Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
An Ace Putnam Putnams (1987)
Description
There are games so seductively evil, so wondrously vile, no gambler can resist. Amid the 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, Joseph Whitehead has hell to pay.--From preliminaries.
User reviews
LibraryThing member whitewavedarling
This is dark, horrifying, and smart. For fans of horror or Faustus-related legends and works, this novel is a must-read, but I'd recommend it also to readers who simply enjoy a thought-provoking read and can deal with the darker areas of the imagination. Barker's characters and plots are
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beautifully crafted, and it's easy to see him engaging with the horror genre and traditions of horror in a way that many writers don't do. Simply put, Barker has thought about the end-goal here, and he's carefully crafted this book in a way that makes it transcend horror literature and genre. Fans of Neil Gaiman will appreciate some of his moves here, but it's worth noting that while the book is an easy read, this book is a heavier read than any of Gaiman's texts. If you make yourself take the time to think through the ideas that Barker presents here, the book becomes richer with each page, as well as more horrifying. I don't have any doubt that this will become a classic of horror literature, but it's also an incredibly beautiful and smart read if you can take the rawness of it all. In other words, highly highly recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member KRHolbrook
Hard to say what's wrong with a book that really draws you into the moment of what's going on. Sadly, I can't say that I can give this a full five-stars worth of a read.
The beginning didn't have too much of a hook for me. Sure, it had its creepy and interesting moments, but all in all it was about
The characters . . . well, they each had their own problems to deal with. In the end, I liked each one in their own twisted way. Except for the girl. An interesting gift she has as a sensitive, but other than that she did nothing for me. (And judging how the ending went, I wouldn't have kept her around.)
How Clive Barker used colons and semicolons so much kind of threw me off toward the beginning, because I don't think I've ever read anyone with the style he has. I got used to it though and loved it. His descriptions and emotions in the writing was spot on as well.
So despite it not having a five-star rating, it's definitely worth a read.
The beginning didn't have too much of a hook for me. Sure, it had its creepy and interesting moments, but all in all it was about
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a thief/gambler looking for this illusive card-player that supposedly always won in a game. He wanted to test the person's skill. I wasn't too keen on that. However, the things that the thief had seen and heard in his search was intriguing enough, I suppose. A good beginning when it comes to reading through the entire book . . . but alone without insight on what had happened, not so much.The characters . . . well, they each had their own problems to deal with. In the end, I liked each one in their own twisted way. Except for the girl. An interesting gift she has as a sensitive, but other than that she did nothing for me. (And judging how the ending went, I wouldn't have kept her around.)
How Clive Barker used colons and semicolons so much kind of threw me off toward the beginning, because I don't think I've ever read anyone with the style he has. I got used to it though and loved it. His descriptions and emotions in the writing was spot on as well.
So despite it not having a five-star rating, it's definitely worth a read.
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LibraryThing member etimme
I didn't get quite what I wanted from this book. Its pace ended up being quite plodding, the story was light on explanations, and none of the characters were very compelling. I enjoyed the idea of a man given supernatural powers being exhausted with life, but we barely went into the history of the
The horror was graphic and rife with gore, but I will stick to short stories next time.
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villain.The horror was graphic and rife with gore, but I will stick to short stories next time.
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LibraryThing member porcupineracetrack
Having only read Barker's short stories and novellas, The Damnation Game paled in comparison. One can certainly tell that this is his first novel- as other reviewers have noted, the pace is slow and even stagnant in places, and there is seemingly endless exposition. However, the elements of the
Overall, it seems unbalanced though. Barker spends too much time developing shadow worlds that only appear once, offering rich descriptions of places only glimpsed by characters. Yet he fails to flesh out those very same characters. Marty Strauss and Carys Whitehead have a relationship that is confusing at best. For most of the novel, they use each other physically and emotionally, and their willingness to try and save each other makes no sense within the context of the entire novel.
Barker's first novel is not his best, but it is a must read for anyone interested in the novelist, or the journey of horror fiction in the past 3 decades.
