Iron Angel

Deepgate Codex #2

by Alan Campbell

1st TOR 2009 trade edition paperback fine condition. In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Genres: Fantasy, Steampunk, Fiction, Dark Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Angels

466 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Alan wrote the Deepgate Codex and the Gravedigger Chronicles. He's still alive.

Reviews

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I must admit, I wasn't a huge fan of the first in the trilogy, either. I thought it was an interesting premise and setting and all that, but that the execution was a bit lacking... My sentiments only increased while reading this second of the lot. (It took me awhile to read this book, because I only read it on the train. A book I enjoy I tend to read a lot at home, too... but more than once with this book I was counting down the pages and wondering when it would start coming together... )

I think my overall impression was that it was kinda boring and slow-paced. Again there were some interesting concepts - like the description of Hell, with your soul manifesting itself around you in a room of your own sub-conscious design, which you are able to consciously gain control of...

And I liked some of the characters - particularly Hasp and John Anchor, though once again I found Dill to be kind of a weak protagonist, since he is constantl having to be saved by others. I'm hoping he becomes more proactive in the final installment.

I think my biggest complaint with this book, as with many books, is when characters either do something completely stupid or when their reactions seem less than genuine/realistic. For instance (and herein lies some spoilers):

1) When Rachel's brother gets tortured and killed in front of her she screams "No! Don't!" - but then the story immediately progresses and you don't find her having any real emotional reaction to it... not shock, or anger, or depression. She doesn't brood about it at all while locked up... Nothing.

You could argue that it's because of her training as an asassin... that she had to focus on what was happening and escaping and didn't have time to have an emotional reaction to it... but, then, it never really seems to hit her later, either - and being as she never was Tempered, you would except some kind of reaction.

2) Again with Rachel... we have her friend's body inhabited by another Archon and sent to Hell. She goes along and helps Trench with the promise that Dill's soul will return from Hell. Ok, fine... But then Trench gets acid on his wings and tells Rachel to cut them off and, again, we have no real emotional connection to it besides one throw away line about how she thought how Dill would feel when returned to his body. Again, you could argue the "trained asassin" thing... but the whole thing goes something like:

"Cut off my wings"
"No"
"Yes"
"Ok"

She doesn't try to bargain with him, to see if there's an alternative. Doesn't ask if maybe they might heal and possibly be salvaged. Doesn't hestitate when it finally comes to cutting the wings. Just a brief, seemingly tagged on moment of regret after the fact...

3) Dill's stupidity. Yes, he's a young and naive angel, sheltered from the world. But he goes to Hell and there's pages of description of how it feels to be in his room... the pain and bleeding from separately his feet from his floor... the way it feels in his skin when he walks along his floor. The way it felt when Mina Greene knocks on his window...

And yet he goes into her room, with Hasp screaming at him not to, without once thinking about what it would to do her. I mean, he knows that him/his soul/his room are all connected/one thing - and yet he never considers the implication of this for others? (Yes, it was a necessary plot device to get her in the castle with Hasp - but I hate it when characters act stupid for the sake of plot development... )

This was probably one of the things that annoyed me least and, yet, at this point I was tempted to throw the book across the room...

4) Caulker. So we meet this character, Caulker, and it's actually an interested perspective for awhile. And we follow his plans to betray Anchor and gain favor with Menoa on a rather repetitive loop... and then when it finally happens, it's totally anti-climactic. In a way I can see how it's a fitting end to this non-entity... on the other hand I would've liked a more satisfying ending for someone that whose head we spent so much time in. And I don't mean satisfying as in redeeming or anything... perhaps I would've liked his death to even be a bit more brutal and/or revenge laced... but it just felt so pointless to go over his bitterness and anger and hatred so often for such an anti-climax...


Anyway, as I said, my overall impression is that it has interesting ideas, but it's rather too slow-paced and boring. Not much really seems to happen, because this entire book - all 490 odd pages of it - is nothing but set-up for the "thrilling conclusion". The only rising action sort of happens in the last 10 minutes... and only to bring about the completely predictable ending of the 12 Archons being brought to Earth...

I will read the next/final installment in the trilogy... and I do have hope that Campbell will bring everything together in a "thrilling conclusion" - but, at the same time, I'm not expecting much...

