Weaveworld

This episode, I'm talking about Clive Barker's first novel, The Damnation Game, from 1985.

Now, the first Barker novel I owned was the Fontana Collins edition of Weaveworld, which has got this really eye-catching tapestry-style cover, and they use this style on other Fontana Collins editions, like The Great and Secret Show, Cabal, and the 1991 reprint of The Hellbound Heart.

The Damnation Game was published by Sphere, who also did the Books of Blood.

Now, I try not to make a habit of owning multiple copies of books, but I've made an exception here.

But before I talk about the game, I want to talk about the evolution of Clive Barker's Magician.

Now, I vacillated between talking about this here or in the media section, but I think it's an important piece of context for the ideas going forward.

So, I feel the Damnation game bridges the space between Books of Blood and the horror fantasy that came after, like Weaveworld and Imagica.

First, a lot of the characters and images in the Damnation game form the basis for the grotesque to come.

The biggest mainstream example of this is, of course, the Lament Configuration puzzle box from The Hellbound Heart and the ensuing Hellraiser film franchise.

But we also find the art as portal element in and Weave World and the Book of the Arts series.

It's a fitting recurring theme given Barker's work as both a writer and as a painter.

I'm gonna dig a bit more into spoilery territory on Coldheart Canyon from here on out.

There was a Hellraiser poster book.

There was Weave World.

There was the Nightbreed series.

There was something called Hellraiser Book of the Damned.