Sacrament

Seamlessly blending the 'Supernatural Horror' elements that populate much of Barker's other written/filmed work ["The Damnation Game"/"Hellraiser"/etc.] with the 'Real-Life' horrors of the world today, including the envirornmental catastrophe/mass extinction currently happening on a daily basis and the AIDS epidemic, I think "Sacrament" may have trumped "Weaveworld" as Clive's best novel. It's scary as hell and yet resonating with the beauty and wonder of the world (now largely being decimated), and one of the best treatments of love and friendship in the face of a tight-knit community being eroded away by outside forces (AIDS in this case). The vivid writing immediately transports you to the scene itself, the fierce snowstorm or long grasses blowing soundfully in the wind, and the book has an ideal protagonist in the form of a wildlife photographer who chronicles the fate of endangered and moribund species, and chillingly appropriate villains in the form of a pair who hunts down the last survivors of near-extinct species for the express purpose of personally ending their kind's existance. Also mixing in a healthy dose of spiritualism, "Sacrament" is great on so many levels, but be forewarned: Barker outdoes himself on a couple of the grotesqueries, excluding of course "The Great And Secret Show", which got a bit too vile for my tastes. Unlike Secret Show, however, which was far more cynical and nastier than even the most violent and bizarre of Barker's movies, the depravities and crudities of certain villains in "Sacrament" compliments the story well instead of choking it in nihilism. An excellent piece of literature both as a great horror/fantasy hybrid and as a look at non-fictional trends in the world today (extinctions, intolerance, AIDs, etc.) that threaten to crush us all.

A wonderfully different and more personal novel from Barker, in which a wildlife photographer is attacked and seriously wounded by a polar bear. While in a coma, he relives his life in England, and the lifechanging moment when he met up with a pair of immortal wanderers, one of whom seems intent on wiping out life on our world. When he awakens, the photographer returns to his roots, and soon finds himself crossing paths with the two immortals, and finds himself on a journey of supernatural proportion. Wonderful, human story with real emotions and real issues, wrapped up in a grand fantasy to delight and thrill the ages. One of Barker's best.

This book was totally absorbing, and among the finest I've read this year. The character developement is phenominal; Barker puts you into the main character's--Will Rabjohns's--head and gives you everything he's about. The story has strong elements of fantasy, but its close proximity to reality throughout most of it makes it strongly grounded and very plausible while you're reading it. NOTE: If you are homophobic (meaning: if homosexuality offends you) don't read this book. This is partially friendly advice, but mostly that I don't want to here your closed minded crap on here.

In books like Weaveworld and Imajica, Clive Barker created new a new mythology and reinvented the religious parable, respectively. Now, in his most ambitious and creatively daring book thus far, Barker departs from the tried and true of the world of dark fantasy and delves deeper into the human condition than he has previously explored. As admitted by the author, Sacrament contains just enough autobiographical detail to allow his readers further insight into his philosophies, which this time around are far more reality-based and less abstract than previous ventures. In telling the story of Will Rabjohns, a famous wildlife photographer who has gained recognition through capturing dark images of nature at its most disturbing and violent, Barker relates a parable on the value of life, human and otherwise. The antagonist of the story, Jacob Steep, is representative of human nature at its most distructive. As a creature that has learned to be a man by watching men, he carries the belief that man holds dominion over beasts to the point that he has created a mission for himself to destroy the last of every species of creature on the earth, to know God by playing God. At the same time, Will Rabjohns personifies both the good and bad in human nature: while he eventually discovers the value of all life and the connections involved in the cycles of birth,life, and death, at the same time he experiences the same bloodlust as Steep when he is young and it is this same type of lust for violence that drives him to the corners of the world to capture his photographic images. Another, even deeper layer runs through the book as Will watches friends and loved ones in his adopted home of San Francisco fall to the twin curses of disease and excess. Ultimately, Sacrament is a moving, intelligent, and deeply satisfying novel of hope, renewal, and enlightenment.