that can be read both as a horror novel, a fantasy and, most importantly, a bittersweet Hollwyood satire. I enjoyed this book a great deal. It is brilliantly written (as always, Barker's prose is very poetic and elegant) and the plot is so fantastic that it is hard to resist it. And all the characters in this book are very realistic; the fan is completely three-dimensional, Katia is the longing ghost who is afraid to let go of the fame and beauty she once knew (she's a monster, yes, but she is so well conceived that you still find yourself caring for her), and the Maxine character goes much beyond your average bitchy-woman-in-power character. The only character who you can't really love is Todd himself, though in a way, that never becomes a problem. In fact, it elevates the book even higher because Barker has created a hero you can't really identify with, a hero who's actions are often herratic but with whom you can't help sympathize with. Yes, the book is long. Yes, it has many plot twists and three different climaxes. But it's a great deal of fun. And it's great to read Barker's take on Hollywood. It's obvious that he has mixed feelings about the factory that doesn't always treat him all that well. This is a major epic that, once given the chance, will make you laugh, will scare you and will make you care dearly for most of its characters.
Rating: 
Summary: horror? does it even matter?
Review: After going through some reviews at the various amazon sites, all with emphasis on the sex!, gore and holywood criticism, i keep wondering if i am the only one who reads clive barker for sheer emotional comfort, or if is this any indication of how [messed] up i am? but still. I can't help seeing this intense emotional warmth underneath it all, this feeling of kindness towards his characters. Maybe i'd have to read some more of his earlier work, but as it is (with weaveworld, imajica, sacrament, coldheart canyon) i feel safe with his novels, in a good way. Secure. 'coldheart canyon' only surprised me insofar as i was (probably foolishly) expecting a single great story arc like in sacrament, one would maybe expect the ending of the hunt and the resulting events to be the culmination point and end. And from an artistic and emotional point of view it's such a climax, the image he paints of tammy suckling the devil's child, and the swift decay of the duke and his retinue after their release are both amazingly beautiful. But just as real life never just stops with the big drama, but goes on with someone having to clean up of the remains, it still goes on, and then, and only then throws the characters (and the reader) into real despair before releasing them (and, again, the reader) with renewed hope and faith. There's just so much sweetness in the ending. This is pleasantly unlike stephen king (though again, i haven't really read his more recent work) who made me more or less give up on horror at one point, because while he's certainly exceptionally skilled at generating fear, most of his writing seems to me emotionally and spiritually sterile, with the horror the ultimate aim. As far as reality is concerned, king is probably the more accurate, i guess. This is after all the world where death camps did happen, where bodies - humans - get hurt, broken, mangled on a daily basis, pointless deaths. I'd really like to believe in a system of belief where all this might make sense on some ulterior level, but looking on the world, i somehow doubt it. Still, it's nice to be presented with such a cosmos in fiction, and something in the way barker writes almost makes me believe it might be possible. It's for lack of a better word, very spiritual. Even his deaths are mostly almost kind, gentle, often beautiful in little details: his characters rarely die alone or without a certain meaning or poetical beauty. And where he is cruel even the cruelty has a different perspective, because it is all tied into an all-encompassing spiritual system where there can be understanding, salvation finally, for everyone, even the 'monsters', where there is forgiveness. He blurs the borders between the traditional concepts of good and evil not in the usual negative levelling way which mostly comes down to a nihilistic uncaring attitude which practically excuses or ignores every cruelty, but in a very positive way, that allows hope for spiritual growth and compassion for each of his creations, even the more unpleasant ones. From a narrative pov i really love the way he eases you into the story very slowly and carefully and draws you in a world that shouldn't, but nevertheless seems entirely plausible, and afterwards takes his time to let you out again, to tie up all the treads.
The lack of clichés (also of character bashing) is refreshing, the fat fan isn't a psycho, the gay character doesn't get killed of half way through. Very anti-king-esque (i keep wondering if it's an intentional stab, jerry brahms comments this phenomenon in movies at one point.)
