Coldheart Canyon audiobook

I have read nearly the entire collection of Clive Barker novels in existence.While I enjoyed them, each for their unique plots and tantilizing hints at sexual prowess, this book is my all time favorite.The canyon is a mystery that anyone would want to explore.It is a place where you have to ask yourself, if you could, would you? And if you saw it on an active night, could you look away, or would you be enticed to peep on.While the protagonist, Todd is trying out sort out his Past and Present place in fame's spotlight~he also has to face his inner demons in the house in the canyon.The woman he meets is unlike anyone he's ever known, and her pull at his soul is a strong one.I think reading this book, slowly at first, is the best advice I can give.Then, go back and re-read it, just to be sure that it all sunk in.Mr. Barker is a master weaver of sensual delights and situational scenarios that captivate our most basis human instincts.It's one hell of a ride, and worth an E-ticket.

It's not often that I get REALLY excited about a book release, but I remember eagerly awaiting publication day for Coldheart Canyon, and running off to Waterstones in Yeovil (where I was living at the time) to pick up a hardback copy of this book.Definitely one of my favourites. Dark and twisted as always!

Coldheart Canyon is a clear example of what happens when a brilliant, literary mind sits down to create long, great work. Over six hundred pages, Clive Barker’s new novel ascends to a horror level above Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Neil Gaiman, both in story and literary style. Barker has often been slotted into the genre of “horror writer,” and it is when one reads Coldheart Canyon that one realizes he really in a league of his own.Todd Pickett is a lot like Bruce Campbell, the renowned Hollywood actor – of the B-movies that is. He has how own scary fan club and he has been making action-flicks since the early nineties, but has now reached his career plateau. No longer is he able to make the big bucks for the tough-guy movies; what he needs is to revamp himself and present and new and improved Todd Pickett to the world. The solution then, in a place like Hollywood, can only be one thing: plastic surgery. Except is goes wrong, and he ends up getting scarred and needs a place to hide out for a while so he can heal.The covert locale of Coldheart Canyon is a castle-like mansion located in a most obscure area of Los Angeles (if one does not know where to look for it, one will never find it). It is devoid of life, or so Pickett thinks, but after some time spend in solitude, the ghosts begin to make an appearance. Coldheart Canyon was originally owned by a famous actress of the silent-movie era, Katya Lupi, where famous parties of degradation and sexual exploitation used to take place, where the crème of Hollywood would give into their secret and uncouth desires – like Charlie Chaplin’s passion for very young girls – with the aim that once they have satisfied their anxieties, they will be happy and smiling for the camera the next day.However in the basement of this house is something special, something from a bygone time centuries old, taken from the hidden hinterlands of Romania. A snippet of time, involving a group of fifteenth century hunters and the Devil’s wife, held within a breathtaking mosaic, which holds much more than startling colors and shocking landscapes. There is a power at work here, one in which the Devil’s hand is steering; a power where a quasi-immortality is granted, though as with everything involving the Devil, it is at a terrible price.Having spent years working on this novel, Barker has made it immensely personal, with characters that have been taken from his very own life; even the death of his beloved dog is incorporated into the book. At the same time Barker is doing what he does best: delving into a conglomeration of fantasy and horror, taking the reader to a metaphysical plane that can only be reach by the skilled hands of Barker. With his colorful vocabulary and literary skill that raises the novel to a much higher level, Coldheart Canyon attains new bounds from the mind of one of today’s most eminent authors.Originally published on February 4th 2002.For over 500 book reviews, and over 40 exclusive author interviews (both audio and written), visit BookBanter.

** spoiler alert ** Like all Clive Barker’s tales this is unique, strange, sexy and original. Coldheart Canyon follows no formula, it is a story that is completely it’s own were no character is safe. The premise concerns a Moroccan style palace set in a canyon close to LA’s Hollywood elite. Back in the 1920s the place was known of its wild excess but has since been forgotten until present time. Todd Pickett has been top of the Hollywood A-List for the past ten years but a recent bomb at the box office leads his agent to recommend undergoing plastic surgery to look younger. The surgery goes horrible wrong and in order to hide from the media while he recovers his agent rents Coldheart Canyon, where there are more than just the ghosts of Hollywood past waiting for him. What follows is an incredible descent into personal vanity, ego and excess. As already mentioned Clive Barker writes to no formula, though Todd Pickett is the readers entrance into this tale there’s times when characters are introduced in their supporting roles only for them to feel like they have become the main characters. This is welcomed as Todd is a vain dick for most of the novels duration and many of the supporting characters are well fleshed out, particularly the character, Tammy. Clive Barker does the same with the telling of a ghost story in itself, this is unlike any ghost story I have ever read. In Coldheart Canyon the ghosts have physical form, participate in orgies and even mate with animals. I think anyone coming to this story expecting something they’ve read before will be greatly stunned by the originality and choices made by its author. For those wanting to read something different and boundary pushing in the horror genre I couldn’t recommend this more. However, I will add that despite its gruesome contents this novel challenges what horror can be and thus sometimes feels like a different genre entirely.

