You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
170 reviews for:
The Complete Clive Barker's The Great And Secret Show
Gabriel Rodríguez, Chris Ryall, Clive Barker
3.83 AVERAGE
170 reviews for:
The Complete Clive Barker's The Great And Secret Show
Gabriel Rodríguez, Chris Ryall, Clive Barker
3.83 AVERAGE
I love Clive Barkers brain. He is amazing. It is deeply philosophical underneath the main story. I love him.
Wonderfully weird, THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW is a novel that shows you the limitless imagination of Clive Barker. I can easily call Barker one of my favourite authors (maybe even my second-favourite behind Neil Gaiman), for I believe that an author’s quality depends on what they are and aren’t willing to do; Barker is willing to do whatever the hell his twisted imagination tells him to.
Barker doesn’t hold anything back, and doesn’t let any rules stop him from writing his novels the way that he envisions them as. He doesn’t worry about the controversy that could spawn from his words, but puts them into paper as casually as the act of walking. His creativity is so great that it is hard for people who like to write (like me) to not feel jealous of his gift.
There is a lot going on in THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW, but I'll do my best to try and explain the premise. It starts with a man named Randolph Jaffe, an outsider who is bullied by his coworkers and finds it hard to hold down a job due to anger issues. However, while working at a post office in Omaha, in a place he dubs "the centre of America", Jaffe realises that he enjoys reading the letters of others, both forgotten and awaiting, and soon discovers a few strange words that strike him as powerful, two of which being "the Shoal" and "the Art". Enlightened by his knowledge of the secretive side of America, Jaffe sets out on a journey to learn what the Art is. One day, he comes across a wizard named Kissoon, who dwells in a Time Loop. Kissoon explains that the Shoal is a sort of cult dedicated to protecting and occasionally using the Art, which is a mysterious power that, among other things, gives one the ability to open a doorway to Quiddity, the Dream Sea. Jaffe becomes obsessed with the idea of ruling Quiddity, as to do so promises the ability to bend existence--all of which was borne from dreams--to his will. The problem is that he is too "primal" to use it; so he enlists the help of Richard Fletcher, a brilliant scientist, who creates a serum to help Jaffe climb the evolutionary ladder. However, when Fletcher to destroy the serum ("Quiddity must be preserved."), the two wind up climbing the evolutionary ladder. And so begins a battle that rages across America, fought between Fletcher's soldiers, who are borne from the dreams of normal humans, and the Jaff, who creates his army by drawing nightmares from mortals. Realising that they are evenly matched, the two go to the sleepy town of Pamolo Grove and force four teenager girls to go out into the community and be impregnated. However, only three children are born: Jo-Beth and Tommy-Ray, who belong to the Jaff, and Howie, whose allegiances are supposed to lie with Fletcher. However, something unpredictable happens: some time later, when all three children have grown up, Jo-Beth and Howie--who are meant to be natural enemies--fall in love. The chaos that follows is met with awe and horror as the final battle for the Art and Quiddity is fought in Pamolo Grove.
THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW was a brilliant kaleidoscope of a novel, and although it isn’t my favourite Barker novel, it still has to be one of the best dark fantasy novels of all time. I look foreword to reading EVERVILLE (it’s an outrage that his books are so hard to get here in Australia), but I can only hope that it will be a worthy sequel to this epic, well, epic.
Barker doesn’t hold anything back, and doesn’t let any rules stop him from writing his novels the way that he envisions them as. He doesn’t worry about the controversy that could spawn from his words, but puts them into paper as casually as the act of walking. His creativity is so great that it is hard for people who like to write (like me) to not feel jealous of his gift.
There is a lot going on in THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW, but I'll do my best to try and explain the premise. It starts with a man named Randolph Jaffe, an outsider who is bullied by his coworkers and finds it hard to hold down a job due to anger issues. However, while working at a post office in Omaha, in a place he dubs "the centre of America", Jaffe realises that he enjoys reading the letters of others, both forgotten and awaiting, and soon discovers a few strange words that strike him as powerful, two of which being "the Shoal" and "the Art". Enlightened by his knowledge of the secretive side of America, Jaffe sets out on a journey to learn what the Art is. One day, he comes across a wizard named Kissoon, who dwells in a Time Loop. Kissoon explains that the Shoal is a sort of cult dedicated to protecting and occasionally using the Art, which is a mysterious power that, among other things, gives one the ability to open a doorway to Quiddity, the Dream Sea. Jaffe becomes obsessed with the idea of ruling Quiddity, as to do so promises the ability to bend existence--all of which was borne from dreams--to his will. The problem is that he is too "primal" to use it; so he enlists the help of Richard Fletcher, a brilliant scientist, who creates a serum to help Jaffe climb the evolutionary ladder. However, when Fletcher to destroy the serum ("Quiddity must be preserved."), the two wind up climbing the evolutionary ladder. And so begins a battle that rages across America, fought between Fletcher's soldiers, who are borne from the dreams of normal humans, and the Jaff, who creates his army by drawing nightmares from mortals. Realising that they are evenly matched, the two go to the sleepy town of Pamolo Grove and force four teenager girls to go out into the community and be impregnated. However, only three children are born: Jo-Beth and Tommy-Ray, who belong to the Jaff, and Howie, whose allegiances are supposed to lie with Fletcher. However, something unpredictable happens: some time later, when all three children have grown up, Jo-Beth and Howie--who are meant to be natural enemies--fall in love. The chaos that follows is met with awe and horror as the final battle for the Art and Quiddity is fought in Pamolo Grove.
THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW was a brilliant kaleidoscope of a novel, and although it isn’t my favourite Barker novel, it still has to be one of the best dark fantasy novels of all time. I look foreword to reading EVERVILLE (it’s an outrage that his books are so hard to get here in Australia), but I can only hope that it will be a worthy sequel to this epic, well, epic.
Once again I am floored by barker's unequalled world building. This Is another epic in which barker makes the mundane miraculous, I always love how he does that. The story that he has created with the first book of the
art is so vast that I can't wait to find out more with the second book. And as ever, it is beautifully written.
art is so vast that I can't wait to find out more with the second book. And as ever, it is beautifully written.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW BY CLIVE BARKER: In The Great and Secret Show, one of the greatest storytellers brings us the first volume of the Art Trilogy, taking readers to a place they’ve never been before. This book is not a fantasy book, not a horror novel, or a science fiction story; and at the same time it’s all these and much more. Barker takes you to a new plain of existence in The Great and Secret Show where you’ll laugh and cry, smile and scream; where unimaginable horrors and triumphs await!
Randolphe Jaffe is a loser who’s going nowhere fast, that is until he gets a job for the post office working in the dead letter room in Omaha, Nebraska – the nexus of the country where all lost and undeliverable mail ends up. Going through thousands of pieces of undelivered mail per day – money and everything of value is surrendered to his boss – he begins finding clues of an undiscovered power in existence beneath the realm of society. It takes time, but he puts the pieces together until he has a good idea of this power known as the Art, where he then receives a medallion, the very symbol of the Art. While it means little to him at first, he knows it is an important piece of the puzzle. Naturally, his boss wants the item and it is then that Jaffe takes the first step down his new path and kills the man in cold blood.
Collecting the important evidence together, with the medallion, he travels across America, living on the whim of the Art, letting it guide him where it will. Innocent bystanders are used by him, sensing the power of the Art and agreeing to whatever Jaffe tells them. It is in an alcohol- and drug-infused stupor that Jaffe conducts his pilgrimage into the desert and finds the Loop: a place out of time, and meets Kissoon, the last member of the Shoal. The Shoal was the group appointed to protect the Art. For the world is part of the Cosm, and beyond this is the Metacosm where the sea of Quiddity lies – a place visited by all when they are born, the night with their first love, and when they die – and within Quiddity lies the island of Ephemeris, the dream land. More importantly at the far edge of the Metacosm lie the Iad Uroborus, a great evil that is always looking to consume the Cosm. The Art is a way of getting to Quiddity. Kissoon tells Jaffe that he must occupy his body so he can leave the Loop and defend the Cosm. Jaffe suspects otherwise and flees, embarking on his own mission of discovery with Richard Wesley Fletcher as they research the Art in its entirety. Fletcher soon discovers a liquid form of the Art known as nuncio, testing it first on a chimpanzee who becomes a human with the ability of speech and thought, known as Raul. The nuncio will force the being to the next evolutionary step, but Richard also knows if Jaffe were to use it, it would focus on his urges of murder and revenge, making him a murder. But it is too late, for Jaffe discovers the existence of the nuncio and in a fight both are infected by it and become higher beings – The Jaff and Fletcher.
Read the rest of the review here.
For more book reviews, and author interviews, go to BookBanter.
Randolphe Jaffe is a loser who’s going nowhere fast, that is until he gets a job for the post office working in the dead letter room in Omaha, Nebraska – the nexus of the country where all lost and undeliverable mail ends up. Going through thousands of pieces of undelivered mail per day – money and everything of value is surrendered to his boss – he begins finding clues of an undiscovered power in existence beneath the realm of society. It takes time, but he puts the pieces together until he has a good idea of this power known as the Art, where he then receives a medallion, the very symbol of the Art. While it means little to him at first, he knows it is an important piece of the puzzle. Naturally, his boss wants the item and it is then that Jaffe takes the first step down his new path and kills the man in cold blood.
Collecting the important evidence together, with the medallion, he travels across America, living on the whim of the Art, letting it guide him where it will. Innocent bystanders are used by him, sensing the power of the Art and agreeing to whatever Jaffe tells them. It is in an alcohol- and drug-infused stupor that Jaffe conducts his pilgrimage into the desert and finds the Loop: a place out of time, and meets Kissoon, the last member of the Shoal. The Shoal was the group appointed to protect the Art. For the world is part of the Cosm, and beyond this is the Metacosm where the sea of Quiddity lies – a place visited by all when they are born, the night with their first love, and when they die – and within Quiddity lies the island of Ephemeris, the dream land. More importantly at the far edge of the Metacosm lie the Iad Uroborus, a great evil that is always looking to consume the Cosm. The Art is a way of getting to Quiddity. Kissoon tells Jaffe that he must occupy his body so he can leave the Loop and defend the Cosm. Jaffe suspects otherwise and flees, embarking on his own mission of discovery with Richard Wesley Fletcher as they research the Art in its entirety. Fletcher soon discovers a liquid form of the Art known as nuncio, testing it first on a chimpanzee who becomes a human with the ability of speech and thought, known as Raul. The nuncio will force the being to the next evolutionary step, but Richard also knows if Jaffe were to use it, it would focus on his urges of murder and revenge, making him a murder. But it is too late, for Jaffe discovers the existence of the nuncio and in a fight both are infected by it and become higher beings – The Jaff and Fletcher.