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story itself are quite imaginative and there is potential for real horror throughout. The mysterious Whitehead estate, Mamoulian and the Razor-Eater, and the countless corpses that continue with a parody of life all hint at deeper terrors, and offer some of the more visceral horror of the novel.Overall, it seems unbalanced though. Barker spends too much time developing shadow worlds that only appear once, offering rich descriptions of places only glimpsed by characters. Yet he fails to flesh out those very same characters. Marty Strauss and Carys Whitehead have a relationship that is confusing at best. For most of the novel, they use each other physically and emotionally, and their willingness to try and save each other makes no sense within the context of the entire novel.
Barker's first novel is not his best, but it is a must read for anyone interested in the novelist, or the journey of horror fiction in the past 3 decades.
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LibraryThing member RalphLagana
Barker knows how to write creepy stuff. More importantly, his stories are not just attempts at seeing how high the gore-factor can be pumped; he finds a way to inject some morale truths and enough ambiguity to keep a reader thinking.
Martin Strauss is prisoner released into the care of an eccentric
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millionaire. His job is to provide for the rich man's needs. Martin is mystified by the electric fencing and high powered lights that surround the mansion he is to serve in but his figures it's the kind of paranoia that comes being being obscenely wealthy. As the story unfolds, and Martin begins to peripherally see more of the dark nature to his new residence, it becomes clear that he's simple inhabiting a prison of a new kind, one with the grandest types of punishment and redemption. With the impending close of Border, I managed to score this copy for less than 2 bucks. Had the story been so-so or even something I couldn't finish, I knew I could consider it "no biggie" because of the cost, but that's not how it went with this tale.
This ones worth whatever price you find it at.
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LibraryThing member lithicbee
I gave this book 104 pages before I gave up. I have highly enjoyed other works by Clive Barker, but this one was taking too long to get into anything substantially... horrific. After 104 pages, I know there is a guy who owes an awful debt to a supernatural card player, and there is an ex-con
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working for him. That's about it, and there wasn't anything in those pages to make me care about either of them. Oh well, not my cup of tea. Show Less
LibraryThing member okwari
This book did not give me nightmares, but made an indelible impression nonetheless.
LibraryThing member Mike79
Once I was able to get into the book it got interesting, but this took about a hundred pages. It was only then that the beginning of the book made any sense. Is it possible that the book could have been written better? Who knows but the horror scenes and descriptions are fantastic. I would
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recommend the book; however, if you're looking for a book that starts with a bang and a fast pace-- this isn't the book for you. Show Less
LibraryThing member Gregorio_Roth
This book is a great continuation of Faust and his legend.
LibraryThing member JGolomb
“Hell is reimagined by each generation. Its terrain is surveyed for absurdities and remade and, if necessary, reinvented to suit the current climate of atrocity; its architecture is redesigned to appall the eye of the modern damned. In an earlier age Pandemonium - the first city of Hell - stood
- from Clive Barkers’ “The Damnation Game"
Clive Barker’s first full-length novel is magnificent. It’s dark, intense and mostly unrelenting in it’s steady construction of supernatural horror. While full of gut wrenching visuals and causing a limitation of my ability to fall asleep, this novel beats with a heart of literature under it’s skin of genre horror.
Barker builds his story and characters layer by layer. Some might feel the early going is a bit slow but I would argue that the greatest of meals are those that take longer to make.
I’ve only recently discovered how pervasive is H.P. Lovecraft’s influence in modern horror. Not sure how this stayed off my radar for so long, but let’s just be glad that I finally figured out. “Damnation Game” in imbued with the spirit of Lovecraft. Just take a glimpse at a couple of passages from Barker, and his Lovecraftian storytelling of an otherworldly evil that lives just beyond site of the visible world and just on the edge of the great Void.
“It was, for a moment, not her who started out between the bars. It was something dredged up from the bottom of the sea. Black eyes swiveling in a gray head. Some primeval genus that viewed him - he knew this to his marrow - with hatred in its bowels."
“He became aware (was it just his dream life, denied its span in sleepless nights, spreading into wakefulness?) of another world, hovering beyond or behind the facade of reality."
