A review by startjpw23
Weaveworld by Clive Barker

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The story starts in Liverpool, England. A resident of Liverpool, Calhoun (Cal) Mooney raises carrier pigeons. On a day when a lot of birds in Liverpool are behaving strangely, one of Cal’s birds’ escapes. He tries to track it, but he loses sight of it. He goes to a location where a lot of birds are flocking to. At the location, he sees a house where the birds have gathered. Cal’s bird is amongst them. There are workman removing stuff from the house to pay for the expenses of the owner (an older woman named Mimi) who was recently taken to a local hospital. Cal climbs on a wall to try to get his pigeon. While he is doing this, the workmen remove a carpet from the house and unroll the carpet. Cal falls off the wall towards the carpet. When he falls, he briefly goes into the world that is concealed in the carpet. We learn that the world in the carpet is called the Fugue. It was concealed in the carpet because there are those who want to destroy the world. The beings in the Fugue are called the Seerkind. Mimi’s niece Susanna was summoned to Liverpool by Mimi. Mimi reveals some very surprising information about the Fugue and the Seerkind to Susanna. Cal and Susanna meet up. The story goes from there. The book has great world building. It has a great hero and a great heroine. It has very scary, powerful villains. The version I read had around 650 pages with small font. And yet, it never got boring. There are some very graphic sexual assault scenes. There are beings that are brutally killed. There is grieving. There is torture. There is police brutality. There is use of the n-word. The book came out in 1987. There are a few things that didn’t age well. I think it’s a great novel. It’s very impressive. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a great, dark fantasy. If any of the concerns I mentioned are a problem for you, you may not want to read the book. 
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