Read the rest of the review here.
For more book reviews, and author interviews, go to BookBanter.
I couldn't do. I freaking tried, I really did. It got so many rave reviews so my hopes were high. The beginning was great. The concept really worked, but at part three it was like the book was taken over by another author, a bad one at that. The characters became empty, there was nothing to them. And the supposed scary parts, to me, were B-movie laughable. Not scary or even creepy at all. The dialogue became flat as well as the characters. I had to stop. The thought that after 600 something pages, there were two other books to continue, helped me to quickly realize it was not a story even worth making myself finish.
This book has just left me feeling so conflicted. I adore Clive Barker’s writing and will read anything he writes. The beginning of this book had me really hyped up. The characters were intriguing, the story was interesting, the pace was just right and I was preparing myself for a new favourite Barker. And then we just hit a wall about halfway through. It felt like everything just ground to a halt and it became excruciating to read because it was just so long winded and unnecessary. So many characters were introduced and I just couldn’t keep them straight, it became wildly confusing to follow. Then right towards the end it flipped back, had me hooked and I was excited about what I was reading again. If it hadn’t been for the long ass middle this book would have been perfection. It’s a shame they didn’t cut at least 200 pages or so. That being said, I am still looking forward to Everville and keeping my fingers crossed that it’s a bit more snappy.
This book felt like eating a garbage bag full of stew. I even like stew, but no particular element of it is amazing, and there's way too much, and I'll probably get sick of it before it's ever finished, and it's probably going to take on the flavor of the garbage bag after a while.
When I put the "surrendered" tag on a book, I feel compelled to provide the point at which I surrendered. In this case, it was at 51%, a bit of precision that comes from reading everything on a Kindle. For those who are curious about the reason, it had a lot to do with a scene where a woman is hanging out with all her favorite TV show characters in her house. It was one magical contrivance too far, and my brain rejected the story wholesale.
Clive Barker's books are often messy, drifting out of their page-turning conventions at times like a drunk on a moped, but Secret Show is almost entirely composed of those moments. The writer couldn't decide what sort of book he was writing, so it seems like it kept shifting whenever he got bored.
First it's about a drifter who discovers magic, until I realized that was basically just the prologue. Then it's about four virgins who get raped by this magic, which also ends up being prologue. At a certain point I wondered if every section was only going to function as a prologue for the next section, like a series of nested dolls.
And even that could have been forgiven if the character had held my attention. Even with a sprawling cast I could only think of one or two characters who I could actually describe beyond biography and appearance. After a while it made picking up this book an actual chore. I could actually feel my will to read in general declining.
And beyond the characters, this book has an oddly 80's quality clinging to it like dust. The cliched criticism of suburbanites feels awkward and tiresome. It feels like Barker trying to play in the sandbox of writers like Stephen King, and its a bad fit.
I've enjoyed other Clive Barker books, but generally they're about weirdos and perverts in bizarre worlds. Trying to set his story in mundane America with mundane characters produces results just as mundane as that would suggest.
When I put the "surrendered" tag on a book, I feel compelled to provide the point at which I surrendered. In this case, it was at 51%, a bit of precision that comes from reading everything on a Kindle. For those who are curious about the reason, it had a lot to do with a scene where a woman is hanging out with all her favorite TV show characters in her house. It was one magical contrivance too far, and my brain rejected the story wholesale.
Clive Barker's books are often messy, drifting out of their page-turning conventions at times like a drunk on a moped, but Secret Show is almost entirely composed of those moments. The writer couldn't decide what sort of book he was writing, so it seems like it kept shifting whenever he got bored.
First it's about a drifter who discovers magic, until I realized that was basically just the prologue. Then it's about four virgins who get raped by this magic, which also ends up being prologue. At a certain point I wondered if every section was only going to function as a prologue for the next section, like a series of nested dolls.
And even that could have been forgiven if the character had held my attention. Even with a sprawling cast I could only think of one or two characters who I could actually describe beyond biography and appearance. After a while it made picking up this book an actual chore. I could actually feel my will to read in general declining.
And beyond the characters, this book has an oddly 80's quality clinging to it like dust. The cliched criticism of suburbanites feels awkward and tiresome. It feels like Barker trying to play in the sandbox of writers like Stephen King, and its a bad fit.
I've enjoyed other Clive Barker books, but generally they're about weirdos and perverts in bizarre worlds. Trying to set his story in mundane America with mundane characters produces results just as mundane as that would suggest.