#116 in Horror
The Great and Secret Show
- 688
- Pages
- about 13 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Great and Secret Show” is a strange, sprawling epic that keeps the reader puzzled and curious. In the small town of Palomo Grove two armies gather to fight over the Art, the greatest of all powers, and Barker moves between bodily appetites and questions about the making of worlds. Some readers come away unsure whether they liked it. Its story continues in “Everville”.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
"Clive Barker's career has been building up to The Great and Secret Show. . . . A cross between Gravity's Rainbow and J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, allusive and mythic, complex and entertaining. Extravagantly metaphorical, wildly symbolic." — New York Times In the little town of Palomo Grove, two great armies are amassing; forces shaped from the hearts and souls of America. In this New York Times bestseller, master storyteller Clive Barker unveils one of the most ambitious imaginative landscapes in modern visionary fiction and an intricately woven and meticulously constructed fantasy epic where past and future meet. The Art, the greatest power known to humankind, is the focus of struggle between the evil spirit, Jaff, and a force for light, Fletcher. Jaffe hopes to tap into The Art's power while Fletcher wants to prevent it from being tainted. The conflict between the two men spills into the real world in a decades-long feud, distorting reality and affecting the entire human race. Carrying its readers from the first stirring of consciousness to a vision of the end of the world, The Great and Secret Show is a breathtaking journey in the company of a master storyteller.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.6 across 114 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 44% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Horror average of 7.5. That is how 7.5 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.6 | 5 | 4% |
| Google Books | 9.0 | 14 | 12% |
| Hardcover | 7.4 | 95 | 83% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Great and Secret Show?
It has 688 pages — longer than 89% of the ranked books in Horror.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Horror — with scores between 7.5 and 7.6, closest to this book.
