"Scar Night" by Alan Campbell

Title: "Scar Night"
Author: Alan Campbell
Pages: 560
Genre: Steampunk
Standalone/Series: The Deepgate Codex, Book 1
Publisher: Spectra

Foreword: The minute I read the review over FBC I become infatuated with “Scar Night”. It’s been forever on wish list and thankfully via the amazing and generous author Devon Monk’s giveaway I had this book in my possession, but publisher sent books took priority so “Scar Night” took a place in my never ending TBR version of the tower of Babylon. When the RIP IV Challenge finally came knocking I was able to throw all scruples aside and enjoy this one.

What you can expect: Delightful. Dark. Deviously enchanting. It’s a triple D-treat for all the people in love with lush stories set in rich, new worlds.

Pros: I found the prose and author’s expression to be vibrant, potent with imagery and as a whole quite engrossing. I adore steampunk although I am not as well versed in it as I would personally wish, so the genre is a definite plus for me. All world building freaks like myself would be pleased with the setting, culture and mindset of the people in “Scar Night”.

Contras: I am biased and blinded by all the good sides to acknowledge the existence of any problems. “Scar Night” read like magic and I easily forgot that I had to be critical and have in mind the analytical task of delivering a review. It was that good.

Summary: Finishing at 500 and something pages “Scar Night” is a bit of an epic written in third person and varying between several characters, while the setting is mainly the city of chains Deepgate. However the plot can be broken into three major story lines.

Number one follows the young angel Dill, the last of his kind and sole connection between the city and Ulcis, the god of chains, as he is officially introduced to the public and steps into his church determined role. However his peaceful life doesn’t last long and is soon thrown in a dangerous journey to the place most imaginable with Spine assassin Rachel Hael and ancient and feared angel Carnival.

Number two traces the desperate steps Mr.Nettle, an alcoholic and scrounger, makes in order to reveal the murderer of his daughter Abigail, who has been drained of all of her blood. The last story line is the hardest to relay without spoilers, but concerns Archchemist and poisoner Devon.

Characters: For a debut author Allan Campbell has smitten me with his characters and their back story. I believed each and every single person in Deepgate to be corporeal and real and just waiting to pop up from the pages. Nevertheless I had my preferences.

While the coming-of-age story of Dill into manhood and living up to the glorious past of his species was delivered almost effortlessly and I bought it, I myself never had a fascination for such a story unless the character develops some sort of super power that could top a nuclear detonation and suddenly goes rogue. Same goes for Mr. Nettle, who is an incredibly stubborn brute, but for all the sentimental reasons that do not exactly click with me. While avenging his daughter’s death is an admirable cause, I didn’t find it appealing to read so many reminders about it as frequently.

On the other hand Devon instantly became my all time favorite villain, because he is from the charming and tormented geniuses, who have the strongest logic and most rational drive to do all the dastardly deeds that he does. That character is the human version of Pandora’s box. You would expect him to have bad written all over him, but the charismatic pull is so powerful that resistance is futile. In the same line we have Carnival, who is from the tormented and driven insane by psychological as well as physical pain variety of antiheroes I particularly enjoy. Her back story I found to be most endearing and hitting hard to the heart and that’s exactly what I want from characters in fiction, making me experience their pain or happiness or personal fulfillment. Last but not least we have church sanctioned killer Rachel Hael, who in addition to being an anomaly in her own micro community is a capable bad girl, who is quite capable at surviving. A particularly fond aspect of her is her is big and fast mouth.

Mind you this is just the main cast… The secondary cast doesn’t lack the magic spark, hard work and ingenuity and offer an over all a very exotic journey. From the clergy to Deepgate’s enemies and Ulcis himself, I was never left bored.

Story: I already did a personal summary of “Scar Night”, which I think is enough about the story for its plot is an intricate maze that connects, entwines and merges the major story arcs with the smaller story arcs into a tapestry. Ordinary book dissection here is definitely out of the question.

However I still haven’t managed to rave about Deepgate… To be honest I was never visually challenged by an author. I could easily manifest in my mind’s eye whatever an author could conjure, so reading a bout a city hanging on chains with buildings being wrapped around and pierced by chains, cables and ropes both amazed and proved difficult to sketch in my mind. The end result was staggering. Campbell knows his descriptive prose, which I highly value in any genre.