If there’s anything to downgrade my rating it’s Barker’s awkwardly rapid transition of the budding affair of our two protagonists from tentative emotional exploration to full on can’t-live-without-you intensity. I either missed a paragraph or two, or Marty and Carys fell hard and fast after the first time they ‘hooked up’.
It’s a relatively small complaint, however. The story is terrific; the plot solid; the finish satisfying. Highly recommended.
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on a lava mountain while lighting tore the clouds above it and beacons burned on its walls to summon the fallen angels. Now, such spectacle belongs to Hollywood. Hell stands transposed. No lightning, no pits of fire."- from Clive Barkers’ “The Damnation Game"
Clive Barker’s first full-length novel is magnificent. It’s dark, intense and mostly unrelenting in it’s steady construction of supernatural horror. While full of gut wrenching visuals and causing a limitation of my ability to fall asleep, this novel beats with a heart of literature under it’s skin of genre horror.
Barker builds his story and characters layer by layer. Some might feel the early going is a bit slow but I would argue that the greatest of meals are those that take longer to make.
I’ve only recently discovered how pervasive is H.P. Lovecraft’s influence in modern horror. Not sure how this stayed off my radar for so long, but let’s just be glad that I finally figured out. “Damnation Game” in imbued with the spirit of Lovecraft. Just take a glimpse at a couple of passages from Barker, and his Lovecraftian storytelling of an otherworldly evil that lives just beyond site of the visible world and just on the edge of the great Void.
“It was, for a moment, not her who started out between the bars. It was something dredged up from the bottom of the sea. Black eyes swiveling in a gray head. Some primeval genus that viewed him - he knew this to his marrow - with hatred in its bowels."
“He became aware (was it just his dream life, denied its span in sleepless nights, spreading into wakefulness?) of another world, hovering beyond or behind the facade of reality."
If there’s anything to downgrade my rating it’s Barker’s awkwardly rapid transition of the budding affair of our two protagonists from tentative emotional exploration to full on can’t-live-without-you intensity. I either missed a paragraph or two, or Marty and Carys fell hard and fast after the first time they ‘hooked up’.
It’s a relatively small complaint, however. The story is terrific; the plot solid; the finish satisfying. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member writertomg
Not finished yet, but if anyone sees me reading this and decides to give it a shot, I would like to say to you: PLEASE, give it until page 200 or so. PLEASE. The book starts off slooooow. If it started off any slower, I would have burned my copy, rather than merely throwing it across the room in
But!
But, once Marty Strauss is settled in at Whitehead's place, the story picks up and gets GOOD! And I mean good in a scary, somewhat-gory way. So please! Keep reading!
UPDATE
Finally finished. Good story. Creepy. Gory. Evil. Don't know if it's one of the best horror stories of all-time (I got this book from a list of top 50 or 100 best horror novels) but I did enjoy. Like I said...Don't give up on it!
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disgust.But!
But, once Marty Strauss is settled in at Whitehead's place, the story picks up and gets GOOD! And I mean good in a scary, somewhat-gory way. So please! Keep reading!
UPDATE
Finally finished. Good story. Creepy. Gory. Evil. Don't know if it's one of the best horror stories of all-time (I got this book from a list of top 50 or 100 best horror novels) but I did enjoy. Like I said...Don't give up on it!
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LibraryThing member librarylord99
Barker bores the crap out of me...
LibraryThing member JHemlock
Early Barker. Lively and pretentious. The Story is unnerving and bold. He has a real way with personalities especially when they are twisted.
LibraryThing member A.Godhelm
Barker's self contained universes would be split into trilogies by other authors. Sometimes he manages to fill an entire world into the pages of a single book. Sometimes, like here, that universe is only half realized, and in trying to spread its wings beyond being just a horror story, it
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ultimately sinks the project. It could have been a much tighter written 300 page novel without losing anything at all. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
World Fantasy Award (Nominee — Novel — 1986)
Bram Stoker Award (Nominee — First Novel — 1987)
Horror: The 100 Best Books (1985)
Original publication date
1985
Local notes
Signed