Scan barcode
A review by mrgalahad
The Damnation Game by Clive Barker
2.0
Let me preface this by praising Barker´s writing style. I personally always expected to dislike slasher novels and Barker´s short stories in Books of Blood gave me a new perspective on the genre. His writing style is hard to explain but reading his stuff feels like watching an 80s horror movie with bizarre imagery to grotesk to describe.
The Damnation Game deals with a Faustian bargain in Warsaw and I really liked the beginning as well as the overall premise. Barker sadly did not do much with it. There are many scenes which are written great and horrendous things happen, but I hardly cared as the characters just felt uninteresting to me. They all also were dislikeable which would not be a problem if they were interesting, but even at the climax I hardly cared what happened to whom. Despite all this, the novel has his great writing style and some imagery you surely won´t forget but ultimately this was more of a chore than a delight to get through at the ending.
The Damnation Game deals with a Faustian bargain in Warsaw and I really liked the beginning as well as the overall premise. Barker sadly did not do much with it. There are many scenes which are written great and horrendous things happen, but I hardly cared as the characters just felt uninteresting to me. They all also were dislikeable which would not be a problem if they were interesting, but even at the climax I hardly cared what happened to whom. Despite all this, the novel has his great writing style and some imagery you surely won´t forget but ultimately this was more of a chore than a delight to get through at the ending.