Rating: 
Summary: Cold ending...
Review: I read this entire book in 6 days on a trip to China (22 hours on a plane gave me a lot of time). I loved the book until the last 100 pages or so. The story was not quite believable, but enjoyable with the right combo of suspense, sex, hollywood history, and pure horror. The ending was terrible! Barker must have had a tight deadline, because he didn't give the ending much thought. It was very disappointing and then he dragged the book on for an extra 75 pages when the story should ahve ended. It was too bad, because he had a good story going...
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing Ideas in Search of a Good Editor
Review: The reviewers who have castigated Clive Barker's editors are on target. Mistakes abound. A few examples: In Part Two, Chapter Four, Todd Pickett cancels an appointment with his plastic surgeon because his dog is ill. In Chapter Six, after the dog has died, Todd needs help to reach that same plastic surgeon's unpublished number. Which is it? In Part Three, Chapter Three, torrential rains have caused major landslides. Still, a group of Mexicans burn to death in a truck. Interesting, even for a fantasy novel. On Page 158, the unlikely heroine arrives to search for Todd in Coldheart Canyon. She turns the car around and leaves the door ajar, ready for a quick escape. On Page 346, after three days' time, the car starts without a problem. A car door, even partly open, will activate the dome lights. Tammy would have heard nothing from underneath the hood after even twelve hours. These are small examples, but put together with other lapses they add up to major irritation for the reader. The editor ought also to have cautioned Barker against drawing too-obvious parallels to real Hollywood characters. Gary Eppstadt is one thing, because hardly any of us know the names of studio heads (he is the fictional head of Paramount). But to identify Todd Pickett's favorite director is a bit too much. Keever Smotherman? Is Barker taking a swipe at actor Kiefer Sutherland? The parallel between Quincy Martinaro and Quentin Tarantino in Chapter Two of Part Four is also over the top. I found my attention wandering from the narrative flow as I wondered about the choice of names. Like the novels of Stephen King, with whom Barker has collaborated, Coldheart Canyon is too long. The initial scene in Romania, in which Willem Zeffer (not Zephyr) purchases the tiles that make up the Devil's Country is well-written but unnecessary. Stronger editing could have assured that the meaning of the tiles was revealed in conversations between Tammy and Zeffer. I agree with a fellow reviewer who noted that the story about the death of Todd's dog is overlong and unnecessary. That story, however, reflects an event in Barker's own life, and this leads to yet another problem. It is not politically correct to make anything of an author's sexual orientation. Barker, though, opens the door in mentioning his relationship with his "husband." I remember reading Dr. David Reuben's best-seller of the seventies, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask." In it, he describes homosexuality as a form of narcissistic immaturity. On Page 128, Barker refers to the narcissism of Hollywood people. Yet he himself is a Hollywood person, as he proudly declares in his Acknowledgements. His frequent invocation of the erect male sexual organ, and vivid descriptions of ejaculation and urination (not to mention intercourse), add to the impression that Barker has put too much of himself into his story. Images of Barker fondling the penis of his "husband" intrude on the reader's consciousness. In The World According to Garp, John Irving criticized modern fiction as being mostly about itself. Barker's editor could have helped Coldheart Canyon be a bit less about Barker and a bit more about the story. In the case of Stephen King, and evidently Clive Barker, the adequacy of the editing is inversely proportional to the length of the narrative. In the end, one yearns for vastly more character development as we move through this Boschian landscape.
Rating: 
Summary: Not all that great ending..
Review: The beginning and the middle of the book, i.e., Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story by Clive Barker, are good to great. However, the ending chapters feel forced and the tone becomes quite contrived. The leading woman is not very appealing and her personality seems quite neurotic and psychotic. Is not the leading woman supposed to be somewhat attractive and not a neurotic corpulent weirdo...sorry Barker the last chapters stunk and the leading woman was not up to par..Not Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A guilty pleasure
Review: This is just pure entertainment. Give in to it. Clive Barker knows how to tickle his readers in all the right places!
