Horror's wunderkind returns with a spectacular sequel to his masterpiece of dark fantasy, The Great and Secret Show.As before, the saga of how our world commingles with the dream-sea world of Quiddity-and the wondrous, sometimes malevolent lands and beings that lie beyond its shores-provides the British author with a vast canvas on which he paints a riot of Boschean images.

So complex are Barker's imaginings-from a celestial hierarchy that toys with human affairs; a geometry in which a pyramidic city can balance on its tip-that readers new to his cosmos could use a glossary or map that, alas, the publishers do not provide.Still, most will be swept away by his marvels, begining with the horrific decimation of a party of Old West pioneers by an interloper from the parallel world of Quiddity.Grotesqueries, dazzlements and titanic battles between humans and nonhumans abound as, in the present, several men, women and creatures, many returning from the prequel, are caught up in the attempt by two corrupt men to attain the "Art," the power by which they can manipulate time and space.

Meanwhile, the Iad, a sentient force of immense destructiveness, breaks into our world on a mountaintop above the town of Everville, Oreg.But for all his facility at apocalyptic wonders, Barker's greatest strength remains his grasp on the yearnings of the heart and spirit.At times profoundly moving as flawed heroes and heroines martyr themselves to love or goodness, this novel confirms the author's position not only as one of horror's most potent and fertile minds but also as one of modern fiction's premier metaphysicians.