Tor, 2009, 435p

See my review of Campbell’s Scar Night for the usual caveat.

This is volume 2 of The Deepgate Codex and features characters from that book – some of whom are dead. It is in three parts which at first seem totally unrelated but do begin to interweave.

There are some startling images within its pages. A giant skyship pulled along on a rope tether by a man named John Anchor. The Iron Angel of the title, a vast mechanical construct driven by the soul of one of the characters (inspired perhaps by the Angel Of The North?) A hell where characters inhabit themselves – embodied as walls, floor and ceiling.

It was here I began to lose interest a little as the characters could manipulate “reality” at will and generate objects out of thin air. This is one of my quibbles with utter fantasy. When anything is possible how much actually has any meaning? And what jeopardy is present when people are already dead? (OK, there is, perhaps, eternal torment to avoid but is this sufficient to carry us through?) Hence my preference for SF.

The Deepgate of Scar Night, while refreshingly post-mediæval, was pre-mass industrial; yet here we have battleships, locomotives and steamboats. We also have the intrusion of a plethora of gods and their adherents. The more focused vision of Scar Night has become somewhat diffused.

What made that earlier book so memorable and distinctive was the city of Deepgate itself, a gloomy, brooding presence, hanging over an abyss from a network of chains, and the complex interactions of the characters who lived there. Since, towards the end of Scar Night, most of Deepgate fell into the chasm over which it was suspended we no longer have that unique vision to bolster the narrative. A whiff of contractual obligation hangs over proceedings.

Yet Campbell can write. Some of his descriptions are excellent and he has an eye/ear for portraying character with subtlety and a few telling phrases.

Personally I’d have liked him to try his hand at another scenario but I suspect the commercial imperative to follow Scar Night with something similar in order to please its fans weighed too heavily in the construction of Iron Angel. And, disappointingly, despite a climactic battle, this novel is not truly rounded off. The ending here is something of a cliffhanger, probably to set up the third Deepgate Codex volume God Of Clocks. (Which does have an excellent prologue. It’s printed at the back of this edition; a practice by publishers which is rather naff. I read it earlier – as a writers’ group submission. On the basis of that alone I will read God Of Clocks.)

Two fellow members of the East Coast Writers’ Group have had books published recently.

Alan Campbell’s third novel, God Of Clocks, has garnered some good reviews, notably these ones in Strange Horizons and Scotland On Sunday.

I reviewed his first novel Scar Night, here.

Poet Jane McKie’s second collection is called The Sun Is Green. Her first, Morocco Rococo, won an award for best first book.

Tor, 2006

Disclaimer. Alan Campbell belongs to the same writers’ group as I do, so you may wish to discount what follows. Nevertheless, I only saw very small parts of this book before it was published and none of it in its published form. Apologies to Alan for taking so long to get round to actually reading the finished novel but it’s another 500+ pager and time is short. I will refer to him as Campbell throughout as in a normal review.

In the city of Deepgate, someone is going about murdering people, draining them of their blood and hence their souls. Moreover, it is not the usual culprit, Carnival, who normally takes just the one victim and then only on Scar Night. The perpetrator is trying to produce angelwine, a forbidden concoction that confers resistance to wounds and, perhaps, death.

Deepgate itself is an impressive creation. It is held together by chains and is suspended over an abyss at the bottom of which a god is believed to wait to collect the blood and souls of the departed.
Because he wants to convince us of the reality of his setting, Campbell has a tendency to overdescribe at times, even if lovingly, but this is of course probably what the intended reader will most like about the book.
A minor caveat is that there is sometimes an overtone of default mediaevality about the city, especially in the importance of the church and the degree of technology, though, refreshingly, there are airships.

As you would expect from a first novel there are some infelicities scattered throughout and there can be problems with pacing but Campbell has created believable characters – Dill, Mr Nettle, Presbyter Sypes, Rachel Hael, Fogwill Crumb, the poisoner Devon – and even the minor ones all behave the way real people would in their circumstances.
However, when the inevitable happens and some of the characters descend into the abyss and others move on to the plains surrounding Deepgate the emphasis on character becomes lost and action begins to predominate. This may have been necessary but I felt it was to the novel’s detriment overall.

Campbell is at his most convincing in the earlier part of the book, depicting the city, its inhabitants and their daily lives. He may have created a rod for his own back here if his fans develop obsessive tendencies.
However, the build up to the climax is, to my mind, too rushed. (There may perhaps have been a touch of rapidly approaching publisher’s deadline about it.)
And the title is a bit askew. We experience two Scar Nights during the book’s course not just one.

Further disclaimer. A fantastical tale of this sort is not my usual preferred reading.
But there is enough good writing here to make me want to read the sequel Iron Angel.