The Thief of Always

Infobox Book
name = The Thief of Always


image_caption = First edition cover
author = Clive Barker
illustrator = Clive Barker
cover_artist = Clive Barker
genre = Fantasy/Horror
publisher = HarperTrophy
pub_date = 1992
pages = 267
isbn = 0-613-94064-4

"The Thief of Always" is a novel by Clive Barker that was published in 1992.

It is a fable written for children, but it has enough layers of meanings to also be enjoyed by adults. The book contains many color paintings by the author, and the cover is also illustrated by him.

Plot

The Thief of Always starts out by introducing Harvey Swick. Harvey Swick is a 10-year-old kid bored because of school, uninteresting teachers, and homework. He is bored that he thinks that he could forget how to breathe. This is when Rictus comes to tell him about a kid’s paradise, the Holiday House by casually flying outside of Harvey's window. At the Holiday house there are all of the sweets a person could ask for, the four seasons in a day, Christmas every day, Halloween every day, and everything else you could dream of. Harvey reluctantly goes to the house after a week of thinking. A man named Mr. Hood had made it all. After going through a mist wall he arrives at the Holiday House. Harvey comes to love it and stays for a month, becoming friends with Wendell and Lulu, two other kids at the house. He starts to get suspicious that the house is not as perfect as it seems, after Mrs. Griffin, the house maid, tells him that he is trapped in the house. Harvey and his friend Wendell try to escape and succeed narrowly by following a cat through the mist barrier that constantly surrounds the property of the house at night. After returning to the real world they find that for everyday they spent there, they lost a year. They both decide they have to go back to the Holiday House. Harvey and Wendell went back to the Holiday house and with a plan to get their lost time back. He knew that Hood ran the entire house on magic and that everything he saw was an illusion, simply dust and ashes. Harvey defeats Hood by tricking him into using up all his magic effectively destroying the house. He does this by wishing for as many things as he can think of as fast as he can to exhaust Hood. However, Hood rebuilds a body from the debris of the house. Hood remarks at the courage of Harvey since by this time his friend Wendell has succumbed to the House's lures and wishes to stay forever in a trance. Hood then offers Harvey, whom he calls A Thief Of Always, to be a vampire with him and be eternal. This results in a final confrontation in which Hood is knocked into the lake, which has turned into a vortex (or whirlpool) and sucks him in. The children all leave the remains of the house to go back to their respective times.

Publication

Since its 1992 publication, it has been released in paperback & audiobook formats.

The novel has been serialized as a graphic novel under the name "Clive Barker's The Thief of Always", published by IDW Publishing. The graphic novel was adapted by Kris Oprisko and illustrated by Gabriel Hernandez.

Film

A live action adaptation of the novel was negotiated between Seraphim Films and 20th Century Fox on or before August 4, 2004. [ [http://www.clivebarker.com/html/visions/new/new.html What's New with Clive?] Retrieved 2005-03-03.] According the IMDB, the movie is scheduled for release in 2010.

References