The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker
Book of the July, suggested by fellow geek
Completed book : 3/14 Attempt to read: 11/14
Summary:
The Great and Secret Show takes place in a small town called Palomo Grove where there are armies forming and forces shaded from the very soul of America. It is the age-old tale of good versus evil which carries the reader the the end of the world.
“A fireworks shit show!”
We pride ourselves in enjoying secret treasures that show us a different world apart from our own mundane lives, however this book lacked the greatness we love. Many resorted to reading the Wikipedia page to see what the book was even about with disinterest before opening the first page. Two of us had other, more enjoyable books to read in our spare time to not even both looking further than the first page.
The captivating interest in this work revolved around the time loop and the mostly three dimensional Kissoon. For an author who has written many exemplary novels, the plot convoluted and confusing. With the attempt to write horror if anything he wrote a confusion of dark fantasy with the attempts to keep it close to It or Kujo which never occurred leaving a bad taste of literature to the reader.
The writing attempt lacked that of other works by the same author. The pretentious tones from the author was not pulled off for the interests. The attempt at weird fantasy and horror petered out into undeveloped mush, which nearly forty percent through the novel and the mundane turned to superheroes. He wrote about an alternate reality from this one which according to one the world building and meta-verse were interesting, but the plot was so convoluted and confusing he could not center his mind around the goings on. Many claimed not to like the ending and would not be reading the consequential second or third books. There were some cool elements to the story however not enough to keep from the overall tone of a lame novel.
Our consensuses of this novel The Great and Secret Show was distasteful and unpleasant. Many would agree without a doubt they would have prefered a different more gratifying book to have read this month.
Rating:
Due to the unsatisfying nature of this book we could not justify giving it any stars
wait a minute–I thought we had invented a whole new rating scale with stars for positive numbers and turds for negative one. I don’t remember if we calculated an average though.
I think sticking to star systems right now might be more positive. besides one person said infinity turds and I can’t exactly plug in that many, might crash the internet.
I think infinity turds would have to be treated as an outlier and left out of the data set 😉
True, I’m also having a hard time trying to figure a positive rating system. For first try not too bad.
Hey, it wouldn’t crash the internet. Once someone throws infinite turds into the rating, the average becomes infinite turds. And in this case, well deserved turds they were!
Nice blog! I’ve continued reading this book after the meeting out of curiosity, since those who read through it to completion expressed such intense dislike. I’ve been struck by two things: First, for a horror novel, the book is strangely lacking in horrific scenes; even suspenseful moments are hard to find. Second, the author seems to think a broad set of sexual behaviors are depraved and will provoke revulsion in his readers (e.g. homosexual behavior, voyeurism, and pretty much any form of sex other than the missionary position). Perhaps that was true of a good portion of his readership when the book was published, but personally I think it makes the book seem prudish and dated in the current day.
I will defer to people who read the book, I still have not read it nor will I think I will.
I think this is going to work out great in allowing people nearly done to pipe in a little more after the fact.
Agreed Steph!