This is about moviestar Todd Pickett, whose career comes somewhat to a dead end. He finds it difficult to accept, and endures a furtive facelift to improve his features. The unknown surgeon makes a mistake and this goes wrong. To avoid the press, Todd hides in a resort in Coldheart Canyon, where he can heal, or awaits the healing of his face.Tammie, the chubby founder of Todd's fanclub (who is in love with him), gets hints of his new whereabouts, and is looking for him through the desert nearby Hollywood. The resort Todd is staying is haunted. The spirit of Katya Lupi, the beautiful ex-moviestar makes her presence more and often. Todd is seduced by Katya and from here, everything goes in a rapid. I liked this book very much because there are 3 story lines which come together. Todd, Tammie and the history of (bad and sexy Katya).This book is full of mystery, erotic, horror, death, drama and infernal business and their creatures. As well an outstanding created world around Hollywood. All was very imaginable. One of the best Barker's I've read. Very highly recommended to all who love haunted houses.

I felt some of the stuff in this book could have been left out. Would have been a five star book for me if that was the case because it had everything I love about Barker books in it.

I've always been a fan of Barker's and this one, which took me a long time to get around to reading, had a lot of strength in its lyrical descriptions of southern California and the fantastic creatures, mostly monstrous, inhabiting the canyon. I deducted a star because I felt the book simply rambled on too long. For the first time with a Barker book, I felt it was a bit of a slog, especially toward the end, when I found myself skimming. With a bit of editing and tightening, this could have been a masterpiece. But even with my misgivings, this is a superior offering in the horror genre and I'm glad I made the journey.

Certainly not Clive's best, but it could have been much worseTodd Pickett, one of the hottest movie stars of the last decade, faces the downfall of his career when extensive plastic surgery goes terribly wrong. On the run from his fans and the ever bloodthirsty press he hides in the deep woods of Hollywood. The luxurious mansion of the long deceased silent movie actress Katya Lupi seems at first the ideal hiding place. But when he discovers that the house is still inhabited by the ghost of Katya Lupi the place changes into a death trap. The house itself turns out to be a place of evil, where Lilith, the wife of the Devil, is still out for revenge on the murderers of her son. Todd's biggest fan, Tammy Lauper, worried by the sudden disappearance of her idol starts a search for Todd and she creates, without knowing it, what is likely to be the only chance for redemption Todd has left.Let's start with the weakest point of Coldheart Canyon: the plot. Not that it is really bad, but it just does not honour the previous works of Clive. The building-up of the storyline is comparable to what Dean Koontz does in almost all his novels: a normal situation turns bad, then even a bit worse and in the end everything is back to normal after some apocalyptical struggle. Clive Barker can do a lot better. Look at Imajica, to name just one example of a story with a much more original plot.But luckily the king of 'strange' horror can turn a plot that is not that strong into something that is far beyond average, just by applying his personal style. That is exactly what happened with Coldheart Canyon. The complete atmosphere of the book breathes the competence of an extremely talented writer: even the most violent scenes or those weird erotic extravaganzas have something poetic about them. When skin is slowly pealed off the skull of a presumably living person, Clive makes it sound like a sensual act of love.I am really glad that Clive still dares to write some controversially gruesome stuff. For me The Books of Blood still are his best works, because it is clear that while writing those Clive did not suffer from any limitations at all. His later works are a lot cleaner and tend to miss the real spirit of the earlier works. Nevertheless, Coldheart shows that he still masters the 'craft'.

