Imagica

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Een moordenaar volgt Judith door de straten van New York. De schilder John, wiens minnares zij is geweest, redt Judith van de dood maar stort zich met haar in een avontuur dat even onbegrensd is als de fantasie. De werelden van de Imagica gaan voor hen open - werelden vol erotiek en doodsangst, vol onuitsprekelijke tirannie en schitterende openbaringen. Imagica is een episch meesterwerk over magie en de kracht van de verbeelding. Een moderne fabel, waarin drie personages - een man, een vrouw en een wezen dat allebei en geen van beide is - een levensgevaarlijke zoektocht afleggen door de onbekende dimensies van de Imagica... en van zichzelf.

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.