Rating:
Summary: A lacking effort
Review: Clive Barker has always shown a personal love/hate relationship with the movies. While he may enjoy the pleasures that Hollywood may bring us, he is also deeply distrustful of the mythological nature of film. In his short story SON OF CELLULOID (from his BOOKS OF BLOOD series), he gives us a haunted movie house, with its patrons slowly being consumed by bizarre representations of their cinema heroes (I'll never look at Marilyn Monroe the same way again). In THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW, people's dreams are made flesh for an apocalyptic showdown, and some ghostly moviestar idols appear to join in the fray. Barker relishes Hollywood's power to create gods, but he also knows that they are false idols, through and through. COLDHEART CANYON evolves that theme into its most beastly incarnation, an exploration of the psyche of the movie star, the obsession of the fans, and the history of Hollywood's underbelly. It is Barker's magnum opus to Tinseltown, and marks his true return to the horror genre. Sadly, his return is marred by too many ideas, and not enough content. COLDHEART CANYON starts with the downfall of Todd Pickett, matinee idol. With his star power fading in proportion to his looks, he undertakes an ill-advised trip to the plastic surgeon, with severely disappointing results. He recuperates in an old mansion once owned by a faded star of the silent screen, and now a haven for a menagerie of creatures only Barker could dream up, creatures born of actors and animals. The house hides another secret as well; a wellspring of evil and temptation known as the Devil's Country. As Todd becomes enveloped in the madness of his surroundings, his number-one fane is out to save him. There is plenty of fodder for a good yarn, and Barker hasn't lost his touch for ably combining pathos with the grotesque. He also understands the thin veneer of civility that coats Hollywood like paint, barely concealing the deep personal hatred of its inhabitants and denizens. The back-stabbing and viciousness of the Hollywood game reads very real, as Barker has years of personal experience to draw on. Barker likely also has had his share of rabid fans, which helps the character of Tammy Lauper to become his most interesting protagonist. Tammy (the number-one fan) is a more realized, less monstrous cousin to Annie Wilkes, the terrifying nurse from Stephen King's MISERY. Tammy slowly becomes the heart of the novel, as she too becomes a participant in the mindgames the Canyon plays on its visitors. Her transformation... is handled with sensitivity and aplomb, and Barker is to be congratulated. However, too much of COLDHEART CANYON feels false, and rushed. Todd remains an enigma, and his growing obsession with former star Katya Lupi is underdeveloped and confusing. As well, Katya is set up as a major element, but she is a void, untouched by true characterization. The shallowness of these main characters drives a stake through the heart of the story that cannot be removed. As a result of this apathy, the horrors often seem ridiculous, rather than scary. With no empathy, there's no reason to care, and the hideous events are mere words on a page. Only when Tammy becomes involved does the horror take on any significance for the reader. It's a shame, as Barker is one of the world's premiere fabulists. His DAMNATION GAME is a pinnacle of the horror genre. CABAL is a marvel of sweet love and astonishing monsters. THE HELLBOUND HEART is an exquisite jewel of blood-and-guts depravity. COLDHEART CANYON never rises to the heights Barker is capable of. At his best, Barker creates worlds of darkness and insanity that nevertheless remain rooted in character and place. COLDHEART CANYON has the place, but its characters are rarely to be found.
Rating:
Summary: IT COULD'VE BEEN BETTER!!
