October 2010 Leisure Horror Book Club: The Damnation Game

Last month brought the first package of horror books not published by Leisure/Dorchester in the Leisure Horror Book Club. Well, last week I got my second package from Leisure and what I feared would happen did happen. . .

I received a copy of a book I already owned: The Damnation Game by Clive Barker. I also got a copy of The Disappearance by Bentley Little which I did not already possess. I’ll continue this conversation below the book discription.

So . . . what came in the mail for me this month?

Remember, if you are interested in this book, click the mouse on the book cover or the colorful icons below the summary to order it from an online bookseller through an affiliate link.

	The Damnation Game Author: Barker, Clive Format: Mass Market Paperback Type: Horror Novel Page Count: 448pp. Pub. Date: November 5, 2002 Publisher: Berkley Original Pub: 1985 (Hardcover — Weidenfeld and Nicolson, UK)
“It was an odd disease. Its symptoms were like infatuation — palpitations, sleeplessness. Its only certain cure, death . . . “ Chance had ruled Marty Strauss’ life for as long as he could remember. Now at last luck was turning his way. Parolled from prison, he becomes bodyguard to Joseph Whitehead, one of the richest men in Europe. But Whitehead has also played with chance — an ancient game which gave him vast power and wealth, in exchange for his immortal soul. Now the forces he played against are back to claim what’s theirs. Terrifying forces, with the power to raise the dead; and Marty is trapped between his human masters and Hell itself, with just one last, desperate game left to play . . . Another Summary: Marty Strauss, a gambling addict recently released from prison, is hired to be the personal bodyguard of Joseph Whitehead, one of the wealthiest men in the world. The job proves more complicated and dangerous than he thought, however, as Marty soon gets caught up in a series of supernatural events involving Whitehead, his daughter (who is a heroin addict), and a devilish man named Mamoulian, with whom Whitehead made a Faustian bargain many years earlier, during World War II. Description provided by Wikipedia
November 2002 (Mass Market Paperback — Berkley) November 2002 (Mass Market Paperback — Berkley)

The Undead Rat’s Note:
Okay, I was worried about how I’d feel getting a duplicate copy of a horror novel in this new incarnation of the Leisure Horror Book Club — and I’m still not sure.

You see, I’d gotten my original copy of The Damnation Game decades ago when it first came out in paperback. It has the original cover with a face (of The Razor-Eater?) formed in a metal ingot. My new copy has the face of a middle aged man (I think of the face as Joseph Whitehead as it looks nothing like my conception of Mamoulian).

A new cover isn’t enough for me to consider this book different from my original copy. What did the trick is that this new version has an essay by the author Clive Barker about the origin and writing of The Damnation Game and by extension, Weaveworld.

Minutes after pulling out the books from the box, I put on my reading glasses and read the new introduction which hit one of my obsessions — I love the stories behind the writing of the story. It was new material and absolutely riviting — at least for a horror junkie like me.

So I still can’t say how I’ll feel if I get an exact duplicate of a book I already own. I’ll probably give the new copy to the library where I work. This new copy of The Damnation Game, however, is going to be a keeper.

Did anybody else get a duplicate copy in your book club? How did you feel about it?

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Tagged as: Horror Book Club