Rating: 
Summary: If you like gore dressed up in twisted porn...
Review: I picked this up because it was on sale and because the author's name was familiar. Would I recommend it? Not particularly. The story gives a backhand to everyone and everything in Hollyweird, and while admittedly there are some very sick souls in the modern Babylon, the sickest and most depraved seems to be this author.
It's impossible to become emotionally involved with Coldheart Canyon's characters because frankly, none of them are likeable. What was probably intended as complex personalities simply comes across as a weird mix of the neurotic and the narcissistic. It isn't a mix that works. There are no heroes and no heroines, which might be real life were it not for the grotesquely fantastic veer into an occult world that, while imaginative enough, never quite lives up to the surreal sensualism that readers are expected to believe.
True horror strikes on a much deeper level than this book. Even at horror's most fantastic, a reader should shiver with a slight sense that maybe, just maybe, it could happen. There might be a monster in the closet - or in this case, in the basement. Instead, this book offers that there's a bad movie in the basement and, as the story concludes, it's past time for it to end.
Rating:
Summary: Had good potential, but ultimately fails
Review: I realise that Barker has an excellent imagination, but sometimes i think he tries too hard, i would like to see more of a storyteller's discipline in his books, because he has the potential to be great (Damnation Game) in that style. This book started out very promising, i liked the idea of the secret world of the weird tile painting, with its fantastic sun and misshapen beasts. I also liked very much the bluntly realistic description of the Hollywood lifestyle, all false and pretentious, and one sympathises with the actor Todd Pickett more because of the way this lifestyle sucks him dry, finally sacrificing him in a horrible plastic surgery accident which ruins his career. However when he comes to take refuge in the Coldheart Canyon house, things start to go downhill in the book. Far too much time is spent here, and the story almost becomes centred upon this house and its weird little secret. I would like to have seen Pickett brutalised by the media over his accident, instead of the soft surrender at the home of his agent, where he is humiliated by the Hollywood set. The love-interest-triangle between the evil Katya Lupesci and his gullible and appropriately named super-fan Tammy also drags on a bit. And somewhere we lose total sympathy with our would be hero Pickett. Indeed at the end of the book Pickett is relegated to just another character, an effect which doesnt work very well im afraid, he becomes dull and confused. As for the 'other' element of the novel, the supernatural dimension, it works well for a while, but then degenerates into something resembling a B-movie plot. I was seldom surprised by anything that happened in the novel after Pickett leaves the Hollywood party. My enjoyment of the novel effectively ended there, and there was what... a hundred or so pages to go? The most important part of a novel lies in its ending, simply because its the very last thing we remember when we put it down, and it recalls in our minds all that went before, this is primarily where this book fails.
Rating: 
Summary: AMAZING, EROTIC, FANTASTIC, REWARDING!
Review: I really like this novel. Sure it was longer, but that's part of it's charm. This novels very erotic, which I like. I love the way Clive describes sex, the way he'll set the scenery up, the characters, what they are doing and how and they do it. There's nothing perverted about it. I find it more truer to life. And I love the way all the charcters are flawed in his novels, just like life, and the way the characters interact with each other.
Clive blows my mind with his imagination. My own imagination is a pretty heated one like his, but man, Clive just keeps on comin'. I truely appreciate him.
When coming to the end of the novel, it's very rewarding, I feel like Clive's taught me something that others aren't aware of, I've been let in to his world.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: I was a little intimidated by the length of this book but I read it all in one night. It was remarkable and this is the Clive that I love dearly. It was a bit wordy and things could have been left out but the other things that I loved about the novel definately made up for it. I especially loved the power that the women held, Tammy was the one that broken the spell of Coldheart Canyon, Maxine was the one that held up Todd's career and Katya was the destructive entity that made the place cursed and of course there is a cameo by one of the most feared women of all time, Lilith. So this novel was an absolute joy to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Barker at his best, but worth reading.
Review: I wish I could say that I liked "Coldheart Canyon" more than I actually did. Clive Barker is one of my favorite writers (and artists), and his more recent book "Abarat" really restored his status for me. However, "Coldheart Canyon" is not a terrible book, it just isn't the top-quality work I often expect from Barker's pen. The interesting thing about "Coldheart Canyon" is that I could see in it his perspectives on Hollywood and California in general. I get the distinct feeling that much of what we see in the characters and the story of the book are sort of "in-jokes," little jabs at people he's known or met since he's been in the United States. There are parodies of Hollywood producers and actors, as well as what seemed to be a somewhat self-conscious look at people who've moved to California from other places. The story centers around a young man and his gradual seduction by a spirit in a haunted house. As the story progresses, we get more and more hints that the spirit in the house (the ghost of a classic Hollywood actress) led a much more scandalous life than anyone really knew about... or at least more than they talked about. Our hero experiences spiritual orgies and debaucheries, all done with Barker's usual flair for the graphic. The feeling I get from "Coldheart Canyon" in the end is that it was trying to be something like a parody of the standard Hollywood expose. The problem with it is that it's taken to such extremes that the funny or wry elements get overshadowed by the more glamorous, dramatic, graphic parts. The ending, also, is somewhat unsatisfying. Barker has definitely written better books than this, but for some hint of what he thinks of Hollywood and his fellow Californians, it still makes for an interesting read.