(I may have rated it lower, actually, if it weren't for the fact that I am intrigued by the premise and that I did like some of the characters... That and I'm rather stingy with both 1 and 5 star ratings. *shrugs*)

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't really say why I went on with this volume of Campbell's. I somewhat enjoyed Scar Night. This book suffers from the same flaws only "more so". Where I wanted to follow to it's conclusion, this one was for me a bit like getting to the top of a hill while dragging a weight.

Don't get me wrong the book is fairly well written and I'm sure it will get high marks from a lot of people. In many ways it puts me in mind of (and please fans of these writers who disagree with me try not to get to angry. I will try to explain) F. Scott Fitzgerald, or John Steinbeck in that the writing itself will draw you in but the underlying "feel" or "theme" that is heavily Fatalistic or nihilistic pushes me away. It is weighed down with depression and fatalism. Unnecessary in this world believe me as it sort of exuded some of that as a basic story point. I have little patience with nihilism and have never enjoyed writings based in it. (While I have hunted and sometimes enjoy hunting stories this also ruins a lot of Hemingway for me.) So, while maybe Campbell may not be quite a Hemingway, Steinbeck or Fitzgerald there is that "feel".

So I don't plan to follow this particular series any further along it's trail. Finally, I didn't read this one in detail. I read very little after my realization that it was, in my opinion "more of the same". I skimmed and read enough to see how it worked out. I won't say much on that, as a spoiler on top of a disappointed review might be too much. My dislike was based as much on disappointment as anything else. The first book had some promise and (for me)this seems (again as I said before) just "more of the same" in that, I've seen it before.

So, enjoy if it's your cup of tea, it's not mine and I have only a certain number of reading minutes and hours allotted to me on this Earth. I'm starting to use them more carefully.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 2 out of 5]

How useful is an angel when you trap its soul in Hell, cut the wings off its body, then stuff the soul in a giant mechanical simulacrum of an angel? We find out in Iron Angel, the sequel to Scar Night.

There was a brief period of time at the beginning of Iron Angel where it looked likely to eclipse Scar Night, perhaps even earn four stars. As I continued reading, both those possibilities became less and less likely. Scar Night has much that this book does not: a fascinating setting, an interesting antagonist, and a suspenseful story. By dint of Alan Campbell's writing, Iron Angel manages to scrape by with two stars.

What redeems much of Scar Night is its fascinating setting, the suspended city of Deepgate. Combined with the eponymous ritual enacted by Carnival, this at time created an atmosphere of suspense and perhaps even dread. Deepgate has this alien but vaguely familiar nature; I picture some sort of dark, overrun Victorian London hanging above a massive pit. For a series entitled "the Deepgate Codex," however, it seems like we're destined to spend little time in Deepgate from now on—Iron Angel takes us to the other side of the world!

Campbell fails to create a new setting worthy of Deepgate's legacy, and without such a place to tether the narrative, the book quickly becomes unwieldy. Hell almost serves this purpose, and Campbell's attempts to portray that transformation of souls into walls, floors, doorways, weapons, etc., was a little creepy (in a good way). But Iron Angel doesn't come close to providing any replacement for Deepgate. The characters are always in motion, always trying to get somewhere, and the book fails to convince me that they're going to accomplish anything in their journey.

I had reservations about the protagonists of Scar Night, and Campbell does nothing to mollify me in its sequel. Dill and Rachel are still useless at doing anything they try to do. It's actually amazing to watch. Combine this with the mess of antagonists in the book, and the story becomes what I'm going to call "frustratingly unfocused."

So we have the "gods," who at some point were cast out of Heaven, which is now sealed away. Dead people go to the Maze/Hell and as food for the Mesmerists, who are led by King Menoa. The exception would be Deepgaters, who mostly got fed to Ulcis; their souls now reside in the blood of Carnival (but that's only tangential to the story at this point). I give credit for Campbell's attempts to inject moral ambiguity: not only is King Menoa evil, but the gods are nearly as bad:

"If his creatures win, mankind faces the same oblivion Ayen sought to bestow upon us."

"And if you win," Cospinol said, "mankind faces slavery."

"A kinder prospect, surely?"

The talking head there is Rys, who's younger than his brother god Cospinol but a much bigger jerk. So both the gods and the demons are out to get humanity! Lovely.

This presents a problem, however, because it raises the question: for whom should we cheer? Clearly neither Menoa nor Rys will be gracious victors, although the book seems determined to steer us into Rys' (or at least Cospinol's) camp. Who has humanity's back? Rachel and Dill? They're incompetent at everything, even at just trying to run away from the conflict! If these two are our only hope, then I say just throw in the towel now, because humanity's done.