The city itself is a wondrous engineering, but it’s the people and their culture, religion and mentality that breathe life, establish various shades and create dimensions to Deepgate. From the mythology that holds sacred the abyss, where their god savior Ulcis resides, and the belief that spilling blood invites the hellish maze of Iril have left their marks upon their life style, where death is hold sacred and all are living in preparation for their arrival at Ulcis’ palace of chains to serve him, to their expressions and curses as well their prejudices to certain types of professions. Naturally there are steampunk elements that mainly have been manifested via the presence of propeller airships and later on through mechanized military contraptions of epic proportions. It’s a city I would love to visit, because each day is like an extreme sport. If you are not trying to keep your balance and not fall through the streets into the abyss then certainly you are avoiding something else.

The Verdict: As you might have guessed it I love this book and plan on keeping my copy even though I like to giveaway my books to friends. I think this novel will appeal to fantasy as well as steampunk readers or those that are into more weird and darker stories that border a bit on the gothic side.

What Others have Said so Far:

Fantasy Book Critic
SFF World
Strange Horizons
Next Read
Speculative Fiction Junkie

[These are juts the ones that caught my eye on familiar blogs and online places, of which I know the quality is top notch. If you seek more opinions, Google will easily provide.]

"The Even" by T.A. Moore

Can you believe it? I am actually going to review a book… That isn’t the zombie anthology, which hasn’t been completely concluded. What boosts this level of red hot stinging shame is that actually “The Even” written by T.A Moore and published by Morrigan Books is what I like to call my soul book.

Have you ever read the greatest novel in the world? Without it being the interstellar bestseller, which changed literature and the concept of storytelling. But because the said novel resonates and synchronizes with you as a unique individual in pretty much the same fashion space pilots in Japan are in full sync with their giant Mecha transformer robots. I am not sure how much this post would be a serious attempt at reviewing or a total gush fest.

In the Even — a city built in the intersection between the real and the not —ruled by the iron whim of the demon Yekum where treachery brewed amidst the ever-changing streets. Ancients dwell in the city who have out-lived their purpose and grown jaded with their immortality. They want only to die and they will take the whole world with them if they have to: suicide by Apocalypse.

Only Faceless Lenith, goddess, cynic and gambler, stands in their way. The fate of the world rests on her shoulders and mankind did not conceive her to be wise.

“The Even” combines the qualities that I desperately seek in novels and in my own writing, which are poetic brevity, haunting beauty, a gothic underworld and a brew of known myths and legends, mutating into a creeping Tim-Burton-esque creation with a life of its own. Needless to say that reading this short novel of 162 pages is an otherworldly experience, which submerges you into a murky fluxing landscape of silent hysteria and grotesque beauty, drenched in wilted aesthetic. The author’s ability draw you into the captivating city of damnation that is the Even, filled with remnants of past, present and future with a mind of their own as well as demons and gods shunned away by fickle human beliefs, is enhanced tenfold through the ethereal and evocative illustrations provided by artist Stephanie Pui Mun Law. As a reader, I have experienced books that use illustrations to try and bring out their spirit so to say, but so far only “The Even” has been successful to lure me in completely both visually and through my imagination.

Unlike other fantasy titles “The Even” creeps, crawls and seeps through scenes, through plots to overthrow the reigning demonic tyrant, treachery, betrayal, double crossing, bribing and of course the apocalypse amongst others. The story is fairly simple and short about a former goddess of the Deathlands, who is coaxed into rescuing a soul from her former domain, but turns out to be a clever plan to end a city, which otherwise won’t ever die off on its own and eternity is enough to kill enthusiasm in exploiting every sin and debauchery imaginable. Lenith is constantly in motion, but what readers might perceive is more of the cold suspense before the monster in a horror movie makes his grant entry rather than the blistering adrenaline rush that is the usual cannon. This quality completes the whole otherworldly feel that you get by cracking the book and after the very first pages you are convinced that this novel is entirely unique.

Lenith is a solid antagonistic protagonist, who knows exactly what all her flaws are, but exploits them anyways, since eternity is too long spent in a hellish city being virtuous. She also knows that her involvement in this rescue mission is no good, but does it anyways, because what is there else to do in a city, where everything has been done before. Lenith is unattached to the citizens and knows the language of deals, bargaining, intimidation and loans, but in a city full of demons and dead gods you couldn’t afford anything else. Sympathetic also is he contrast that despite being goddess she is powerless sort of outside her domain or at least doesn’t show any abilities other than her sly scheming nature and knowledge about how things run in the Even. Aphar, the object of Lenith’s rescue, is the member of the elite and beautiful demon clan that runs the Even and is gifted by royal narcissism and pride in industrial quantities, but through the whole experience of being the tool for the apocalypse and finding that hell is outside his castle the guy becomes likeable and is pretty amusing as a spoiled brat.

