Everville is the sequel to The Great and Secret Show, and while I suppose you could read it without reading TGaSS first, I wouldn't recommend it. Many of the characters from TGaSS return, and Barker does a great job of juggling their stories with all the new people he introduces in Everville. True, some characters are given short thrift, but they have their parts to play in this novel and probably the planned Third Book of the Art as well.

The first hundred pages or so of Everville, however, deal not with the characters we know from TGaSS, but rather with some historical events that set the stage for not only the rest of the book but for the events of TGaSS as well. This beginning is slow going at first, but stick with it; the rest of the ride is well worth it.

What I really liked about Everville is that it explores the world of the Metacosm in much more detail, almost to the level of a fantasy novel, but keeps it grounded in our reality by having it always be seen through the eyes of mundane POV characters. In other words, fantastic things are happening to the characters, but it always feels like a story about the world you and I live in, not some alternate Earth in another dimension.

Everville had me racing to the end of the book to see how all our characters' lives intersect. Now I can't wait for more stories from this branch of the Clive Barker story tree. ( )

Clive Barker's Everville is an absolute page turner. The first couple chapters start out slow, but the book quickly gains momentum, moving from the early 1800's to the 1990's in a quick fashion, with the 90's being where most of the story takes place. Barker joins and forges amazing links between vastly different people in his tale, pulling them all together in an effort to save humanity as we know it, supposedly, depending on how the reader interprets things, from out own nightmarish creations. Dreams are powerful things to us all, and even more so in Bakers amazingly detailed and robust Dream-Sea, Quiddity. With dozens of twists and turns along the way, Barkers style captivates the imagination, and goads you into wanting more, needing to KNOW above all else. ( )

wonderful. stayed up all night. had to. it was so suspenseful, entertaining, ingenious.
A must read. Think NEVERENDING STORY for adults. ( )

I read this before "Great and Secret Show" without realizing it was the sequel. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I picked it up in the library by chance the week the library put it on the "New Books" shelf and spend the next two weeks maddly reading it. I later bought it in paperback and around 2005 bought a hardcover version from Ebay along with "Great and Secret Show", which I have not read yet.

It'll take a re-read to do a proper review, but to anyone who appreciates surreal horror, I feel this presents a great option. ( )

Didn't really enjoy this at all, compared to the other Barker books. This is pretty much when I stopped reading him, in general. A quite disappointing book after the other work I had enjoyed reading in the past. Hard to put the figure on quite why, but it could well be that there are just not enough monsters.

http://superprose.blogspot.com/2006/1... ( )