Imajica

Inhoud

Amid a seamless tapestry of erotic passion, thwarted ambition, and mythic horror, Imajica picks out the brightly colored threads of three memorable characters: John Furie Zacharias, known as Gentle, a master forger whose own life is a series of lies; Judith Odell, a beautiful woman desired by three powerful men, but belonging to none of them; and Pie 'oh' Pah, a mysterious assassin who deals in love as well as death.

United in a desperate search for the heart of a universal mystery, all three discover that the truth lies in a place as mysterious as the face of God and as secret as the human soul. They discover the Imajica.

The Imajica: five Dominions, four bound together--reconciled with one another--and one, the Earth, forever cut off from her brothers, her inhabitants living in ignorance on the edge of a sea of possibilities, an ocean of mystery and magic. Only very few know of the Imajica, and of those, many are frightened. For a time is coming, a time of great risk, a time of great promise. A time of Reconciliation.

It happens only once every two hundred years--a shining, mystical moment in which Earth can be reunited with the other four Dominions. As Judith, Gentle, and Pie race to capture that moment, other forces are gathering to keep the Earth locked up forever in the darkness that surrounds her.

Their quest will carry them on an epic journey through all five Dominions, from the barbaric, glittering city fo Yzordderrex to the haunted peaks of the Jokalaylau mountains, from the hallowed walls of Patashoqua to the very border of the greatest mystery of all: the First Dominion, on the other side of which lies the Holy City of the Unbeheld, where either their highest hopes or deepest fears will be realized.

None of them will remain unchanged by the journey. Nor will the reader who accompanies them. Imajica is a novel of vast panoramas and intimate, obsessive passions; of visionary splendors and heart-stopping terrors. It is also a book of revelations. Long after you have turned the final page, you will be yearning for its wonders, and believing they are just a breath away.

Bespreking

Enter Clive's Dominions

John Furie Zacharias, also known as Gentle, is a master forger. His life is nothing but a series of lies that go far beyond the paintings that he forges. But behind all the lies, Gentle unknowingly carries with him a secret of universal proportions. Once every two hundred years the universe, which some call the Imajica, enters a mystical moment at which it can be reconciled. Exactly at this moment the five Dominions can be reunited. Earth, being the fifth Dominion, is at the center of this process and Gentle is one of the few who can start the reconciliation. When Gentle learns that in a few weeks that unique moment will start again, he has to race against time to find out which role he has to play. But that is not all: also his friends get sucked into a spiral of magical events that bring all of them to worlds they could have never imagined.

That Clive Barker has an amazing imagination is maybe best proven by the magic of his early novel Imajica. More than eight hundred pages of wonderfully strange and outlandish images are bestowed upon the reader. It is not always easy to make any sense of the story itself, but after the exciting and utterly dark opening, many people will be forgiving about this shortcoming . True, Imajica is anything but a light read, but it succeeds where many fantasy novels fail: it sucks the reader into a completely new universe and really grows on you. Maybe this is mostly due to the strangely erotic suspense that seeps through the pages. The character of Pie�oh�pah is the best example of this tension. Not surprising if you know that Pie is an androgynous creature that shows itself to people as the object of lust they crave the most.

Although this book will not be everyone�s cup of tea, it will be unforgettable for those who dare to take the jump into Clive�s other Dominions.