by Clive Barker
I do not discount the possibility that I will one day return there, of course, but for now, in the smog and sun of Los Angeles, that world seems very remote. It’s extraordinary how divided it can make you feel, having been brought up in one country and coming to live in another. For a writer such as myself, who is much concerned with journeys into the strange, and the melancholia and joy of such journeys, it’s proved an educative experience.
I offer these scraps of biography in the hope that they illuminate the story that follows, and that some of the feelings that brought me to this novel will be left with you when it’s finished. Christ and England have not left my heart of course — they never will — but writing about a subject works an extraordinary magic. It magnifies the passions that inspired the story, and then — with the work finished — buries them, out of sight and mind, so as to allow the writer to move on to another place. I still dream of England, now and then, and I last wrote of Jesus walking on Quiddity’s waters in Everville, telling Tesla Bombeck that “lives are leaves on the story-tree.” But I will never again feel about them as I did when I wrote Imajica. Those particular forms and emotions have disappeared into the pages, to be rediscovered there by somebody who wants to find them. If it pleases you to do so, make them your own.
Dream the rest
A sequel to Imajica just doesn’t seem possible to me. It is my favourite amongst my books. But it ends with the hero beginning on a journey of salvation that I’m not sure I would ever want to set to words. Sometimes it’s just best to allow readers like yourself to dream the rest.
From an AOL chat, September 1, 1995.
Some of the material in this section is also collected in Clive Barker: Revelations, an online publication devoted to Barkerania and located at www.clivebarker.dial.pipex.com.
About the Author
CLIVE BARKER is the internationally bestselling and award-winning author of eighteen books, including Weaveworld, Galilee, and Coldheart Canyon. He regularly shows his art in Los Angeles and New York, and produces and directs for both large screen and small. Recent projects include the Oscar-winning Gods and Monsters, and his phenomenal series of books for children, The Abarat Quartet, which will begin being published in fall 2002. He lives in Los Angeles.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
About the Compiler
HANS RUEFFERT has lived and breathed the air of the Imajica. As the codesigner of the critically acclaimed Clive Barker’s Imajica Customizable Card Game, published by HarperCollins, he became steeped in the intricacies of this complex and wondrous universe. Hans was also involved in the development of the Aliens Predator CCG through his company ZI Games. These days, Hans is the creative spirit behind Luna7.com, a Web site dedicated to fantastic art. Hans is working on a children’s book and is currently developing exciting new projects in partnership with Richard Kirk. In his free time Hans runs the historic Woodbridge Inn in North Georgia and thrashes Kudzu monsters with a chef’s knife!
About the Illustrator
RICHARD KIRK is a Canadian visual artist and illustrator. In addition to working on the illustrations for Imajica, Richard has illustrated books for Caitlin R. Kiernan, Poppy Z. Brite, and others. Richard is interested in the forms and structures found in nature, the morphology of plants and animals, and the effect of time on materials. Richard works in a number of mediums, including pen/ink, watercolor, silverpoint, and oil. He also works with found materials such as metal, rust, rubber, fossils, bones, and text.
ALSO BY CLIVE BARKER
NOVELS
The Damnation Game
Weaveworld
The Great and Secret Show
The Hellbound Heart
Everville
Sacrament
Galilee
Coldheart Canyon
SHORT STORIES
The Books of Blood, Volumes I–III
In the Flesh
The Inhuman Condition
Cabal
PLAYS
Forms of Heaven: Three Plays
Crazyface
Paradise Street
Subtle Bodies
Incarnations: Three Plays
Colossus
Frankenstein in Love
The History of the Devil
ANTHOLOGY
Revelations
The Essential Clive Barker
FOR CHILDREN
The Thief of Always
Credits
Cover design by Todd Robertson
Cover photograph © Macduff Everton
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
IMAJICA. Copyright © 2002, 1991 by Clive Barker. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780061745010
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1991 by HarperCollins Publishers.
First HarperPrism edition published 1997.
First Perennial edition published 2002.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
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Canada
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United Kingdom
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United States
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http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com
Please visit www.perfectbound.com for free e-book
samplers of PerfectBound titles.
Books by Clive Barker:
COLDHEART CANYON*
A Hollywood Ghost Story
ISBN 0-06-018297-0 (hardcover)
Mingling an insider’s view of modern Hollywood with a wild streak of visionary fantasy, Barker paints an irresistible and unmerciful picture of Hollywood and its demons.
THE ESSENTIAL CLIVE BARKER
Selected Fiction
ISBN 0-06-019529-0 (hardcover)
A captivating narrative compendium of Barker’s twenty-plus years of writing—four full-length short stories and over seventy excerpts from his novels and plays.
EVERVILLE*
ISBN 0-06-093315-1 (paperback)
Between this world and the sea of our dreams sits Everville, where the forces that have shaped our past—and are ready to destroy our future—are at work.
GALILEE*
ISBN 0-06-109200-2 (mass market)
ISBN 0-694-51985-5 (audio)
Shortly after her marriage to Mitchell Geary, Rachel Pallenberg enters into an all-encompassing passion with Galilee Barbarossa that unleashes the long-simm
ering enmity between their two families.
Available wherever books are sold, or call 1-800-331-3761 to order.
Also by Clive Barker:
THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW*
ISBN 0-06-093316-X (paperback)
Barker journeys from the first stirring of consciousness to an apocalyptic vision emanating from the town of Palomo Grove, where two great armies are amassing.
THE HELLBOUND HEART*
ISBN 0-06-100282-8 (mass market)
A nerve-shattering novella of the terrors and ecstasies within the human heart.
IMAJICA*
ISBN 0-06-093726-2 (paperback)
ISBN 0-06-109414-5 (mass market Part I: The Fifth Dominion)
ISBN 0-06-109415-3 (mass market Part II: The Reconciliation)
Gentle, Judith, and Pie’oh’pah travel the five dimensions of the Imajica uncovering a trail of crimes and intimate betrayals leading them to a startling revelation.
SACRAMENT*
ISBN 0-06-109199-5 (mass market)
In the depths of a coma, Will Rabjohns relives his life with a mysterious couple. Awakening, he enters a journey of self-discovery and unlocks the secret of his destiny.
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS
ISBN 0-06-109146-4 (mass market—Young Adult Fiction)
Many children have visited Holiday House, a magical house where every day is fun and every night is Halloween—but none have ever returned.
* Also available as an e-book from PerfectBound: www.perfectbound.com
Available wherever books are sold, or call 1-800-331-3761 to order.
Table of Contents
Afterward(s): Clive Barker on Imajica
Illustrations
Book 1
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Thirty-six
Book 2
Appendix
About the Author
Also by Clive Barker
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
CELESTINE
CONCUPISCENTIA
CRADLE OF CHZERCEMIT
GEK-A-GEK