Lye Street by Alan Campbell

Lye Street is a 135 page novella exclusively available from Subterranean Press in two unique, limited editions — a fully cloth bound hardcover signed by the author (numbered to 2000) and a signed leatherbound copy housed in a custom traycase (numbered to 26). Cover artwork is provided by Dave McKean — longtime Neil Gaiman collaborator and noted CD cover artist — while the wonderful interior illustrations are done by the award-winning Bob Eggleton.

One of the best things about Scar Night was the thrilling prologue which first introduced the demonic Carnival, a deranged and immortal angel who feeds on the blood of victims every ‘scar night.’ Lye Street is the prequel to that prologue and ends just wher... Read More

Scar Night by Alan Campbell

Alan Campbell's Scar Night is the first book in a proposed trilogy (Deepgate Codex) and it’s a decent and intriguing start, though one hopes that succeeding books do a much better job of realizing the potential in the backstory than Scar Night itself does.

The strengths of the book mostly lie in its background. One is the underlying mythos: a millennia-ago war in heaven, a god who waits in the abyss below a major city as they feed him their dead (along with the dead’s souls) so he can create another army to storm heaven, a race of angels, a powerful church, a once-powerful group of heathens. Another strength is the setting — the city of Deepgate, suspended by massive chains over the god’s abyss, chains that wind through the entire city, holding up houses and blocks (or sometime... Read More

Iron Angel by Alan Campbell

I thought Scar Night, the first book in Alan Campbell’s Deepgate Codex, never really reached its potential in terms of story, character, or richness of imagination and detail. It had enough to keep my interest piqued in the series, but I can’t say I was holding my breath for book two.

Iron Angel picks up slightly after the events of Scar Night and continues the major story arc. A long-ago war in Heaven ended up with Heaven sealed, the god Iril shattered into pieces (which retain power) in the Maze of Hell, and his sons scattered and imprisoned, though most managed to free themselves and plot a return to heaven. Meanwhile, they must deal with King Menoa of Hell, who is attempting to lead his Mesmerists out of Hell into this world. Read More

God of Clocks by Alan Campbell

God of Clocks is Alan Campbell’s third book in his Deepgate Codex. It is (save for the ending) better than Scar Night, but nowhere near as strong as Iron Angel.

In God of Clocks, the Spine assassin Rachel is reunited with the young angel Dill, though his soul is now enhoused in a monstrously tall (400’ I think) mechanical construct of an angel. They are joined by the thaumaturge Mina Greene (still with her strange dog) and the god Hasp, who is also transformed (though in much different fashion) and who is carrying a mind-controlling parasite that allows him to be ordered by any of a group of people to do whatever they tell him to, making him an untrustworthy ally. They are pursued by 12 other “archonites” as they try to reach ... Read More

Damnation for Beginners by Alan Campbell

Alan Campbell has been on my TBR list for years, but I still haven’t managed to get around to reading his DEEPGATE CODEX. That is going to change soon, though, because I just finished his novella Damnation for Beginners which takes place in the city of Cog in the DEEPGATE CODEX world.

This short book is about Jack and Carol Aviso, who work as bank tellers for the greedy Henry Sill Banking Corporation. Jack and Carol know better than to keep their money with Henry Sill because nearly every day the customer account policies change and the customers continue to become further indebted to the company. Jack’s and Carol’s jobs are to explain the convoluted policies to the thousands of customers who line up daily to complain. The offices of the tellers are located in cabins in a huge cog embedded in a cliff. The cog rotates constant... Read More

Sea of Ghosts by Alan Campbell

CLASSIFICATION: Sea of Ghosts is a nautical-themed epic fantasy that reminded me a of cross between Robert V.S. Redick’s accessible Chathrand Voyage series and the grittier works of Glen Cook, James Clemens and Alan Campbell’s very own Deepgate Codex, while the book’s magic system brought to mind Mark Charan Newton and Ken Scholes. Recommended for fans of Read More