This is a CLIVE BARKER novel. It is dark, it is sexual, it is bizarre, it is beautiful, it is melancholy, and it is strange. It is very strange. A declining movie star, who's surgery goes wrong, leads him to a place with a sinister history. In essence, this novel is a ghost story. But it a story only CLIVE BARKER could write. This book is certainly NOT for everybody. It is gratuitously sexual, and violent. For those that can stomach such scenes, in intense detail, then the heart of this story will shine brighter than the images BARKER wrings out onto the page. It is a story that has hope and light, love and promise. You can never read a Clive Barker novel without getting a bit of philosophy and spirituality. Again, BARKER does not disappoint. For a longer novel, it seemed to fly by. There were only a few moments where I felt the story was a little slower, and a little longer. But it did not diminish the immensity, the power, or the beauty of the story found in the pages of COLDHEART CANYON.

Coldheart Canyon looks at Hollywood circa 1920s and "present" 1990s. It shows how much the landscape has changed in that time and how little the people have changed. The descriptions are lush, erotic and terrifying all at the same time, especially of course when we are dealing with the fantastical monsters of Barker's imagination, spawned by The Devil's Country. What Barker does in this book is pretty extraordinary. He juxtaposes the fictional world of Hollywood (which people believe is real) with the nightmarish reality of Coldheart Canyon (which people believe is fiction). He describes vacuous stars and entitled movie producers with a mischievous venom that suggests he has met many of these people. There is a huge amount of dropping of famous names, although Todd Pickett the main male character is perhaps by necessity a fiction, as I imagine is the boarish movie producer who meets a violent but poetic end.

Read 264 of 676 pages. From October 2017 to January 2018. I do not think I would get anything more out of reading 400 more pages of this novel. I mean, those 260+ pages were good, even great, but, y'know,

The only Barker novel I hadn’t read. It’s superb, such an epic fuck you to everything Hollywood.

Deffinatley one of the better Clive Barker books, always hot and filthy, with some bits that make you question what you just read. Don't read it if your easily offended.

Coldheart Canyon, Clive Barker, 2001My favorite quote: “There’s always some light in the darkness, somewhere.”Notable characters: Todd Pickett, the failing movie star; Tammy Lauper, his number one fan; Katya Lupi, the 20s-era movie starMost memorable scene: Katya and the snail, because Jesus f*cking Christ … Only Clive Barker, I tell ya … That’s certainly not the only shuddery scene to be found in Coldheart Canyon, but that’s the one that makes me shiver even stillGreatest strengths: Coldheart Canyon, like a lot of Clive Barker’s work, effectively blends horror, tenderness, glamour, perversion, erotica, beauty, and repulsion. I don’t know how he does it, but even when I don’t like the plot, if Clive Barker wrote it, I’ll read it — and with great pleasure Standout achievements: In Coldheart Canyon, Clive Barker shows off many a writerly skill, but his ability to seamlessly bounce between old and current-day Hollywood without confusing the reader or losing their interest is at the top of my list. Fun Facts: The character of Jerry Brahms was inspired by Clive Barker’s close friend, actor Roddy McDowellOther media: N/AWhat it taught me: I discovered Coldheart Canyon many years ago when I was still dreaming of being a writer myself, and as I read it, I remember wondering what genre it was supposed to be. On one hand, it was like a horror story, on the other hand, not so much. It certainly wasn’t anything like Hellraiser, after all. But as I kept going, I realized I didn’t care, that it didn’t matter what box it belonged to because it was GOOD. So, I have to say, that’s what Coldheart Canyon (and Clive Barker) taught me: that a good story is a good story, and in the big scheme of things, genre doesn’t matter. Just write the story you love — and make it good — and let other people decide what shelf to put it onHow it inspired me: Looking back on it, I’m sure I’ve gotten a lot of inspiration for my own work from Clive Barker in general — and Coldheart Canyon in particular. Ghosts, orgies, orgies with ghosts … yeah. This one definitely inspired a few things from me … Additional thoughts: Coldheart Canyon is a long book — a damned long one. But it needs to be and personally, I like it that way. When any story is placed in the capable hands of writers like Clive Barker, size definitely matters … and as far as I’m concerned, the bigger, the better. Haunt me: alistaircross.comRead Coldheart Canyon: https://tinyurl.com/5f5z9nxy

Reading a Clive Barker novel is always a magical experience. This one was no different. I was hooked.4.5 stars.