Perhaps there are flaws, since all manmade creations are flawed by default, but as a gushing love and compliments fan I couldn’t see through all the awesomeness.

Additional Informartion: There is also another favorable review about the books and can be found at the "Sharp Words" and "Waterstones". [If you have a review up, scribble a comment and I will upload it.]

Once Upon a Time ІІІ

It’s that time of the year, where spring affects you in immeasurable ways, so here I am making a commitment to a three month reading challenge, but considering the fact that I am reading precisely what this challenge is about, I won’t have a problem. So with no further ado, here is the Once Upon a Time ІІІ Challenge:

fan-ta-sy: a genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting

fairy tale: a fictional story that may feature folkloric characters such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants, and talking animals, and usually enchantments, often involving a far-fetched sequence of events.

folk-lore: the traditional beliefs, legends, customs, etc., of a people, lore of a people; The traditional beliefs, myths, tales and practices of a people, transmitted orally.

my-thol-o-gy: a body of myths, as that of a particular people or that relating to a particular person; a set of stories, traditions or beliefs associated with a particular group of an event, arising naturally or deliberately fostered.

Those are genres allowed and there are 5 Quests with special demands on how many and what books to read. From all five I am aiming to manage three Quests.

Read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time III criteria. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres.

Fulfill the requirements for Quest the First or Quest the Second AND top it off with a June reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream OR a viewing of one of the many theatrical versions of the play. Love the story, love the films, love the idea of that magical night of the year and so this is my chance to promote the reading of this farcical love story.

Read two non-fiction books, essay collections, etc. that treat any one or more of the four genres covered in this challenge.

The Sandman: The Dream Hunters

Human society has this little kink to pick up people, put them on a pedestal and worship them as private gods. Business entrepreneurs wet themselves when they hear Donald Trump; young gadget pioneers kiss the picture of Bill Gates and so as you can see every social sphere has its own pantheon. I personally bow down in front several geniuses in literature as every writer in the making does. The Pantheon of Fantasy has names, which have built either the foundations or elevated the quality and reputation to a Nirvana for all readers, but there is one name, which can be spelled as magic. Neil Gaiman.

I know him to be a genius and yet I haven’t read anything, even though I posses some of his works. Now I spent the most enchanting afternoon in my life with his adapted four issue mini-series “The Sandman: The Dream Hunters”. So far I hadn’t had the chance to read anything from the Sandman world and I am not disappointed. An opinion is a subjective material and more often than not I have been disappointed from hefty praise. Neil Gaiman deserves his praise.

In the Dream Hunters we are introduced to an authentic Japanese tale with its shapeshifting animal spirits with mischievous behavior, but good hearts, the demons of the night, the countless gods and entities and a platonic love tragedy. Through manga, anime and even some prose experience I have a certain feel for all that is Japanese and I could have been fooled into believing that Gaiman is in fact native to the spirit of the land.

Originally an illustrated novella, “The Dream Hunters” tells about the love of a kitsune, a shapeshifting fox spirit, for a young monk at a small temple. When a powerful onmyoji, a Japanese mystic with diverse skills, seeks a way to chase away his own nameless fear and wishes to kill the monk in his dreams, the fox begs Morpheus for help and sacrifices her own life in order for the monk to live out of love. However the monk also shares secret devotion after seeing the fox in her human shape and dies so that she could live. Slain by anguish the kitsune seeks revenge and through trickery ruins the onmyoji and afterwards the reader is offered alternative endings to how the story can end. Will the monk and fox be together in the afterlife or not? It is up for the reader to decide.

I can definitely call this a comic book for intellectuals as it carries the distinct Japanese art of applying wisdom to any given situation with great quintessential thoughts that can be applied in our own daily life. Gaiman is a genius and P. Craig Russell adapted the novella in comic book format in quite the captivating way. I can only imagine how hard it must have been to ease a work from one medium into another and still make it work. Plus the art work is beyond words. I am not an expert in line work and color work, but from my point of view as a reader, who is on the receiving end I am with my jaw at my knees and loving it. I am probably repeating myself, but I can describe it as old style Japanese print art with its sense of tranquility.

If I have the opportunity, I will buy the novella and be swept away by the magic of it all. This is something not to be missed.