The Damnation Game

I think if you enjoy Stephen King (and other successes of the '70s/'80s "horror boom"), and would like a more English setting for your horror, then The Damnation Game may be your book.

Me on the other hand, I was a little disappointed; the novel is much longer than what I usually read, and while I love The Hellbound Heart, and the prose in this was very good at points, the whole thing kind of falls flat.

The anatagonist Mamoulian is a great character, but after all that effort he still seems underdeveloped. One of the more unusual choices of Barker was to name his anti-heroic protagonist "Marty"...were there really Cockney villains going around in the '80s with the first name "Marty"? It's all very strange, but not in the Lovecraftian weird fiction way, in the distracting plot point kind of way.

It was not a waste of time, and I will read Barker again (soon-ish), but don't race to this one.