Books › The great and secret show
The great and secret show
the first book of the art
First published 1989 · 704 pages
A sprawling hallucinatory descent into a hidden world where cosmic magic and grotesque horrors bleed into mundane reality.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like peeling back the skin of the world to reveal a pulsing, terrifying, and awe-inspiring reality underneath. It is a sprawling, hallucinatory epic that moves with a propulsive, chaotic energy, dragging the reader through a landscape of dark magic, Hollywood excess, and cosmic dread. The prose is lush and unapologetically baroque, painting grotesque horrors and transcendent wonders with the same visceral brush. You are constantly suspended between revulsion and absolute awe, immersed in a dread-soaked atmosphere that feels both intimately fleshy and vastly apocalyptic. It delights readers who want their dark fantasy to be transgressive and boundless, offering a mind-bending journey that completely shatters the boundaries between the mundane and the monstrous.
- Mood
- hallucinatory
- dread-soaked
- grotesque
- awe-inspiring
- Tone
- visionary
- macabre
- grandiose
- transgressive
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- hidden realities · forbidden knowledge · corruption of power · intersection of sex and death · generational sins
- The writing
- Lush, visceral, and unapologetically baroque, blending poetic beauty with grotesque fleshy imagery.
- The arc
- Begins in gritty mundane desperation and spirals outward into mind-bending apocalyptic awe.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave sprawling transgressive dark fantasy where the horror is as imaginative and cosmic as it is visceral.
Content notes
- graphic violence
- explicit sexual content
- body horror
- sexual violence
- gore
About the book
To possess the greatest power of all, the Art, two man-spirits are preparing to fight using their mortal offspring. But an innocent passion between two of the children escalates the war to a new ferocity. Book One in a new three-volume series from master horror author Clive Barker.
Description from Open Library.
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