Rachel tries very hard, and for this Campbell punishes her by ignoring her for the middle part of the book. We follow her from Sandport to Deepgate and then to Cospinol's ship; after that we completely ignore her until she reunites with Dill during the novel's climax.

Dill, on the other hand, is about as opaque as coal that's been dunked in black paint. We get a very limited sense of how he's dealing with being pulled out of Hell only to get sent back to Hell, this time while his corporeal body gets possessed (and Rachel lifts not a finger to help exorcise Dill's body, I might add). For all that Dill arrives in Hell inhabiting a room that is his soul, I still have no idea what's going on in his head. He just seems eternally bewildered and/or determined, as if he has a switch and those are his only two states of being. He doesn't so much make his own decisions as do what others tell him to do (Rachel has the same problem, but at least she volunteers before she's ordered, so she makes it look like it's her choice).

So there's all this pressure on the protagonists, and they just aren't up to the job. Campbell has created this wonderfully messy conflict, but it's all dressed up with no one to resolve it. I don't care if Rachel and Dill do wind up saving the day in God of Clocks —right now, as it stands, they are not believable saviours. Fantasy, by its nature, gets a wider leeway when it comes to suspension of disbelief. Hence, when you start having problems with believability, you need to step back and rethink things.

That's the bottom line on Iron Angel. It feels more like a first draft than a finished draft, and I wish it weren't the finished draft. There's a sliver of potential here. And Alan Campbell is, for the most part, a good writer. I quite enjoyed his description of Hell, of Cospinol's airship, and his portrayal of John Anchor. It's these small things that earn Iron Angel another star, so I'll grudgingly give it two, and I have a feeling I'll ask my friend to loan me the final book, if only so I can confirm my hope that it doesn't get any better. You might disagree, and that's fine; for me, however, Iron Angel doesn't pass muster.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

Iron Angel by Alan Campbell is a case where sometimes too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. This book is the sequel to Scar Night, a novel that is a glorious steam punk mash filled with demons, angels, and clockwork machines. In Scar Night, we get treated to a truly amazing setting (Deepgate) that is as much of a character as our actual heroes. In this one the setting is much larger, vast, an epic adventure. It goes from the gates of Hell to far off countries like Pandemeria.

I have to confess that I am very biased as this type of novel thrills me to death. I could read novels like this one non-stop. Iron Angel's epic adventure is actually overshadowed by the sheer power of the city of Deepgate from the first book. I longed for the fully realized setting in this book, it is a truly grand creation.

Even though our cast from Scar Night returns to this book, they actually take on the smaller roles. We are treated to a much larger and colorful cast of Angels, Demons, and Constructs...


““My master.” Anchor tipped his head back. “God of brine and fog, pearlmaker and pirate in Heaven. Ayen’s shipwright and captain of the Rotsward. So many names, eh.”


The writing of Campbell's is much the same as in book one. It is colorful, detailed, and very imaginative...

“Deepgate lay to the west, now half a league behind the airship. Torn and burning in a thousand places, the city hung in her surviving chains like a great blackened funnel over the abyss. Swathes of the League of Rope quarter had been reduced to a smouldering crust, or had crumbled entirely into the pit below, exposing further webs of chain. Ash swirled between the metal links. Fires raged out of control in the Workers’ Warrens, in Ivygarths and Chapelfunnel, and on the fringes of the Scythe where vast rents could be seen among the shipyards. Gases poured from ruptured aether vats and from the coal gas depositories around Mesa’s chain, forming ochre and white layers between docking spines and buckled gantries. Trunks of black, red, and silver smoke uncoiled from the Poison Kitchens, feeding the expanding clouds above, while the city below lay veiled in crimson vapors. The sun glimmered faintly, a copper-coloured smudge."


Another example:


“The Mesmerist ruler stood beside the parapet of the sweeping red balcony, gazing out across Hell. The crimson sky smouldered behind him, casting liquid shadows across the smooth ridges and indentations of his black glass helmet. He stood about nine feet tall today, more or less the same height he’d been since Harper had been in his service, yet his glass armour warped gradually as light and shade passed over it. Even as Harper watched, Menoa’s breastplate flowed, changing from the face of a catlike beast to the grimacing visage of a hanged man. Spikes grew out of his shoulder plates, and then shrunk back inside again, as though following the rhythm of his breathing. His gauntlets rested on the parapet before him like huge dark claws.”


