Product Description

Chance had ruled Marty Strauss' life for as long as he could remember. Now at last luck was turning his way. Parolled from prison, he becomes bodyguard to Joseph Whitehead, one of the richest men in Europe. But Whitehead has also played with chance - an ancient game which gave him vast power and wealth, in exchange for his immortal soul. Now the forces he played against are back to claim what's theirs. Terryifying forces, with the power to raise the dead; and Marty is trapped between his human masters and Hell itself, with just one last, desperate game left to play.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #228472 in Books
• Published on: 1988-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 532 pages

Review
'Touches of sheer brillance throughout' - James Herbert

About the Author
Born in Liverpool in 1952, Clive Barker writes, directs and produces for the screen. His films include Hellraiser and Nightbreed.

Customer Reviews

Place your bets…
Clive Barker’s debut full length novel tells the story of a prison inmate paroled to act as a bodyguard to a millionaire who entered into a Faustian pact in his youth, and now finds himself under attack from demonic forces. Following on from his brilliant Books of Blood short stories Barker doesn’t quite master the transition to novelist with this first attempt, as while the novel boasts a fantastic climax it also contains a great deal of meandering build-up during the earlier stages. The theme of the addiction of gambling is interesting, though the relationship between millionaire Joseph Whitehead and his nemesis Mamoulian is too often vague and unclear, with both characters motivations seemingly wavering throughout the book. At it’s best The Damnation Game provides some exotic horrors and fantastic weirdness, with oddly it’s most successful character being a Frankenstein’s monster-like creature who, despite being a child killing zombie, manages to elicit the readers sympathy just by his dogged refusal to die. Perhaps inevitably as a first novel The Damnation Game is a little uneven, but this is still a very impressive debut.

Gore galore for first novel proper
After the success of the Books of Blood,a collection of short stories,The Damnation Game was Clive Barker's first full novel. The story centres on a convict who is given the chance to an early release providing he works for a multi millionaire business tycoon as his personal bodyguard.Though the job seems straight-forward enough,things get more and more terrifying as time goes on,leading the main characters through a paranoid game of cat and mouse and entrails! Readers of Barker's later work will find this book a shock to the system-there's little sublety and though Barker deals with love,sex,death and fantasy in this book,it is with a full in-your-face style. A great read for any-one who enjoys clever,well written horror,but be warned,this book contains some of the most gruesome imagery and characters ever put down on paper.

An engaging, is slightly slow-moving read
The book was gripping in its own way, but I occasionally found myself wanting a little more momentum.

Having said that, there is certainly some very vivid imagery, and the plot struck me as being fairly original.

I think that this doesn't compare to the quality of, say, Imajica, though it is still an excellent read in its own right!