Imajica (1991)

I find this book tedious. While I think the underlying story was interesting, it had about 20% too much filler for me and I started skipping pages just to get the plot to move forward. ( )

An epic adventure that lags a bit in the middle but is well worth reading. ( )

This is a very long visceral book full of weird sex scenes and blasphemy. ( )

I'm not sure it is wise to start with this book if one is new to Clive Barker's work, but there certainly is something for everybody here. You get dark fantasy and plenty of wacky characters, plus some serious dimension-bending sequences. I found it slightly scattered in places, but the pace was generally appreciated by my riveted eyes. It reads pretty easily, if you don't get hand cramps.
It is truly impressive how disciplined a piece of writing this is. I think pieces of Weaveworld and Abarat might be slightly more mesmeric and parts of Great and Secret Show might be more engaging, but Imajica is a well-rounded book. It is thankfully less formulaic than it might have been, and Gentle is an interesting character to say the least, as is Jude and Pie' Oh' Pah. And if you don't like the name Pie' Oh' Pah, you better get used to it because it's going to come up a lot.
Barker writes some of the most adult fantasy out there. I place him a cut above Stephen King, not that there's anything wrong with liking King - I just feel that Barker lays on one extra layer of polish. In both I'd argue that you get inconsequential or atmosphere-building scenes, but Barker has his own brand of surreal absurdity. It is funny that he followed this novel up by Thief of Always, which was a one-sitting read, and not quite so adult. My guess is he exhausted himself after tying together all five-hundred plot threads in this sprawling work. ( )

Sorry, couldn't finish it--again. Tried years ago, too. While it may be that Barker started a trend with Imajica... I can't be bothered reading this. It's kinda... florid? ( )