Rating:
Summary: Isn't this supposed to be scary???
Review: I'll skip the plot synopsis. I just finished COLDHEART CANYON this morning. Page after page, I kept waiting for the point of the novel to surface. I still can't really tell you why Barker wrote the book. There is no real suspense or fright here, and that is why I read Barker. At his best, he creates complex worlds with rich, lush detail that can scare the pants off the reader. It never happens here. The book rambles on for about 650 pages in the paperback version I read, much, much longer than it deserves to be. There was no reason to go on that long, and ultimately, there is no payoff for the readers' time investment. Part of why he wrote it is to mock the veneer deep world of Hollywood and celebrity, but the in-jokes and references to various power players will go over the average readers head. There are some great ideas here that could have been made into a terrific story if Barker had stuck to the ghosts, the half-breeds and the tiled room of The Devils Country. However those elements are inserted in a wide, meandering tale that seems to be a different book all together. Certain elements appear to be stuck in after the fact when an editor read it and said it doesn't make sense. Take the light that ultimately takes Todd to wherever he is supposed to end up. It first appeared about a third of the way through the book when Barker abruptly kills off a supporting character. Clearly that was inserted into the story when he realized the light couldn't just appear in the last 30 pages out of nowhere. It felt out of place with the rest of the story. And a number of other themes feel the same way, stuck on, and not part of the original equipment.
Oh, there is a fair amount of explicit and perverse sex. Not enough to make it an erotic novel but be aware of it so you're not surprised (or disappointed that there isn't more).
Bottom line, unless you are a huge fan of Clive Barker and wouldn't think of missing a word he has written, this is not worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: OK
Review: I'm not much of a big Clive Barker fan but having heard a lot about him I decided to pick up this novel.
But before I did, I have seen one of his hellraiser films and I was unimpressed. Also I have read his blood books and again was unimpressed with the exception of one story titled "the midnight meat train".
So I decided to give one of his novels a real chance and picked up "cold heart canyon". Overall, I will say that I'm ok with the book. It had its weak moments particularly at the end but I was intrigued by the story and felt it was not pointless. It's great to see a book poke some fun at Hollywood and its superficiality.
Plus the horribly grotesque parts within' the story is quite fascinating I must admit.
All in all, an average book that could've been better in a way but won't disappoint for the most part. I would say it's worth checking out especially if you're a Clive Barker fan.
Rating:
Summary: Raising Hell In Hollywood
Review: In this horror-satire, Clive has crafted a witty ghost story that shares a love-hate relationship with Hollywood. It concerns what happens when superstar Todd Pickett is disfigured during a botched plastic surgery, and is moved into a seeming deserted mansion to recover. There, he is seduced by the mansions sexy (and immortal) owner, and introduced to the ancient horrors that live in the basement. Out to save him, obsessed fan Tammy Lauper (a character all us fans can identify with to some degree,) who in turn discovers that the ghosts of old Hollywood haunt the mansion's grounds, and that she must go the extra distance to save the man she idolizes so much. A man who may not want saving. Irreverent, amusing and epic, this is both classic Clive Barker and an interesting departure from his norm. It is great to see such a lovingly rendered heroine in Tammy (who gets to do many things she only dreamed of,) and even the vain Todd is likable (especially when dealing with his disgust at his own shallowness.) I especially loved the openning passages, which rang with the same portents as his much earlier Hellbound Heart. My only grip is the second climax, which while it entertaining, seems a little tacked on. But then again, it may just be Clive's little dig at all those tacked on Hollywood endings. Don't you just Love them.
Rating: 
Summary: Will this book ever end?
Review: It's only my obsessive compulsive need to finish a book I've started that qualifies me to write this review. It just goes on and on with insignificant detail about insignificant events, flora, fauna, people, whatever. I didn't care about anyone in the book. I didn't care what happened at any point in the book. The very detailed and explicit sexual scenes weren't erotic. The gore was gratuitous, and like the book, went on and on and on and on. The supernatural scenes weren't scary. The plot wasn't interesting.
My mother-in-law, bless her heart, used to tell you (if you didn't get up and leave), everything that had happened to her from the moment she got up that morning, until the moment she started talking to you, without ever relating anything remotely interesting. This book is more tiresome. There was a climactic moment about the middle of the book. The book could have ended there, and it would have been a waste of time, but far less time, and it would have been a better book.
Rating: 
Summary: an insider's masterful touch...
Review: okay, i just slagged off heavily about "abarat" so i feel obliged to balance the scales by saying coldheart canyon is the only book i can remember literally not being able to put down. barker lives in hollywood and must have an outsiders love/hate for the place. it stuns me how much he was able to squeeze into this novel and make it work: it is, first and foremost, an excellent horror story, but it's also a modern dorian gray and sunset blvd. it is an excellent commentary on fame, fortune, hollywood, desire, sexual deviance, evil, the hollowness of superstardom. it's all in there and it's done well. what barker also does well is create a truly sexual story that is also a horror tale. the characters are full and rich, the atmosphere spot on, the telling of the tale tight and interwoven. this should have been a quartet, not the lame "abarat" monster he has created. more like this please, mr. barker!
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