Helpful Score: 2
A fantastic and horrifying book, it is Clive Barker at his best. This book is not for the faint of heart, but fans of good horror will likely enjoy this book very much.
Helpful Score: 1
There are things worse than death. There are games so seductively evil, so wondrously vile, no gambler can resist. Amid the shadow-scarred rubble of World War II Joseph Whitehead dared to challenge the dark champion of life's ultimate game. Now a millionaire, locked in a terror-shrouded fortress of his own design, Joseph Whitehead has hell to pay. And no soul is safe from the ravaging fear, the resurrected fury, the unspeakable debts of...the Damnation GAme.
Helpful Score: 1
A real thriller. If you know and like Clive Barker, Koontz, King, you will not be disappointed.
Helpful Score: 1
From Library Journal
"I have seen the future of the horror genre, and his name is Clive Barker," Stephen King has written. Fortunately, this first novel (Barker has published short story collections) more than bears the weight of King's praise. Barker is a better writer than King, and his characters are just as interesting. Set in modern Britain, the story thrusts a flawed "innocent"parolee Marty Straussinto an epic conflict between wealthy Joseph Whitehead and Mamoulian the Cardplayer, a centuries-old creature with whom Whitehead had struck a bargain to obtain his wealth and power. Whitehead reneges, and the resulting struggle is played out primarily on his fortress-like estate. Barker's excellent writing makes the graphic, grotesque imagery endemic to current horror fiction very effective. Highly recommended anywhere horror fiction is popular. A.J. Wright, Anesthesiology Dept., Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham
"I have seen the future of the horror genre, and his name is Clive Barker," Stephen King has written. Fortunately, this first novel (Barker has published short story collections) more than bears the weight of King's praise. Barker is a better writer than King, and his characters are just as interesting. Set in modern Britain, the story thrusts a flawed "innocent"parolee Marty Straussinto an epic conflict between wealthy Joseph Whitehead and Mamoulian the Cardplayer, a centuries-old creature with whom Whitehead had struck a bargain to obtain his wealth and power. Whitehead reneges, and the resulting struggle is played out primarily on his fortress-like estate. Barker's excellent writing makes the graphic, grotesque imagery endemic to current horror fiction very effective. Highly recommended anywhere horror fiction is popular. A.J. Wright, Anesthesiology Dept., Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham
Helpful Score: 1
This is scarry stuff...i was unable to put it down...Clive Barker rocks!! and this book is a must have for fans of Mr. Barker.
Helpful Score: 1
Very good book. Clive Barker is scary and a very fine writer as well.
Interesting, but not one of Barker's best. No real scares either. Just alot of decadence.
Terrific horror novel by Barker. You will never forget the name Mamoulian after you read this.
The Damnation Game takes place, appropriately, in hell, a hell that could only spring from Clive Barker's singular imagination; amid the gaming clubs and blasted back alleys of contemporary London; on vast country estates, fortresses armed against the invasion on an evil for which there is no human defense; in a nightworld where men and women make love with ghosts, and corpse-assassins walk among the living, stalking their prey even as they decompose.
Sprung from prison to serve as bodyguard to a world-renowned reclusive industrialist, Londoner Marty Strauss knows the job isn't going to be easy. But what he finds surpasses his wildest nightmares-someone is coming to collect the soul of his employer as payment for an old and terrible debt; someone who can animate the dead and co-opt the spirit of the young girl Marty has come to love; someone who counts off the years of his existence in centuries and the evils he has done in infinities; someone who will not rest until all the love and goodness have been banished from the world.....
Radiating with the sensuality and eroticism that are Clive Barker's signature, ranging from unimaginable scenes of violence to touching moments of bittersweet romance, The Damnation Game all but defies description.
Sprung from prison to serve as bodyguard to a world-renowned reclusive industrialist, Londoner Marty Strauss knows the job isn't going to be easy. But what he finds surpasses his wildest nightmares-someone is coming to collect the soul of his employer as payment for an old and terrible debt; someone who can animate the dead and co-opt the spirit of the young girl Marty has come to love; someone who counts off the years of his existence in centuries and the evils he has done in infinities; someone who will not rest until all the love and goodness have been banished from the world.....
Radiating with the sensuality and eroticism that are Clive Barker's signature, ranging from unimaginable scenes of violence to touching moments of bittersweet romance, The Damnation Game all but defies description.
A very good novel, definitely one for those looking to read beyond the early Clive Barker short stories.
Pages excellent, some wear to cover.
