Coldheart Canyon (eBook)

Clive Barker (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2008 | 1. Auflage
672 Seiten
HarperCollins Publishers (Verlag)
978-0-00-730196-6 (ISBN)

Infos

A famous Hollywood actor loses his looks - and is drawn into the dark and twisted world of Coldheart Canyon Following extensive cosmetic surgery, Hollywood superstar Todd Pickett needs somewhere to hide away while his scars heal. His manager finds the ideal location, Coldheart Canyon - a dream-palace hidden away in a corner of the city so secret it doesn't even appear on a map. In the 20s, 'A' list stars came to the Canyon to have the kind of parties nobody was supposed to know about. It wasn't just the wild sex and the drugs that made Katya's parties so memorable. There was a door in the bowels of the dream-palace, which reputedly opened onto another world - the Devils' Country - where nothing was forbidden. Nothing. With his refuge now a prison, Todd needs to get out of Coldheart Canyon. But to do that he must not only solve its mysteries but also face the powers that have protected it for seven decades, and that means stepping through the door As a Hollywood insider with a keen eye for its idiocies and horrors Clive Barker is uniquely positioned to write this vitriolic Tinseltown ghost story. Coldheart Canyon is an irresistible and unmerciful picture of Hollywood and its demons, told with all the style and raw narrative power that have made Barker's books and films a worldwide phenomenon.

Textauszug

It is night in Coldheart Canyon, and the wind comes off the desert. The Santa Anas, they call these winds. They blow off the Mojave, bringing malaise, and the threat of fire. Some say they are named after Saint Anne, the mother of Mary, others that they are named after one General Santa Ana, of the Mexican cavalry, a great creator of dusts, others still that the name is derived from santanta, which means Devil Wind. Whatever the truth of the matter, this much is certain: the Santa Anas are always baking hot, and often so heavily laden with perfume that it's as though they've picked up the scent of every blossom they've shaken on their way here. Every wild lilac and wild rose, every white sage and rank jimsonweed, every heliotrope and creosote bush: gathered them all up in their hot embrace and borne them into the hidden channel of Coldheart Canyon. There's no lack of blossoms here, of course. Indeed, the Canyon is almost uncannily verdant. Some of the plants here were brought in from the world outside by these same burning winds, these Santa Anas, others were dropped in the feces of the wild animals who wander through -- the deer and coyote and raccoon, some spread from the gardens of the great dream palace that lays solitary claim to this corner of Hollywood. Alien blooms, this last kind -- orchids and lotus flowers -- nurtured by gardeners who have long since left off their pruning and their watering, and departed, allowing the bowers which they once treasured to run riot. But for some reason there is always a certain bitterness in the blooms here. Even the hungry deer, driven from their traditional trails these days by the presence of sightseers who have come to see Tinseltown, do not linger in the Canyon for very long. Though the deer venture along the ridge and down the steep slopes of the Canyon, and curiosity, especially among the younger animals, often leads them over the rotted fences and toppled walls into the secret enclaves of the gardens, they seldom choose to stay there for very long. Perhaps it isn't just that the leaves and petals are bitter. Perhaps there are too many whisperings in the air around the ruined gazebos, and the animals are unnerved by what they hear. Perhaps there are too many presences brushing against their trembling flanks as they explore the clotted pathways. Perhaps, as they graze the overgrown lawns, they look up and mistake a statue for a pale fragment of life, and are startled by their error, and take flight. Perhaps, sometimes, they are not mistaken. Perhaps. The Canyon is familiar with perhaps, with what may or may not be. And never more so than on such a night as this, when the winds come sighing off the desert, heavy with their perfume, and such souls as the Canyon hosts express their longing for something they dreamed they had, or dreamed that they dreamed, their voices so tenuous tonight that they're inaudible to the human ear, even if there were someone to hear them, which there never is. That's not entirely true. On occasion somebody will be tenacious enough to find his way into this vale of luxury and tears, a tourist, perhaps even a family of tourists, foolishly determined to discover what lies off the prescribed route, looking for some famous heart-throb's love-nest, or a glimpse of the idol himself, caught unawares as he walks with his dog.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.9.2008
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Comic / Humor / Manga
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Klassiker / Moderne Klassiker
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Horror
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Krimi / Thriller
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 0-00-730196-0 / 0007301960
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-730196-6 / 9780007301966