This story moves along very quickly, so much so, that it is easy to become a bit lost. The new characters are all great, but there is simply too much going on to ever become connected to them. I especially liked John, our rope tied giant of a man with a bag of soul beads at his hip and a burden like no other. Dill returns to this one and he plays a major role in the events of the world.

If you like stories that take place in Hell, and that are filled with Angels, Demons, Monsters, and clockwork constructs, and also features strange creatures and magic, then this is a series for you. Campbell has created a dark and twisted steampunk world that will have you wanting more. This series is reminding me so much of the Noreela series by Tim Lebbon(A favorite author of mine). I highly recommend this series to fans of the genre and the subject matter...great stuff!

[Michael Cattigan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read Scar Night some years ago and noticing it and it's sequels online, I downloaded them.

I had memories of the city of Deepgate, suspended over an Abyss like the gaping maw of some vast creature (urban planning council had a lot to answer for!). I recalled a scarred feral angel whose monthly bloodletting was simultaneously vampiric and werewolf-like.

It was a bit of a shock then that Deepgate had collapsed into the abyss entirely and the scarred angel Carnival appears to have been dispatched within two pages of her reappearance. The main protagonists remain Rachel and Dill but they have now become separated at a metaphysical level: Dill, having sort of died and been reborn in Scar Night is dispatched to Hell once more in Iron Angel as another angel usurps his body; and his body and Rachel disappears into obscurity for the central section of the book.

In my view, this novel suffers from typical mid trilogy issues. The original novel did hint at a wider mythology but was firmly rooted; this novel expands on the mythology often using dialogue to expand develop and explain it to us readers. And in the process, character and empathy is lost. It is like Campbell zoomed out from a manageable citywide focus to a continental one in which we just lose sight of characters - even the ones he doesn't kill off. Those that remain do so in an utterly passive state: they are placed into a scenario and wait there for another character to tell them what to do. It is a rather frustrating read!

On the plus side, there is a potent imagination at work here. The descriptions of a Hell (or the Maze in the book's mythology) created out of our own souls was intriguing and the fluidity of form in Hell both in the malleability of the world around the characters and on the characters own forms (bodies is patently the wrong word but the dead tend to retain the form of their erstwhile bodies) was fascinating.

In conclusion, I think Campbell's own games designing Grand Theft Auto background is visible here. He is a world builder, his backgrounds and settings have potency; but I do not think he is character driven and, consequently, nor is his novel and for me that is a huge let down.

[Hanzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Two of the Deepgate Codex, ahhhh......more angels and the relationship to each other becomes clearer, Ayen Goddess of Heaven warred with Iril, resulting in his shattered body thrown to earth and landed in Hell, Iril wasn't alone when he challenged Ayen, he was accompanied by his sons, most notable among them, Rhys, Cospinol, Ulcis, Hasp and others, each god coming out of the war lessened in power.

Book 2 was about the remaining Gods plight after challenging and losing to Ayen, their machinations to get back their lost powers, also here we see the new heir to the throne of hell Menoa, his plans, and his overwhelming victory against the shattered gods, further stories of Dill, Rachel and some new characters namely John Anchor, Cospinol's champion, the capture of carnival, who killed his own father Ulcis.......a thaumaturge by the name of Mina Greene, An engineer of the king of hell, Harper, and my new favorite character, the youngest of the gods, Hasp.

Again, the relationship between characters was as muddled as the first book, but the story Was'nt as slow , now I'm really eager to read the last book.......where's Devon????

[The Tick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first part of this book. I found the second part less interesting (except for the setting--I liked the descriptions and the atmosphere there). The third part was downright confusing and difficult to follow, though, and by the end I'd hit that magical point where you keep reading just because you want to finish the book even though you have no idea what's going on anymore. I'd be interested in maybe reading something unrelated to this book and Scar Night but I'm not invested enough in the characters and world to read the third book of the trilogy.

[Doug Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one fell apart a bit, turning from an inspired race across Hell to a trifle of a "Murder On The Orient Express"-esque ending. Main characters were hard to find and harder to keep track of, the pace was jerky and the plot more convoluted. Despite all that, it hasn't deterred me from finishing the trilogy.

[Christy Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite part was when that dog got kicked to death.

Five stars.

[Metaphorosis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent a good part of the predecessor, Scar Night , trying to decide whether the book was fantasy, or SF disguised as fantasy. There were indications of the latter, with 'angels' having fallen from 'heaven' in a technologically advanced vehicle ('the Tooth'). This book, however, steams ahead with straightforward fantasy approach, if with more engineering than usual.