Review: ...The BOOKS OF BLOOD showed me almost twenty years ago that Clive Barker was a gifted writer who wasn't afraid to delve into the darkness of the soul, nor shy away from the excesses of sex, violence, and depravity that the human species is capable of perpetrating. Since then, however, his novels have gradually drifted into what I would call the "PG-13" fantasy genre, leaving horror far, far behind. With the publication of COLDHEART CANYON, my eyes lit up in anticipation, and I once again crossed my fingers and hoped that Barker would take us on a journey into the darkest side of humanity...Here was a chance to do a haunted-house novel that could be filled with sex and debauchery and evil, and how the main character succumbs to his carnal desires, sinking to the lowest levels of despair and perverted behavior, only to eventually fight his way back and escape the sadistic clutches of the house's owner. In a sense, this is what COLDHEART CANYON is about...at least to a certain degree. The story deals with mega movie star, Todd Pickett...whose career is suddenly on a downslide because of low film grosses and a facelift that goes bad. When Todd rents the secluded mansion of former silent film star, Katya Lupi, in the hills of Coldheart Canyon so that he can hide from the press, as well as his fans, he literally takes a giant step into the twilight zone. You see, the mansion has a special room in its basement with walls covered by magical tiles that are actually a portal into the rather bizarre and violent world that gives the house its strange power. But that isn't all Todd will have to deal with. Though in her late nineties, Katya...is alive and well, living in the guesthouse at the rear of her estate, and is still as young and beautiful as ever. She has been waiting for someone like Todd to come to her for many years. Known for her twisted sexual parties that attracted the biggest celebrities in Hollywood back during the Twenties, Thirties, and Forties, Katya has grown bored with the ghosts who inhabit her estate and desires a new sex partner that she can corrupt into the depravity that has filled her life for so long. Todd doesn't have a chance against the strong sensuality of
Katya's personality and is eagerly drawn into her web of perversity with hardly any effort on her part. Only one person might be able to save Todd from this human succubus and that's the head of his fan club, Tammy Lauper...Tammy is type of fan who lives only for the celebrity she worships. She's also like a dog with a bone and won't let go until she has all of the answers as to why Todd Picket suddenly disappeared from the public's eye. Determined to find her idol, Tammy is willing to put her life on the line, if that's what it takes to get the job done. COLDHEART CANYON succeeds on a number of levels; yet, fails on others. I was strongly drawn to the character of Katya Lupi, and I wish the author had spent more time with her. This is the type of woman who seduces men with her sexuality and then destroys them both emotionally and physically, much like a Black Widow does with its mate. The erotic scenes between her and Todd, as well as with some of the ghosts, vividly captured my imagination as few books have. In fact, I think Mr. Barker should have left out (or at least cut their roles down to the barest minimum) the characters of Tammy, Maxine, and Gary Eppstadt, and focused the majority of the novel on Katya, Todd, the ghosts of the mansion, and the Devil's Country. Also, I had some difficulty accepting the creatures that inhabited the woods around the estate. They were more humorous in nature, than scary, and pulled me out of the story a number of times. I did enjoy the brief glimpse into the world of old Hollywood and the sexual practices of some of its major stars. With regards to the ending, I would've liked it to be different; but, because of the direction the story line took, this was probably the only way the author could have completed it with any degree of satisfaction. Mr. Barker mentioned at the beginning of the book, in his "Acknowledgments," that he'd written a completely different version of this novel during a very hard period in his life and then later decided to start over when he was just about at the end. I can't help but wonder if that version of COLDHEART CANYON is closer to what I was looking for, or expecting. We'll never know. I have to say that the four-star rating I'm giving this book is a marginal one!
Rating:
Summary: My Fav Barker read is still... The Thief of Always!
Review: Can't say this is the best Clive I've had the pleasure of taking in... nor can I say it is the worst. I'd give it a B- . I have to say that my reigning favorite remains.. "The Thief of Always" If you haven't read it.. read it. I read it with my family on a trip up North in Michigan. No TV no phones, we had a great time taking turns reading. Read it over the course of two days in maybe 3-4 hours? Read it again over the next year. And my son took it to school for his teacher to read to the class. Clive Barker, if you are listening. PLEASE make the Thief of Always into a movie. I heard a rumor that you were going to. Please do so... If Harry Potter can sell millions, and I give KUDO's to JK Rowling as well.. then so can YOU. Most of all, you'll bring years of enjoyment to adults and children alike. If done WELL, it will be a classic! Like a ghost story on film for 10 year olds :) I'm a big fan of Clive Barker, but I haven't read a Barker yet that puts "The Thief of Always" into 2nd place in "MY" book! :)
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