Imajica

Rating:
Summary: "Majic" of Clive Barker
Review: "Imajica" was the first Clive Barker book I had the pleasure to read. I knew of him through the movie "HellRaiser", and figured his books would be all blood and gore and gothic violence.

WRONG!!!!!!!!!!! He's my main read, and I've spent the last two months reading his books from cover to cover.

The fantasy in Imajica wooed me in ways I just cannot describe. When you read a book, and it sucks you into each page with such force that you do not do a thing until you've read it from cover to cover, you've found a good read. The book departs one dominion for another until you get used to dipping and soaring with the characters and their travels. The sights, sounds, smells, the life, the descriptive prose that is so poetic and so Barker, just grabs your brain and engages. Barker's books are lusty in a way that I don't find offensive either.

As a spoon fed American horror reader, I cannot believe I spent all these years NOT reading anything by Barker. His writing is a cut above the rest in such a way that you feel like you were spoon fed some kind of weird food or drug that just plugs you in and leaves you breathless. Im not happy till I get my Barker fix, and Imajica was an incredible way to experience my very first Barker book.

Rating:
Summary: An awesome epic fantasy by the master of the genre
Review:

And I used to think that it couldn't get any better than "The Great And Secret Show"...

Enter the powerful imagination of Clive Barker as he takes you on a mindblowing journey through the Imajica... Join Gentle, once a great and powerful Reconciler, as he meets his former love Pie'oh'Pah, rediscovers his destiny and travels through the worlds that make up the Imajica in a desperate attempt to reconcile the Earth with the four reconciled worlds of the Imajica.

Set in a mystical fantasy universe, Imajica is a monster of a book. Although my European version of Imajica was 1138 pages big, I managed to read it within three days - I simply couldn't stop once I got started. Imajica contains everything that a reader could ever want in a single book: Exotical characters, a wonderful story, powerful violence and a vivid sexual element. And as if that wasn't enough, Barker also redefines the entire Christian mythology! Read it at all costs!

Rating:
Summary: Don't refuse to expand your imagination...
Review: Every author has a period when he wants to share his thoughts on organisation of universe. He presents his views on how it should be or might be. Someone may try to describe an ideal society, another wants to frighten the readers by consequences of different steps people may take or forecast possible future. Sometimes they are long and boring and only parts of them can be read with true pleasure. Some writings seem to be more philosophic although describing different fantastic worlds.

Imajica is far from all this. Barker managed to create something special and unique which incorporated his views on global arrangement, philosophy and religion aspects, love, fantasy, mystery, thriller, fairy tales and a lot of other styles and issues. It's like a projection of the earth's life onto several different planes. The book (two parts) is a whole story with many beautiful descriptions, interesting actions, unpredictable turnings and all that stuff that makes you do nothing except for reading until it is finished.

So, don't hesitate and order it right now. Imajica is what you wouldn't ever imagine in your dreams. It is a masterpiece created by a skilful hand of the great writer of the Five Dominions. Read it!

Rating:
Summary: Hands Down, My favorite book of all time
Review: I had never read Clive Barker when I picked up this book at my local library. It made such an impact on me, that I have read nearly all his other novels and have reread Imagica twice in the last 5 years and I am sure that I will read it again.

Barkers writing is like prose; poetic and beautiful to read. Something very different in a horror/science fiction novel. His story is absolutely stunning. Amazingly wonderful charectors, spectacular scenery, fabulous dialogue. I have never read a novel that I became so immersed in. As a whole in a one book set (rather then the seperate books) it is a big read and worth every minute. Impossible to put down. It is science fiction/fantasy/horror and will pull fans of all three under its spell. I highly reccomend it.

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Summary: Imajica is Bound in Hell
Review: I went into this story expecting a fantasy tale with Barker's usual dark twist, boy was I stunned when I started reading this. I didn't know how much religion (both Pagan and Christian) that he would throw in there for us to deveour.

The book is about five Dominions which for the Imajica. Earth is the fifth, the other four seem to be other parallel dimensions that were all created by the hand of the Unbeheld (God). We learn about failed reconciliations, the bringing together of Earth and the other dominions with the City of God. We learn that many have tried and failed at this, including Jesus the Christ.

We are introduced to John Furie Zacharias, a very snesual man in search of feeling all the pleasures his body can receive, he is also a painting forger. Judith, a strong woman who is loved by two men to the point of obsession and is hunted by a hit man. Her ex-husband who loves Judith to the point of obsession, and Pie 'oh' Pah, an assassin as well as a whore. He is a mystif, a being who appears as whatever the seer wishes in their mind. These and other characters become important as they explore realms outside their own as they search for the Goddesses who survived the deicide of God as well as an imprisoned Goddess who was raped by God and continued on the bloodline of god among humans. She is held prisoner by the Tabula Rasa (a sort of religious Illuminati).

And that's just beginning. This tale weaves around everything you ever thought you new and tells the tale of what could have been in the Biblical Apocrypha and what the New Testament through Revelations would have truly been if that were the case. By far Clive Barker's best and most ambitious novel to date. He is the master of imagination.

