Everville: The Second Book of the Art

It saddens me that this series was never finished. Still one of his best works to date.

Everville continues the story started in the Great and Secret Show, this time about a cosmic-proportion battle taking place on Earth for control to the portal of the secret world found in the first novel. Full of incredible creatures and characters, superb writing and great story-telling. Barker delivers an epic of awesome proportions and a superb sequel to a fantastic trilogy.

'Everville' could possibly be the best work Clive Barker has ever written. Although considered a sequel to 'The Great and Secret Show,' 'Everville' will stand on its own for most readers. TG & SS provides some important background material on, for example, the nature of the conflict between the inhabitants of Quiddity (the Dream Sea) and the humans here on Earth. The book overflows with Barker's imagery, and he presents vivid depictions of the Dream Sea and its otherworldly menace, the Iad Urobros. His characters are fleshed out in the extreme, and many rank with some of the most memorable in all of literature: The orphan-Maeve O'Connell, the religious skeptic-Harry D'Amour, and the unspeakably evil men vying for control of the portal to the Dream Sea above Everville, Kissoon and Tommy-Ray. 'Everville' tells the story of a cosmic battle taking place on Earth for control to a portal to the Dream Sea, Quiddity. This portal is open on a mountain peak above the sleepy Oregon city of Everville, founded by an orphan, Maeve O'Connell, and her husband from Quiddity, Coker Ammiano. The battle for control begins when the portal is opened, and takes place across the entire United States, from Everville to New York, as forces struggle to either close the portal, or keep it open, for unknown to humanity, an unspeakable evil is moving towards the Cosm (the area of the universe inhabited by humans), the Iad Urobros, described as "Chaos itself." Throughout its broad course, 'Everville' documents this struggle, and the multitude of people (there are over 50 principal characters) involved in it. Another tour-de-force from Clive Barker!

STOP! This is part two, the first book is The Great and Secret Show (which is not obvious to look at Everville in a local book store.) In fact, when reading it I myself didn't realize what it was a continuation of until about 100 pages in when a barage of characters came into the book I recognized. As so much of Barker's work does this delves heavily into bizarre occult fiction with its characters passing in between alternate universes/realities through strange passageways and many of the main characters nearly immortal. If you enjoyed the Great and Secret Show, you'll love this book and its a must read. This ranks high among the Barker collection of other such greats as Weaveworld, Imajica and Sacrament. Best for patient readers who enjoy long books with complex story lines. If you're idea of reading is short stories and comics, don't bother. But if you're into an adventure it is mandatory reading.

The first novel I have read of Clive Barker's, although being a fan for years. Incredible, being the first word I would say to describe it, it was just incredible. I would go to bed early at night just so I could read as much as I could before going to sleep. The intensity and captivating thoughts produced by Barker glued my eyes to every page. A clever and imaginative piece. Yours Truly (Gurp)

EVERVILLE... the eternal city, the mythic point where this earth and the heavens meet, the "axis mundi," the crossroads of eternity and time, the sacred and the profane. Is Clive Barker the only author of these sore days who sees into these crossroads? Barker continually impresses me with each new book, both in the themes and characters he explores, the language he uses, and his subversion of the both the horror and fantasy genres. If I see one more book review or interview that refers to him as a "master of horror" I'm gonna explode! He's got more in common with a Joseph Campbell, a William Blake or a Dali than any mere horror writer. I think EVERVILLE is a very good book; but yes, I did get some smirks and sneers from my "literary" acquaintances. They don't know what they're missing! Barker's prose is as measured and musical as ever; this is the first book of his which, on several occasions, stirred me to tears. While reading it, I kept a pen nearby, underlining dozens of beautiful passages. The story flows effortlessly--which it needs to, as Barker understands, as Story is the only way things of consequence get told. As he writes: "And every life, however short, however meaningless it seems, is a leaf on the story tree." I think Barker did a pretty good job depicting "everyday" people in a small American town; a nice change from the distant misfits of his short stories and early novels. There is risk-taking here on his part, and yes, sometimes some of the Americana rings a tad false, and I was little let down by the literalization of Quiddity, but any writer who has the courage to revision Jesus, the Christ--the Christ of Dreams, and Dreaming--in the course of a "popular" novel, has my utmost admiration. Of course, anyone who's read IMAJICA knows Barker does not shy away from a radical spirituality. I love his depiction of reality as ever in flux, something malleable and always in transformation. As Joe Flicker asks himself, travelling through the Metacosm: "But when he slept here, and dreamed, was he entering yet another reality, beyond this one, where he might also sleep and dream?" Stories and dreams have always made and remade the world; we are never satisfied with Reality. Why else would we regale ourselves with tales and visions of resurrections and journeys, virgin births and sacred mountains, men of wisdom and women of purity? All of this is "the Great and Secret Show" we never tire of, and Barker seems to effortlessly reach behind the veil and pluck out our appetites, our perversities, our loves and our hopes, our desires to comprehend these mysteries. That, I think, is the Art: a skill to divine our souls. Buddenbaum, desiring communion with the "gods", expresses this eloquently: "to be free of every frailty, including love; free to live out of time, out of place, out of every particular. He would be unmade, the way divinites were unmade, because divinities were without beginning and without end: a rare and wonderful condition."The v