The Damnation Game (novel)

The Damnation Game

First edition cover
Author	Clive Barker
Genre	Horror
Publisher	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publication date	1985

The Damnation Game is a 1985 horror novel by English writer Clive Barker. It was Barker's first novel.

Synopsis

Marty Strauss is a gambling addict recently released from prison. He is hired as the personal bodyguard of Joseph Whitehead, one of the wealthiest men in the world. The job is more complicated and dangerous than he thought. He gets caught up in a series of supernatural events involving Whitehead, and a devilish man, Mamoulian, through whom Whitehead made a deal with the Devil during World War II. Whitehead is haunted by Mamoulian's supernatural powers (like raising the dead) to urge him to satisfy Mamoulian's pact. Whitehead decides to escape after several encounters with Mamoulian and after having his wife, his former bodyguard, and his daughter, Carys, taken away from him. With hope left to save Carys, Marty Strauss believes that Whitehead deserves his punishment after all and also decides to save the heroin addict from being another victim of the damnation game.

Reception

Algis Budrys praised The Damnation Game as "a masterly novel," saying that "it doesn't fail to deliver what a good horror story should," that "it delivers it elegantly," and that "come(s) to grip with the classic themes."

Neil Gaiman reviewed The Damnation Game for Imagine magazine, and stated that "Quite simply the most literate and disturbing horror novel I have ever read. This is the place that nightmares are spawned - read it at your peril, but read it you must."

Dave Langford reviewed The Damnation Game for White Dwarf #85, and stated that "Barker wrenches it with flamboyance and effective video-nasty imagery – but so violently that he strips the thread long before the book's over."

Film adaptation

On 13 May 2001 Barker planned to produce a film adaption of the novel with John Heffernan writing the screenplay for Warner Bros. and Phoenix Pictures.