Imajica: Featuring New Illustrations and an Appendix
by Clive Barker
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Read in August, 2007
The world is not quite what we always thought it was. But this is a Clive Barker book, so that goes without saying.
The Imajica is the whole of creation, the true world, four-fifths of which we've never seen. Earth, the Fifth Dominion, has long been separate from the other four. How it got split away, held back from the other Reconciled Dominions by the horrible netherworld of the In Ovo, no one knows. But throughout history there have been Maestros, men of great and terrible power, who have ...more
The Imajica is the whole of creation, the true world, four-fifths of which we've never seen. Earth, the Fifth Dominion, has long been separate from the other four. How it got split away, held back from the other Reconciled Dominions by the horrible netherworld of the In Ovo, no one knows. But throughout history there have been Maestros, men of great and terrible power, who have ...more
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Read in January, 2000
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"Up there with Weaveworld as a favourite Clive Barker book - I prefer his fantasy to his horror, although there are visceral horror elements in all his books.[return][return]I find this one difficult to review as so much happens in the book. In short, Imajica is the name for the 5 ""Dominions"" or parallel universes. Earth is one which is disconnected from the others. The story is about the attempt to ""reconcile"" Earth with the rest of Imajica, with...more
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recommends it for:
anyone who feels that their imagination can't be stimulated any further
Yes, it's long as hell, but it's addictive and engrossing. I've never really enjoyed fantasy before, but a friend lent me this book and it was so nice I read it twice, back to back. I just had to admire the way in which the author constructed a whole universe and integrated equally imaginative characters into it. A sweeping epic that never gets dull and is sexy as hell, believe it or not. It's not only well written but quite a feat on the author's part...so many characters and stories and yet I ...more
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Read in January, 1997
recommends it for:
Anyone
If you've read his Books of Blood, the Damnation Game, the Great and Secret Show, and Weaveworld but haven't gotten around to Imajica yet, turn off your computer right now and get out there and get it.
This is Clive Barker's masterpiece. Earth is part of a dominion of five other worlds, and the only one unaware of the others. This novel is about the reuniting of Earth to the other four worlds. Again, this is horrific, beautiful, mind-expanding.
An incredible feat of the imagination...this is ...more
This is Clive Barker's masterpiece. Earth is part of a dominion of five other worlds, and the only one unaware of the others. This novel is about the reuniting of Earth to the other four worlds. Again, this is horrific, beautiful, mind-expanding.
An incredible feat of the imagination...this is ...more
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Read in February, 2006
recommends it for:
Fantasy fans
This is probably the only Clive Barker book I have read, but it left a good impression. Sort of wierd at times, but what fantasy novel isn't?
I really like his use of multiple worlds that are all connected and the way the main character doesn't really know exactly what is going on until the end. His descriptions of the alien beasts in this book are very well done and believable.
This book sort of made me want to read a prequel exploring the Maestro's abilities and adventures at the heigh...more
I really like his use of multiple worlds that are all connected and the way the main character doesn't really know exactly what is going on until the end. His descriptions of the alien beasts in this book are very well done and believable.
This book sort of made me want to read a prequel exploring the Maestro's abilities and adventures at the heigh...more
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recommends it for:
Fans of Sci-Fi
The first time I met Clive Barker he suggested that if the title of this book was the only epitath on his grave, he'd be happy. He's right. It's his most impressive book by far. It's broad in scope and audacious in its inventiveness. World-building is always a difficult thing to master, but Barker does more here, inventing otherworldly cultures and characters that feel human. The story is very complex and it might daunt some readers along the way, but I enjoyed this tale more than any other...more
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Read in January, 1994
I read a LOT of Barker in High School. In fact, I have to give credit where it's due. Clive Barker was a real entry point for reading as a hobby for me. Granted, it was the gore of his horror books that appealed to me when I was about 12 or 13, but eventually led me to books like Imajica and The Great and Secret Show, which are really more sci-fi fantasy books and much less horror. It's not a genre I indulge in these days too much, but what can I say? It's not like I played magic, the gathering ...more
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Read in January, 1996
This is an awesome book. I picked it up at a book store in Seoul and didn't read it for many years (except for a few chapters on the plane back). Then I went through what was probably the biggest and most devastating break up of my life and I felt like an empty, brittle shell, and I just knew it was time to read this book. Since then it has gotten me through some tough times, from the passing of my father, to a deployment to Iraq. It is about learning to let go and that everything comes back ...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
...not sure whom.
I like horror novels.
I like creepy, weird stories.
I like Clive Barker's writing.
I was not happy with the novel.
Really, I feel it should have been a short story.
There was much sound and fury to set up a couple of incredible scenes, but the sound and fury were very hard to get through.
