Weaveworld

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Summary: The Most Awesome Book Ever!
Review: This is one of the most awesome books I have ever read. Clive barker goes into intimate detail with his image of weaveworld.

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Summary: A wondrous book of "noon-day visions and midnight glory"!
Review: "Weaveworld" is a marvel; an early example of Clive Barker's mastery of powerful and graceful visionary fiction. Barker has always spoken of the "subversive" power of the imagination, of its ability to save us from banality and the status quo, and "Weaveworld" is quite an example. Central to the book's theme is this passage: "It was the end of the world, and the beginning of worlds." Through most of his fiction, this is his motif, his song, his myth. Just beyond this reality--stultifying, law-abiding, deadening--something more sublime waits, something profounder: as he's always said, the miraculous is closer than we think. And in this world (here, the Fugue) we see the world transformed, we see ourselves transformed! Our perceptions are subverted, our notions of reality; Barker plays havoc with them, so that we may come upon a vaster, richer, more satisfying and brighter vision of the world and our bodies. Witness the dreaming tree just inside Gyre: "How everything transforms, everything becomes. Me? I was lost. Look at me now. How I am!" And it is obvious that the traditional forms of Law and Order are opposed to such magic and visions. Hobart ("Hobbled-art"?) is the enemy of such transforming reality, a materialist, a tool for ignored power and suppressed creation. Shadwell ("Shade-well"?) offers empty illusions which evaporate once he has used his victim. He preys on the indulgent, shallow desires of the self, which can only lead to ruin: these desires offer no nourishment, and certainly no salvation. This only the Fugue can supply: the sublime, paradoxical, surreal Fugue, "the living heart of Wonderland" in Barker's marvelous description. Its power and energy are derived from its jumbled landscape andt he imaginations of its inhabitants. This is an Eden for adults, one that doesn't soothe or comfort, but one that radically alters our very selves. I've read this book twice; once when it was published, and onc! e a year or two ago, after I'd studied world mythology and religions (a pursuit partly inspired by "Imajica"). I was astounded by the richness the novel contained; elements I'd missed as a not-so-well-read-teenager were now revealed to me.

I recommend "Weaveworld" to not only those fans of Tolkien, etc, etc, but to fans of Magical realism, to those enamored of the poetry and prose of William Blake and Lewis Carroll, and especially to fans of Joseph Campbell. The imagination is not a place to escape to, like so much fantasy fiction would have us believe; it is the place we go to to understand our secret selves (our "subtle bodies"), to confont our appetites and perversities. Barker understands the "mythic imagination" like no other contemporary author I know. It is that alone that can save us and heal us, to bring us treasures that endure, to tell us stories that reveal more than Truth or Reality ever could....

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Summary: The Most Visual Book I Have Read
Review: Reading this book is like taking a hit of acid and entering another world. Clive Barker has long surpassed any other fantasy/horror writer I have ever known of. This book is not a book-it is the doorway to another world-hence the title! I am "HOOKED"

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Summary: what can i say...
Review: few firsts do i remember as vividly as my first clive barker novel. one first is the time i played doom (simply amazing back then). another is the first time i read a borrowed copy of weaveworld (which i have not returned to this day). i only regret that i cannot write a thoughtful analytical witty review of this novel that would do justice. suffice it to say the (weave)world was so surreal, so surrounding, so encompassing, so livid i could not break myself away. i long for the time when i reread this favorite.

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Summary: '10' IS NOT EVEN HIGH ENOUGH FOR THIS BOOK
Review: This is by far the greatest book I have ever read. "Weaveworld" was my first Barker book, and I was absolutely mesmerized. Barker's imagination is equalled by no one. The thoughts, images, stories that came out of his head for this story are unbelievable. Barker is a master storyteller, allowing the reader to enter the story through the eyes of the characters. Everyone should read this book, everyone.

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Summary: I've Read It FOUR Times!
Review: This is one of the greatest books ever written. King and Koontz (the latter I despise) pale in comparison to Barker, and particularly, Weaveworld. I first picked up my brother's hardcover version about ten years ago, and actually gave up reading any other books, because I knew that no other book could ever be as good. Some of Barker's other books have come close, but Weaveworld remains my all-time best. READ IT! You won't regret it.

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Summary: My 1st Barker attempt.
Review: It's a good book, though this reader here does not particularly like to venture into grounds of "Magic n'Fantasy", however, this book showed itself as a good one. There were the traditionally violent scenes this Liverpudlian is famous for conjuring, and good writing above all. Maybe, it was a tad too long, but I read it anyhow, and was not in the leastest disappointed.

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Summary: It made my heart ache.
Review: When I first picked up a book by Clive Barker, it was one of the first books that I thought i would treasure forever. It was "The Theif of Always," given to me by my father. I have read it more times than i can count. Then one day, i picked up "Weaveworld," and I could not let it go, I could not put it down. It had to be the best book i have ever read in my short life of sixteen years. When i read it, it made my heart ache. I wanted to be there, in the Fugue. I wanted so much to see the splendors of Shadwell's coat, and the wonders of Immacolota's magic. I wanted to be Calhoon, to see the wonderous and strange land stretched out before me. But it is, of course, all fantasy. I will never see the Weaveworld, will never step where Calhoon, Suzanna, Immacolota, or Shadwell once stood. It is, after all, a fantasy, and epic adventure written by the master of fiction, Clive Barker himself. And it makes my heart ache to think of it. But who knows, maybe Mr. Barker has seen into a world that onl

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Summary: Made me long for The Books of Blood again.
Review: Barker goes heavy on plot and description, writing with a verbosity I don't remember encountering in his short work, but skimps on the characterisation. I really didn't care about or feel I knew any of the people in the story. The wordiness made reading a little tedious and I soon became anxious just to finish the book. Where Barker excels is in his unique, horrific imagination and there are a few scenes that shine, such as the introduction of the Rake, and the discovery and assault of the Scourge. But there wasn't enough in here to satisfy me. I can't recommend either for or against reading 'Weaveworld' as it wasn't *bad*, and apparently a lot of people loved it, but I thought it was just fair.

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Summary: Great Book!!! Great Characters!!!
Review: I loved this book!! Before reading anything from Clive Barker, I was not much of a reader. But the way he describes each scene and each character, it is like you are there in the story!! This story is very intricate and everything is so clearly stated...when something bad is going to happen you can just feel it as you read it. This book comes to life actually. Well, anyways, I just love this book and I love Clive Barker...he is a great horror writer...