Highly Recommended Reading: 'Scar Night' by Alan Campbell

I've been meaning to read Alan Campbell's debut novel, Scar Night [Amazon] ever since I received a proof copy from Macmillan / Tor UK about a year ago, but for some reason there always seemed to be just one more book to go before I got around to it. But now I have, and I'm extremely glad indeed that I finally made the effort.

There's a distinctly Miévillean air to the setting for Scar Night: the city of Deepgate squats astride a vast and quite literal abyss - suspended from and supported by a network of immense chains, with streets made of rope and plank bridges and buildings that exist in permanent danger of toppling to the darkness below - into which the city's dead are cast, in order (so the holy books of the priests tell Deepgate's populace) to swell the ranks of an army being gathered by the god Ulcis so that he might storm the gates of heaven, overthrow the usurper who cast him down, and lead his followers to glory. It's a wonderfully gothic, sumptuously insane vision: a city driven to exist on the constant brink of disaster by the dictates of religion (read into that as much metaphor as you like).

The city - and by extension the novel - is populated by a varied cast of eclectic and fantastical characters. The prinicpals and supporting cast largely comprise: two angels (one, Dill, is a callow youth struggling to find both acceptance and a place in his world; the other, Carnival, is a periodic murderer struggling to avoid being slain for her crimes), Rachel Hael the Spine assassin (assigned to guard and train the young angel), Presbyter Sypes the Patriarch of the temple (grown old and bent over by the weight of the secrets on his shoulders), Devon the Poisoner (a twisted genius and mastermind behind the city's very worst and nastiest weaponry who is gradually falling prey to his own alchemical experimentation), Mr Nettle the net-scavenger (who loses his daughter to the abyss but vows to regain her... if only he can first find and regain her soul) as well as diverse guardsmen (red-shirts, all), aristocratic aeronauts, Heshette tribesmen (the city's ancient and implacable foe), the priests of the temple and their Spine guards (who are all 'tempered' to remove any trace of emotion... well, all but Rachel, that is) and a few more besides, whose roles are somewhat central to the unfolding of the plot, and so will have to remain shrouded in mystery for now.

The prose itself is very good indeed. Alan Campbell's writing is very easy to read, and the visuals come thick and fast. He blends character development, background information, plot exposition, atmospheric description and action scenes with with most definite aplomb. All in all, he writes with the easy, flowing style of an expressive, imaginative, confident writer; a style that's all the more impressive when you occasionally remember that this is still his first debut. If he's this good now then I look forward to reading his work in five or six books' time, by which time he should be superb.

Highly recommended to fans of China Miéville, Jeffrey Ford, Jeff Vandermeer, K.J. Bishop, Steph Swainston, Scott Lynch... you know, the usual crowd. One to watch in years to come as well, definitely, starting with the second part of The Deepgate Codex, whenever that one's due...

Author info: www.alancampbell.co.uk / anurbanfantasy.blogspot.com
Ordering info: Amazon
Publication info: May 4th 2007 (paperback edition), Tor Books, UK

June 15, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 2 Comments

On fantasy and a preference for fantastical fiction

"If more writers didn't write 'fantasy' so self-consciously and follow imagined 'rules' of the genre then the whole thing might not be so hidebound and repetitive. It should be the most creative writing around but is frequently the most conservative."

From an interview with Steph Swainston that I've just posted over on UKSFBN. She also says:

"What I find jarring in fantasy is 'magic'. It's usually a way of systemising lazy plot devices."

It's always a question of subjective taste - horses for courses, each to their own etc. - but I do have to say that over the past few years, the sort of fiction I've most enjoyed reading recently has been exactly that: fantasy in name, but without all the trappings and paraphernalia of magic, or a magical 'system': no spells, rituals, wizards, glowing swords, enchanted artefacts, elves, dwarves, dragons, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

A few examples off the top of my head: China Miéville (Perdido Street Station etc.), K.J. Bishop (The Etched City), Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies), Alan Campbell (Scar Night; which I'm currently reading and thoroughly enjoying), Jeff Vandermeer (Veniss Underground), Jeffrey Ford (The Physiognomy), and indeed, Steph Swainston (The Year of Our War and No Present Like Time)... oh, and yes, I do realise I've just reeled off a list of mainly 'new weird'-type authors. I'm obviously a mainly 'new weird'-type reader.

The reason these books are labelled 'fantasy' is the incredibly rich sense of the fantastic that they're steeped in: exotic settings sometimes utterly unlike our own mundane world, populated by esoteric and idiosyncratic characters and fantastical creatures, or entities with powers and abilities beyond those of your average mortal man; an atmosphere that's strangely alien and weirdly compelling and that opens up huge vistas of imagination to your mind's eye. All the stuff you'd presumably expect to find in the pages of any fantasy novel - and do to varying degrees - but, well, without the sound of dice rolling in the background...

Having said that, there are a number of 'traditional' fantasy authors whose work I do still enjoy - or would undoubtedly still enjoy if I actually had the time to read them - George R.R. Martin, Steven Erikson, Greg R. Keyes, Glen Cook - as well as a few new fantasy authors who are writing in a more traditional style but whose work I nevertheless have found to be very rich and satisfying, such as Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, who has a wonderful habit of twisting classic fantasy tropes until they beg for mercy) and Brian Ruckley (Winterbirth, a debut that, to be truthful, could have been enriched by the inclusion of stronger fantastical elements, yes, but promises much for volumes to come).

It all comes down to the quality of the writing, obviously, which in itself is the result of a blend of natural talent and sheer, bloody-minded hard graft; the honing and polishing of prose far beyond the "it'll do" state that seems so commonly acceptable to some. So I think Steph Swainston's point about "lazy plot devices" is especially pertinent. There are a number of fantasy authors - whose names are well know and need not be reeled off here - for whom the grazing of the cash cow seems to be much more important than the exploration of new territories, the uncovering of rich troves of concept and idea, the sheer joy of expressing an unbounded imagination. "It'll do, it's set in the same world, the same characters are back again, it's got lots of magic in it, they'll love it."

But then, perhaps you actually need a fair-sized dollop of that sort of thing to keep the genre viable. If we didn't have the cash-cow-herders churning out their same-old, same-old (to return briefly to one of yesterday's themes) to sell in vast numbers to their legions of adoring fans, then genre sections in bookstores would rapidly shrink, and publishers would lose the little leeway they currently have to bring out the more interesting work alongside the mainstream mass-market stuff.

Or perhaps it's just the way the genre market is structured that naturally lends itself to a gradual, progressive filtering process. You start - as nearly everyone starts - with the obvious, in-yer-face stuff: Tolkien, Eddings, Brooks, Goodkind, Jordan et. al. but then - and this is the important bit - you have a choice:

You can, quite happily, wallow around in the shallows for the rest of your reading life, just grazing on what's put in front of you by the booksellers and bean-counters, then move on to nothing more challenging than whatever comes along from the next batch of imitators.

Or, you can evade the nets of advertising and '3 for 2' promotions and wade a little deeper, guided by the online word-of-mouth of the brave souls who have ventured forth before you, to see what's lurking out there, amongst the reefs and rocks...

Come on in, the deep water's lovely... :)