Scar Night

Alan Campbell is a relatively new author and Scar Night is his first published work. I really enjoyed reading it a lot. The first half of the book largely serves as an introduction to the world and the denizens of Deepgate. We learn about physical and political structure and meet a number of key people. It is not until much later that the main plot starts to emerge. That is not a bad thing, the world is described in vivid detail while making you understand and feel at home in a city hanging by chains over an abyss. I personally have never read anything quite like it, though I'm sure someone out there could come up with examples. The character of Dill starts out as the one you'd expect to be the hero but that turns out not to be the case. Perhaps he will come in to his own in the next book, but here once the plot started moving he was overshadowed by Rachel and Carnival. I'm not even sure why now but I instantly liked Rachel when she was introduced. I'll have to go back one day and figure it out. Something about her forthright yet modest nature clicked with me, something that's never happened to me before so quickly. If there is anything to complain about it would probably be the ending. While it does have a good ending it's not really a conclusion. Obviously Campbell has had more than one story planned for this universe for a while but that gives the final chapter an 'end of part one' feeling. There are two more volumes in The Deepgate Codex waiting for me to read, I don't know if there are any plans for more. Iron Angel is next and I'm looking forward to it.