Too hard to pan for the gold.
It hasn't stopped me from wanting to read more Barker, or enjoying the things which I have liked about his other work, but it left exhausted and frustrated over the...more
I like creepy, weird stories.
I like Clive Barker's writing.
I was not happy with the novel.
Really, I feel it should have been a short story.
There was much sound and fury to set up a couple of incredible scenes, but the sound and fury were very hard to get through.
Too hard to pan for the gold.
It hasn't stopped me from wanting to read more Barker, or enjoying the things which I have liked about his other work, but it left exhausted and frustrated over the...more
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Read in August, 2005
This book is awesome. The story concerns the imajica, which a series of interconnected worlds. Out of the 5 worlds, earth is the only one that is not connected. Because of this, humans don't know magic and the belief in magic is scorned. There's some secret society that tries to reconnect the Earth to the other worlds and we end up, as readers, going on an epic journey to the far end of Imajica with a guy named Gentle who searches for his love and discovers himself along the way.
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Read in December, 2007
I read this book back in high school and I'm amazed at how little I remembered about it. It's a very long one and seems to slow down a bit about 3/4 of the way through, but overall this is an amazingly invented world by a master storyteller. Clive Barker sketches very human characters, and places them in lands of dark fantasy that mix our world with something completely different. He also includes some very erotic scenes that take full advantage of this setting.
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recommends it for:
everyone
i am still reading this book, but i think it is a really important story. our culture needs a paradigm shift and if there was ever a good story to get us ready to change our thinking, this is it. clive barker has brilliantly made impossible and proposterous ideas seem perfectly acceptable by taking the reader on a fantastic journey with his characters. travel is broadening. this book is like mind candy. read it. and for god(dess) sake read between the lines.
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Read in December, 1991
recommends it for:
People who love sci-fi/fantasy
This isn't typically something you would expect from Clive Barker. Actually, I picked it up because I loved the picture on the cover! LOL! I was blown away by the depth and imagination he put into this book...normally we think of Candyman or something along those lines. I am only familiar with the screenplays based on his horror novels. I couldn't (and didn't) put this book down until I finished it. I loved it and was pleasantly surprised!
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Read in January, 2004
Unbelievably imaginative and totally captivating. I went crazy for fantasy books as a kid and stopped reading them by the time I got to high school. I picked up this one on a whim a few years ago and it really reminded me what makes them so damn appealing. Aside from being a total escape from reality, Imajica feels visionary and apocalyptic; I truly saw things differently (more vividly?) while reading this and for days after I'd finished.
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Read in November, 2007
I have to admit that science fiction novels can have fantastically unusual sex scenes. Astral Travel, Multiple gendered creatures and, um, tentacles? yes please. I find it interesting that i can be so absorbed in a book that has an ultra-sexual but soft natured and kinda sleazy/hippie type man as the main character. It seems to be a theme in my literary life (tom robbins, ahem)which reveals more about me, i suppose, than about this book.
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Read in January, 2006
recommends it for:
Any Fantasy Fan
Preferring Clive Barker's fantasy writing, this is my favorite of his. The way women are depicted in the story (in the end), the depth and strength of his characters, as well as the very original idea of the Imajica have moved this book into my top 10 category. I've read it three times so far, and I'm fairly certain I'll read it again.
Any female fantasy lovers especially should read this book and appreciate some acknowledgement!
Any female fantasy lovers especially should read this book and appreciate some acknowledgement!
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Read in June, 2004
recommends it for:
people looking to stretch out of epic fantasy
This book is really amazing...not really a sprawling fantasy work in the tradition of many other fantasy authors infected with the "world-building" disease. It's a tour around an alternate world, yes, but it also deals with issues of God vs. goddess, circles vs. penises, the whole nine yards. Clive Barker's febrile imagination puts some very strange situations before the reader...this is one of my most favorite books.
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Jump back into the world of Clive Barker. Honestly, there is no other writer who is THIS captivating and also on the edge of being almost TOO creative. You simply cannot describe a Barker novel in regular terms.
Imajica is a journey into the impossible but made to seem all-too-real in the descriptions. Barker's dialogue is cut-to-the-bone real and the story really delivers!
It's a fantastic read.
Imajica is a journey into the impossible but made to seem all-too-real in the descriptions. Barker's dialogue is cut-to-the-bone real and the story really delivers!
It's a fantastic read.
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What I admire about Clive's writing is the way the plot twists in unexpected, but believable ways. I cried at the end of this book, not just because it was over and I felt like I had endured a long journey with its characters, but also because the vision he presents at the end of a utopian and (arguably) goddess-celebrating world is a place that my soul still longs to go.
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