Scar Night was very much about the hanging city of Deepgate, and one of my criticisms was that the city, while intriguing, was poorly described. I felt the story was intriguing despite that flaw. This second book is very much about hell/the Maze/Iril, and the politics of both hell and earth. Unfortunately, all of this is again poorly described. It's generally easy to follow what's happening in the main plotline, but hard to follow the geography of both the Maze and its connection with the earth. There's a similar problem with exactly how the whole soul mechanism works, though this is a key element of the story. The politics of the various infernal and earthly factions I found equally vague, though again it was easy enough to keep track of 'good' and 'bad'. Finally, there were a couple of jarring temporal shifts, though they were well marked with section breaks. All in all, unfortunate flaws that mar a quite interesting story.

All of the structural issues aside, Iron Angel fulfills much of the promise of Scar Night, if in unexpected ways. The focus shifts from Deepgate to Dill and some other characters, as they become enmeshed between gods (Ulcis' brothers) and darker forces. I personally found the story less interesting, not being a fan of military campaign fiction, but it was well laid out, and there's more than enough human, personal matter to keep character-oriented audiences going. It's unclear where the story will go next, which I count as a good thing, and I look forward to a lot of solved mysteries and tied ends in the last book of the trilogy.

All in all, a reasonable if not stellar steampunk fantasy, and one that gets points for an original environment and story. Worth continuing from book one, if you can put up with a little vagueness. I'd give it 2.5 stars, where Scar Night was a solid 3.

[Phantompickles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite my ambivalence towards the first book, the end intrigued me just enough that I decided to continue on to the second. I really shouldn't have bothered. This book has the same problems as the first, only worse. One-dimensional worldbuilding, distracting prose, extraneous character POVs, and horrible pacing. The concept of Hell is really fascinating, and it's too bad that the author squandered it. The only characters I felt even a little invested in were 1)John Anchor 2)the Heshette leader whose name I can't recall and 3)Hasp.
All that is bad enough on its own, I could've managed just boredom fine. But this book made me uncomfortable. For one, Caulker, an unabashed racist who has no reason to be in the story past the first couple of chapters, has several POV chapters where we get to spend time in his head with his lovely opinions about the Heshette and their lack of humanity. And then there's Alice Harper, whose casual misogynistic treatment by others just... Ugh, I honestly would've stopped reading there and then if I wasn't so close to finishing. I suppose the author felt the need to be EVEN ~EDGIER~, and the best (i.e. laziest) way to achieve that is obviously through racism and misogyny. It's not particularly egregious for the fantasy genre (unfortunately, that's not a high bar), but it pushed an already subpar book into the territory of awful for me.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps where Alan Campbell really went wrong was with the destruction of Deepgate. That fabulous, monolithic, gormenghastesque city goes crashing into the Abyss at the start of the book (no surprise to those who have read book one) and with it goes AC's greatest invention, touchstone and hub around which the rest of the story could revolve.
What's left feels like a hastily cobbled together series of half-baked ideas. There is a confusing battle between the Gods, an incredibly boring trip to Hell and then suddenly we're involved in Murder on the Orient Express for no good reason I could find. Despite some great writing and ideas the book doesn't add up to much of a story at all. The 3 parts of the story are equally underdeveloped and directionless and there is a real sense that the writer is just making it up as he goes along. Perhaps it's because it's the 2nd book in the series and it's main aim is just to move the situation from A to B or perhaps AC was suddenly under pressure from his publisher to get the next book out on time. Either way it's a terrible waste of a potentially brilliant world and I don't think I'll be reaching for the 3rd book in the series any time soon.

[Wild Waters · Rating 1 out of 5]

Somewhere there must be people who like a book like that. Unfortunately I did not belong to them and since I actually enjoyed the first book in this series, it was a huge disappointment for me to see the material and ideas somehow fall apart.
There was too much senseless violence, blood and slaughter for a not very interesting plot wrapped in a fantastical and old, and yet at the same time over-the-top technological world. Engines are as present as swords.
Characters were nothing more than roles and the awkward dialogues felt like a necessity to fill the silence and try to give the characters something else to do than travel and fight. I did not find a connection to anyone at all and the reading was more like a torture, but I never left a book unfinished so far.
Maybe video game fans will like the set up more but in a game you can interact and shape the story yourself. In a book descriptions and action scenes alone will not make a story compelling. Things need to be coherent. I will definitely not pick up the last book in the series and cannot recommend anyone to really read this one. Shame.

