Clive Barker certainly is a creative writer. While his stories center around similar themes, he branches out and adds enough details to keep things fresh (at least in his earlier stories; I haven't read his later works). He is able to create tension by establishing wicked environments—whether they be war-torn cities or ramshackle apartments—that give the impression anything could happen to anyone. He has a knack for intimately describing cruel and bizarre situations, such as the pathetic suicide attempt of a pedophile or a sexual encounter interrupted by a psychic entering the mind of one of the participants. And, perhaps, most importantly for a writer who focuses on bodily horror, he doesn't hold back on the violence: he includes graphic descriptions of slowly rotting corpses, dogs being eviscerated, squishy maggots formed from finely chopped up body parts, corpses having sex, and total bodily dismemberment.And this is partially why I found myself confused after reading The Damnation Game. Even with all this creativity, I just couldn't seem to work up much interest or enthusiasm for the book.There are some noticeable problems with it. Barker sets up the main villain, Mamoulian, with an aura of mystery and depravity in the beginning. He weaves his way in and out of some of the nastiest ghettos in post-World War II Warsaw, leaving behind only a grisly trail of death and otherworldly rumors. However, whether it's before or after readers get to know more of Mamoulian's background, he emerges as a truly unremarkable character. If he's as cruel and powerful as he's made out to be in certain passages, he should be able to destroy whoever he wants with ease. And yet, much like a Bond villain, he foregoes many of the chances he gets. Instead, he bides his time for allegedly honorable reasons, which ends up seeming like a thin cover to try and extend the story.Aside from this, the pacing of the book becomes quite tedious. I don't need excessive violence in every chapter or continual cliffhangers, but I do need a little more than what this book is giving me. The subplot between the protagonist, his ex-wife, and a former friend of his is trite and overdone. Several passages meant to develop character relationships ultimately go nowhere. The pieces for a compelling story are all there, but they could have been tightened up so much more.These criticisms aside, the story has plenty of enjoyable moments. It sets up hellacious problems that only seem to have equally hellacious solutions and explores issues of life and death. Even so, at the end of it all, I feel like all I can say is "well, there is was."
“Hell is reimagined by each generation. Its terrain is surveyed for absurdities and remade and, if necessary, reinvented to suit the current climate of atrocity; its architecture is redesigned to appall the eye of the modern damned. In an earlier age Pandemonium - the first city of Hell - stood on a lava mountain while lighting tore the clouds above it and beacons burned on its walls to summon the fallen angels. Now, such spectacle belongs to Hollywood. Hell stands transposed. No lightning, no pits of fire."- from Clive Barkers’ “The Damnation Game"Clive Barker’s first full-length novel is magnificent. It’s dark, intense and mostly unrelenting in it’s steady construction of supernatural horror. While full of gut wrenching visuals and causing a limitation of my ability to fall asleep, this novel beats with a heart of literature under it’s skin of genre horror.Barker builds his story and characters layer by layer. Some might feel the early going is a bit slow but I would argue that the greatest of meals are those that take longer to make.I’ve only recently discovered how pervasive is H.P. Lovecraft’s influence in modern horror. Not sure how this stayed off my radar for so long, but let’s just be glad that I finally figured out. “Damnation Game” in imbued with the spirit of Lovecraft. Just take a glimpse at a couple of passages from Barker, and his Lovecraftian storytelling of an otherworldly evil that lives just beyond site of the visible world and just on the edge of the great Void.“It was, for a moment, not her who started out between the bars. It was something dredged up from the bottom of the sea. Black eyes swiveling in a gray head. Some primeval genus that viewed him - he knew this to his marrow - with hatred in its bowels."“He became aware (was it just his dream life, denied its span in sleepless nights, spreading into wakefulness?) of another world, hovering beyond or behind the facade of reality."If there’s anything to downgrade my rating it’s Barker’s awkwardly rapid transition of the budding affair of our two protagonists from tentative emotional exploration to full on can’t-live-without-you intensity. I either missed a paragraph or two, or Marty and Carys fell hard and fast after the first time they ‘hooked up’.It’s a relatively small complaint, however. The story is terrific; the plot solid; the finish satisfying. Highly recommended.
What do You think about The Damnation Game (2002)?
The Damnation Game is the first novel published by horror maestro, Clive Barker. It also happens to be the first adult novel I've read. Just like Mean Streets, this novel set the tone and standards for future Clive Barker novels and short stories. An expertly told violent tale of terror, incest, cannibalism and murders. I like the whole setup and the chosen words to describe an event. A new hero is born in Marty Strauss and a literature horror icon in Mamoulian, The Last European. The characters are well defined and the dialogues are well suited to the theme and offers no more than it promises to give you!I recommend reading with the lights on and a torch just in case...
—Hamza Ansari
I'd never read any of Clive Barker's stuff before this. Saw a few movies based on his books before, but that's about it.I have to say, the characters drew me in and the writing was engrossing. But I was thoroughly unimpressed with the bad guy. For as much fear and lack of anything resembling self-defense or proactive action that he invoked in his victims, he was decidedly...wimpy. And passive. And weak. Even a half-assed approximation of a worthwhile hero would have taken Mr. Evil down in their first encounter, feckless as he was throughout the majority of the book. Even when he finally revealed his full powers, they were less than awe-inspiring and truly not equal to his rep. I was left scratching my head, wondering what all the hubbub was about. Really, the bad guy was a putz, not worthy of being concerned over if anyone in the story had bothered to take even a little bit of initiative in attempting to counter his efforts.So, while I enjoyed the writing, found the story engaging, and cared about the characters (ok, I cared about Marty and that's about it), as a whole it left me a bit disappointed. I liked it. But not much more than that.
—Michael Kingswood
Unfortunately this one didn't do it for me. It had its moments, but over all I was left feeling a little flat. Others have raved about it but for me, it lacked that Barker magick.Plot ***Spoilers***Marty Strauss, a gambling addict recently released from prison, is hired to be the personal bodyguard of Joseph Whitehead, one of the wealthiest men in the world. The job proves more complicated and dangerous than he thought, however, as Marty soon gets caught up in a series of supernatural events involving Whitehead, his daughter (who is a heroin addict), and a devilish man named Mamoulian, with whom Whitehead made a Faustian bargain many years earlier, during World War II. As time passes, Mamoulian haunts Whitehead using his supernatural powers (such as the ability to raise the dead), urging him to complete his pact with him. Eventually Whitehead relents and chooses to meet with Mamoulian as Marty races to prevent Whitehead's daughter from becoming entangled as Whitehead seeks to escape his fate.
—Donovan
