Rating: 
Summary: Barker's getting lazy
Review: This is the work of an author whose career hasn't depended on writing at his best for some time. Compare this book to Books of Blood- no contest. I enjoyed the glimpses of Hollywood behind-the-scenes, but that's about where the fun stopped. Barker does show his talent and potential when the action hots up in the room of magical tiles, but he's past having potential- he should be knocking our socks off by now, considering how long he's been at it. The tile-room was not bad, but a little too familiar with magical tricks he's pulled in his other books, like Galilee.
I understand that Mr. Barker's dog died during the writing of this book, and I understand that was traumatic, but why the hell do we have to hear about it? The dog wasn't related to the rest of the story at all. I'm not interested in the damn dog. I'm sorry but there we have it. Clive Barker is capable of better than this. He used to be, anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: Barker (Almost) Returns
Review: Those dreading another limp, mushy delivery from Barker (think Galilee or Sacrament) can release that collectively held breath. Barker is back...sort of. While Coldheart Canyon is no Imajica or Weaveworld in scope of vision or imagination, the suspense, mythology, and characterizations herein certainly make up for the new-age, nice-guy deliveries of late. Here Barker offers Hollywood satire sandwiched between the opposing forces of spirituality. It doesn't have the bloodied edge of Cabal or his short fiction, and there are jaw-dropping discrepencies and flat-out mistakes in the plotting--why is the quality of editing always inversely proportional to the projected revenue? And yet there are scenes painted within that resonate with beauty and dread as only Barker can accomplish, and it's good to feel that chill again. It's also nice to have a decent horror novel releasd this year, with Dan Simmons doing suspense fiction and Dean Koontz doing what I can only describe as evangelical suspense fiction. Along with Black House, Coldheart Canyon has reaffirmed my belief in the genre. Stay tuned.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Go Through that Door
Review: Todd Pickett, movie superstar, is an actor who has built his career on his looks and now they're fading as he wanders through his thirties. So he decides to get a facelift and while recovering from the not so good results, he finds an old mansion, that had been built by now forgotten silent-film star Katya Lupi, in Coldheart Canyon to hide away in.In the middle of the night a few days after arriving, he meets an "intruder" who is, he soon finds out, not an intruder at all, but the true owner of the house, a dramatically still-youthful Katya. She promises him love, but instead what he gets are the horrors of both the canyon itself and the terrors of a special room in the house. When modern-day people step inside it, the pictorial tiles dissolves into a different reality and they've entered another world, The Devil's Country. Clive Barker is the master of making other worlds and he's topped himself with "Coldheart Canyon." Five stars from me for this super book. Reviewed by Stephanie Sane
Rating:
Summary: Excellent! Tammy Lauper rocks!
Review: When famous actor Todd Pickett goes missing after blotched plastic surgery, his most fanatical fan, a fat housewife named Tammy Lauper, decides to try to find
her missing heartthrob. She tracks him to Coldheart Canyon, a great mansion haunted by old Hollywood stars and controlled by Katya Lupi, a silent screen star whose youthful ethereal beauty is still strangely preserved despite decades of hard living, and who will do anything to keep Todd by her side.
What worked for me:
Tammy rocks! She starts off as a stereotypical character, a fat housewife obsessed with a famous actor; but she turns out to be a tough, sweet-natured and intelligent woman.
Size-wise, although her weight isn't mentioned, I expected she's a rather big girl.
What didn't work for me:
Not enough Tammy in this book, and she should have been given a love interest.
Overall:
I highly recommend this suspense-filled horror novel. Tammy Lauper is a great heroine; do not judge her right away. She becomes a wonderfully well-defined character as the story progresses.
Warning: There are mentions of the occult in this book, as well as some very violent and sexual scenes, including rape and bestiality.
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