Rating:
Summary: Head-spinning
Review: I'm gonna be brief, largely unlike the novel itself!
This is a masterpiece which creates several new boundaires for fantasy, sci-fi and horror fiction writers.
For the first couple of chapters, bear with it! it is very hard to get into, to get caught at first. But it think after the first forty or fifty pages you wont wanna put it down. The horror, imagination, power and action in the book is brilliant. A MUST-READ

Rating:
Summary: The alpha is the omega
Review: Is this book a rewriting or a perversion of the Gospels and the Book of Revelation ? Both and neither. The story itself, the plot if you want, is beyond any telling, summarizing or even sketching. It is extremely complex and difficult - at times - to follow. Not too many notes like in Mozart, but too many characters. As a rewriting of the New Testament, a Reconciler (a Christ) has to reconcile and regenerate the five Dominions of the Universe, Imajica, creating love and prosperity. But the male God has to be destroyed - since he is an imposter - to enable the three female Goddesses he had crushed down to take over and give life a chance. He also has to be killed to open the final door for spirits situated in the first layer of this universe. The male God is a tyrant. It is his son that has to go through the process of getting him destroyed and regenerating the alpha to open the omega. This vision is entirely dominated by the female principle : three Goddesses take over ; the God's son's mother who was rapterously raped by this God is the tool used to destroy him ; this universe is composed of five dominions that are building a circle, with a sixth one for the dead that is inside this circle. This book is also a beautiful symphony of words, images, situations and symbols dedicated to love, particularly love between beings who are not supposed - by standard ethics - to love each other : homosexuals ; individuals from radically different species ; love for the destroyer and hate for the Saviour ; and yet love for the Saviour and hate for the destroyer. Love is hate and hate is love. This is achieved page after page. Any love is hate and any hate is love. Life is this constant contradiction and it is only spiritual forces inside and outside that can liberate alienated individuals and real human fate, destiny, providence and feelings. Some will say this vision of the universe is anti-christian or even anti-god. Yet this vision cannot stand and make sense if the concept of God, of a superior force, drive is not present from beginning to end in every event, development, being. This book is the most spiritual and religious book that can be found even if and even because it kills old conceptions of allmighty male gods. This book should be a must for want-to-be priests and preachers.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Rating:
Summary: awesome, page-turner, very imaginative
Review: let me start off by saying that i read this book while waiting for Stephen King's 5th Dark Tower book a few years ago. Imajica and the DT series have a lot in common, and if you liked either you would probably like the other.

this was my 1st Barker book. i knew him as a british horror author (and playwrite behind a sci-fi horror PC video game) and was intrueged when i came across this book in the library. im not going to write a longthy review of his writing styles or whatever, im not an enlgish major, at least not yet.

i later read TGSS and was thoroughly disapointed. Barker seems to take great strides in setting up the plots of his books. Imajica's introduction, if you will, was lengthy but interesting and informative. i didnt feel like i was waiting for the real plot to begin as i did with TGSS, which took literally 1/2 the book to start getting interesting.

Rating:
Summary: EPIC !
Review: The Imajica collection is an excellent read. Clive Barker has done a superb job of creating a story and universe of incredibly epic proportions. What really amazes me about this story, is how Barker wraps up such an epic adventure with an equally epic finish. The writing throughout is very balanced and nothing really seems misplaced in terms of the plotting. That's no mean feat... as I'm sure most of us have all too often read the book with the great start and anti-climactic end. Not so here...Imajica thoroughly delivers the goods.

After finishing this series (reading them all in one volume can be arduous at times...but, it's worth it), I felt that aching void in my book-world... that feeling where there is no other book out there that can fulfill your fantasy cravings... no other book that can take you to the Imajica world(s). Barker's imagination is some really powerful stuff. I guess that's why I ended up reading Imajica a second time...and I'm sure I'll return to it again sometime down the road.

I cannot recommend this book enough to sci-fi / fantasy fans... although, remember that the compilation volume is literally several different books.... so, don't feel that you need to plow through it at the pace of one book. Take your time, and let it really soak in. There's an amazing amount of content, style, imagination, etc. here that is well worth marinating on.

Rating:
Summary: A truely spiritual experience
Review: Those who hold extreme religious views and couldn't read a book expressing views other than your own, read no further. This book goes deep into the heart of human spirituality and the human experience, tearing your soul apart and then leaving it brighter and better than before. I know it's been said before but, if you read one book in your life, read this.

This book is truely biblical, without all the annoying begats and laws. Featuring a functioning universe, a large amount of philosophy, and about as many pages as the bible, this is, for many people disillusioned by the huge length and the multitude of boring books contained within, a spiritual companion for the open minded. It does, however, contain some very... anti-God views, and a few anti-male remarks (although in the end it is more against human nature).

Imajica tells the story of John Furie Zacharias, called Gentle (for reasons of symbolism made clear near the end of the book), Judith (An image of pure desire), Pie 'Oh' Pah, the mysterious creature who offers to take Gentle beyond the world we know, and the Autarch, the power hungry embodiment of lust. As these three characters cross paths, fall in love, lose those they love, and lose each other, they display the full spectrum of human emotion, almost transending the media of the written page and entering the realm of life.

This book is worth much more than it's small cost, and should be read by anyone looking for a home religious experience.