Rating: 
Summary: awesome, page-turner, very imaginative
Review: let me start off by saying that i read this book while waiting for Stephen King's 5th Dark Tower book a few years ago. Imajica and the DT series have a lot in common, and if you liked either you would probably like the other.
this was my 1st Barker book. i knew him as a british horror author (and playwrite behind a sci-fi horror PC video game) and was intrueged when i came across this book in the library. im not going to write a longthy review of his writing styles or whatever, im not an enlgish major, at least not yet.
i later read TGSS and was thoroughly disapointed. Barker seems to take great strides in setting up the plots of his books. Imajica's introduction, if you will, was lengthy but interesting and informative. i didnt feel like i was waiting for the real plot to begin as i did with TGSS, which took literally 1/2 the book to start getting interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Imajica is Bound in Hell
Review: I went into this story expecting a fantasy tale with Barker's usual dark twist, boy was I stunned when I started reading this. I didn't know how much religion (both Pagan and Christian) that he would throw in there for us to deveour.
The book is about five Dominions which for the Imajica. Earth is the fifth, the other four seem to be other parallel dimensions that were all created by the hand of the Unbeheld (God). We learn about failed reconciliations, the bringing together of Earth and the other dominions with the City of God. We learn that many have tried and failed at this, including Jesus the Christ.
We are introduced to John Furie Zacharias, a very snesual man in search of feeling all the pleasures his body can receive, he is also a painting forger. Judith, a strong woman who is loved by two men to the point of obsession and is hunted by a hit man. Her ex-husband who loves Judith to the point of obsession, and Pie 'oh' Pah, an assassin as well as a whore. He is a mystif, a being who appears as whatever the seer wishes in their mind. These and other characters become important as they explore realms outside their own as they search for the Goddesses who survived the deicide of God as well as an imprisoned Goddess who was raped by God and continued on the bloodline of god among humans. She is held prisoner by the Tabula Rasa (a sort of religious Illuminati).
And that's just beginning. This tale weaves around everything you ever thought you new and tells the tale of what could have been in the Biblical Apocrypha and what the New Testament through Revelations would have truly been if that were the case. By far Clive Barker's best and most ambitious novel to date. He is the master of imagination.
Rating:
Summary: A truely spiritual experience
Review: Those who hold extreme religious views and couldn't read a book expressing views other than your own, read no further. This book goes deep into the heart of human spirituality and the human experience, tearing your soul apart and then leaving it brighter and better than before. I know it's been said before but, if you read one book in your life, read this.
This book is truely biblical, without all the annoying begats and laws. Featuring a functioning universe, a large amount of philosophy, and about as many pages as the bible, this is, for many people disillusioned by the huge length and the multitude of boring books contained within, a spiritual companion for the open minded. It does, however, contain some very... anti-God views, and a few anti-male remarks (although in the end it is more against human nature).
Imajica tells the story of John Furie Zacharias, called Gentle (for reasons of symbolism made clear near the end of the book), Judith (An image of pure desire), Pie 'Oh' Pah, the mysterious creature who offers to take Gentle beyond the world we know, and the Autarch, the power hungry embodiment of lust. As these three characters cross paths, fall in love, lose those they love, and lose each other, they display the full spectrum of human emotion, almost transending the media of the written page and entering the realm of life.
This book is worth much more than it's small cost, and should be read by anyone looking for a home religious experience.
Rating:
Summary: "Majic" of Clive Barker
Review: "Imajica" was the first Clive Barker book I had the pleasure to read. I knew of him through the movie "HellRaiser", and figured his books would be all blood and gore and gothic violence.WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! He's my main read, and I've spent the last two months reading his books from cover to cover. The fantasy in Imajica wooed me in ways I just cannot describe. When you read a book, and it sucks you into each page with such force that you do not do a thing until you've read it from cover to cover, you've found a good read. The book departs one dominion for another until you get used to dipping and soaring with the characters and their travels. The sights, sounds, smells, the life, the descriptive prose that is so poetic and so Barker, just grabs your brain and engages. Barker's books are lusty in a way that I don't find offensive either. As a spoon fed American horror reader, I cannot believe I spent all these years NOT reading anything by Barker. His writing is a cut above the rest in such a way that you feel like you were spoon fed some kind of weird food or drug that just plugs you in and leaves you breathless. Im not happy till I get my Barker fix, and Imajica was an incredible way to experience my very first Barker book.
Rating:
Summary: Hands Down, My favorite book of all time
Review: I had never read Clive Barker when I picked up this book at my local library. It made such an impact on me, that I have read nearly all his other novels and have reread Imagica twice in the last 5 years and I am sure that I will read it again. Barkers writing is like prose; poetic and beautiful to read. Something very different in a horror/science fiction novel. His story is absolutely stunning. Amazingly wonderful charectors, spectacular scenery, fabulous dialogue. I have never read a novel that I became so immersed in. As a whole in a one book set (rather then the seperate books) it is a big read and worth every minute. Impossible to put down. It is science fiction/fantasy/horror and will pull fans of all three under its spell. I highly reccomend it.
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