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Scar Night (Book One of The Deepgate Codex) by Alan Campbell
01/01/2008 . Source: Tom Lloyd-Williams 
pub: TOR-UK. 517 page hardback. Price: £17.99 (UK). ISBN: 1-4050-9035-9 pub Bantam Spectra. 421 page hardback. Price: $22.00 (US), $28.00 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-553-38416-1 pub Bantam Spectra. 549 page paperback. Price: $ 6.99 (US), $ 9.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-553-58931-3 . Buy Scar Night in the USA - or Buy Scar Night in the UK  check out websites: www.tor-uk.com, www.panmacmillan.com www.bantamdell.com
Hung by gigantic chains over a seemingly bottomless pit, the city of Deepgate has a precarious existence in a number of different ways. Their god Ulcis and his army of souls inhabit the pit the city hangs over, while the barren wastes beyond the city are home to their enemy the Heshette and only the city's fleet of chemical weapon carrying airships prevent obliteration. In this city lives Dill, last of the angels whose ancestors were Ulcis' greatest warriors, but he is a sheltered and feeble youth who is not even allowed to fly. When a resourceful scavenger, Mr Nettle, tries to take revenge on the demon he believes killed his daughter. The head developer of the city's chemical weapons, Devon, is engaged in his own secret plans. What he intends will turn their world upside down and could destroy Deepgate entirely; while the actions of the temple, it's military wing the Spine, Dill himself and Mr Nettle mean this all spirals out of control and cuts to the very root of their civilisation.
'Scar Night' is an engaging story and an accomplished debut. With a cast of angels, assassins and poisoners in a city of chains and it's no surprise that this is a dark, gothic-flavoured tale. Dill isn't a heroic figure, he's a straggly little boy carrying a bucket of snails around the temple and barely able to swing the sword he inherited without dropping it on his toes. Rachel, the assassin assigned to protect him is brattish and amoral. The rest of the characters here are similarly flawed but remain human. Even Devon's monstrous nature isn't a caricature, while Nettle's crazed single-mindedness is as believable as the schizophrenic treachery of the temple that rules them all.
The story is busy and draws the reader on at a brisk pace, even if the twists were pretty much exactly what I expected. The flawed religion, Dill's fears of pretty much everything, Carnival's less-than-demonic reality, it didn't ever produce any great surprises but the journey itself was fun enough to seek out the next book. The writing is good and atmospheric. It isn't the standard of China Mieville which people are likely to compare it to, but that's certainly not a reason to condemn it. I did have a few niggles, mainly concerning Dill's development over the course of the book, but they weren't enough to detract from my enjoyment of the book and increasingly look forward to my tube ride home the further through the book I got. A fine book and the start of a very promising career.
Tom Lloyd-Williams
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