Coldheart Canyon

This bloated, overwritten doorstop (676 pages) takes an intriguing idea for a horror novel and sexes it up to XXX rating with various nasties as garnish.

Basically, a pretty boy actor whose youthful good looks are beginning to slide opts for a cosmetic surgery which goes awry, leading him to seek seclusion while he recuperates. Unfortunately, the isolated 1920s-era estate he chooses is already occupied -- by a legion of ghosts, a mysterious woman, and multiple demons, all centering around an enchanted -- or possibly damned -- room deep in the bowels of the mansion.

There's a good story here, which could be developed in a number of ways. Barker, however, has chosen to lard it up with self-indulgences like a 20-page digression on the death of a pet dog, which is -- as Barker tells his readers in the forward -- a reflection of recent events in his own life. Traumatic for the author? Yes. Heartbreaking to anyone who has ever lost a beloved pet? Yes. Relevant to the story? No -- unless it's an attempt to show that protagonist Todd Pickett is more than a self-involved prick. And it fails even at that, since his emotional reaction to the animal's death has little to do with his subsequent actions.

There are multiple internal inconsistencies in the book, as if the author and/or copy editor were either not interested in catching them or were simply overwhelmed by the verbiage. A floor described as covered with tiles becomes, in the next scene, dirt. After an intense conversation between two lovers in which the beautiful but depraved Katya makes it clear that she will set the rules in the relationship, she tells Todd to meet her in the kitchen. In the next scene, they are back in the bedroom, the order apparently forgotten. A character is killed with maximum gore, by being run through with a sword and hours (days? -- it all begins to run together after a while) later is found lying at the foot of a staircase with just enough life left in him to provide another character with the secret to dealing with the vengeful ghosts. Toward the end of the book, a man who was introduced as having lost six children to "the plague" tells another character (the same one, actually, to whom he described the loss) that he has never had children.

Picky stuff, yes, but this is not a work that will encourage most readers to feel forgiving of minor little errors like an author forgetting something that was initially presented as a strong formative event in a character's life.

Then there's the sex. Oh, boy, is there the sex. BDSM, sodomy, kiddy porn, group sex, straight sex, gay sex, fetishism, golden showers, bestiality -- you name it, and Barker has devoted whole sections to it -- supposedly to demonstrate the utter depravity of the ghosts and of Katya, whose connection to them is gradually revealed. But most readers would have been able to check off that box after the first few pages describing the orgy.

And it does drag on. The sex scenes, the underlying sexual perversions, and explicit descriptions of various gruesome fates, some of which are perilously close to going over the top from Grand Guignol into Laughable Camp. I mean, seriously -- a rapist peacock?

There are several points in the book when the reader may be forgiven for assuming that Barker is wrapping things up. But he apparently gets a second ... and third ... and fourth wind, going on and on and on long after the supposed main characters have met their fates.

Barker is an immensely popular author within the horror genre, but if Coldheart Canyon is typical of his work, this reviewer won't be going back for more. ( )

I have to say I liked it. Coldheart Canyon was an imaginative twist on the haunted house iconography.

The canyon that Barker created is deliciously creepy, and I like to think about it really being there to this day. It is in fact the canyon that is haunted, and not the house. The house has something else entirely going on. The idea of the huge underground tiled room known as the Devil's Country was so intriguing that I feel such a compulsion to see it for myself.

Another reason I liked this book so much is that Clive Barker and I seem to share the same opinion of Hollywood.

I can give this book the "Pet Owner Seal of Approval" (which I will continue to deny to writers who let pets die in horrible ways.....Joe Hill, I'm shaking my head at you buddy, because I am so disappointed in you) ( )

Not his best book. Still liked some of the ideas but maybe not executed to a high quality. Too many places that seemed like natural endings and very graphic violence and sex. ( )

Extremely interesting premise that goes on for far too long. There were about four different times that this novel could have ended satisfactorily, but it just.kept.going. ( )

Barker is in my top five for writers but for some reason I have started this book twice and every time I seem to get pulled away from it. I have enjoyed what I read. The story is really cool and Barker pulls no punches and gives no quarter. ( )