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

Scar Night was an intriguing dark fantasy set in an unlikely but well-realized milieu. I enjoyed it very much. However, this second volume shows such a drop in quality, both in plot and writing, that it barely seems part of the same story. So little actually happens in this novel that I wonder if it was written merely to pad the saga out to a trilogy, just because that's the standard. (I notice that the typeface is larger than that used for the final volume, though there is not a huge difference in page count.) There's a lot of walking. Walking through the desert, walking through ruins, walking through this world's version of Hell. The genesis of the title entity is probably meant to be shocking, but by the time it happened I just didn't care. I was bored, and I didn't like the character anyway. I'll probably read the finale (I have the book already anyway) but if you haven't gotten this far, just read a summary somewhere. Don't bother with this one.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really freaking cool. Campbell just gets it. His imagery is amazing, John Anchor should go down in history as a classic unforgettable character, the White Sword battle was also classic and hilarious. This one didn't have the big "start up" section the first book did (which is good) but it did ramble around a bit leaving some "main" characters out of the picture for 100 pages or more. I guess one other bad things is that it does end with a cliffhanger. Fortunately for anyone reading it now, the next book is already out (and I think maybe one more after that?).

Highly recommended for anyone into dark, bloody, slightly disturbing fantasy.

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eughhh. Not great. But hard to hate it because of some truly original concepts contained in it.

But it went on a little long. I mean, c'mon let's all just admit we're here to find out about the huge fucking steampunk angel skeleton on the cover. But *he* doesn't show up until (seriously) 90% of the way through. Until then, we've got to follow this fantasy web of brand new "gods on earth" tropes and Hell tropes, that make varying degrees of sense.

[Juan Navarro · Rating 2 out of 5]

It takes a fall after Scar Night, it tries to cover to much with too little . The gods and Dill's journey in hell are confusing storelines that doesn't explain a lot but let's us connect the dots after re-reading a lot of times. I don't understand the "living" and "dead" status in this book but Menoa can kind of revive you with the form he wants. Also very unlikeable is Carnival's reduced storyline, the badass scarred angel from the first novel is beaten like she was a rag doll.

[Stevenivan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Painful. Simply painful. The first book in this series was borderline enjoyable. The characters are well written, but the plot is jerked around hither and yon. I wanted to enjoy this book, but it was a tough road. To give you a frame of reference, a book this size is normally a day's reading. Iron Angel took me
Several weeks. Ouch.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This sequel is MUCH darker than its predecessor, and has a completely different focus. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed it. Not for the squeamish though. This is fantasy for the hard-hearted.

[Gav]

This is going to be a struggle this review. Not because I don’t want to write it or that I didn’t like the book instead it’s going to be purely down to how hard it’s going to be make sense of what I’ve just read and make it into a coherent review.

Lets start at the beginning. Iron Angel is the second book of a trilogy. The first book, Scar Night, introduced us to Deepgate, and the the battle-archon Dill. By the end of Scar Night all hell had broken loose, literally and Dill was safe enough and in hiding with his rescuer, Rachel. I loved Scar Night for its focus on the relationship between Dill and Rachel and the whole world of Deepgate.

In Iron Angel Campbell is really unleashed. He no longer needs to rely on Dill and Rachel to lead us gently into his imagination, instead he gives us his own unique form of Armageddon. Hell is flowing up into the world and its master is determined to shape it in his own (un)godly image. But he isn’t the only god and they don’t seem to share the same vision. At the start they agree they need to stop Menoa from escaping the red mist to be free in the world. So the gods send in the Cospinol, god of brine and fog to stop him.

Dill and Rachel do appear at the start but are then split up and if you enjoyed seeing their relationship develop then you’ll be disappointed. They still have a central part in events of Iron Angel but they have completely different roles. And it’s Dill that you continue to feel sorry for.

Not that there is much time to reflect.

From a slow start Campbell really ramps up the assault keeping the ideas and action flowing. It does become disorientating. Not so much because of Campbell’s ideas but through uneven storytelling.

I can understand why he pulls focus and misses out intervening scenes but sometimes after spending so long building the scenes before it feels odd to just land again with so much happening in between. And there are a couple of examples where what went on in-between is likely to have been more interesting than the details building up to it.

As odd and occasionally frustrating experience this is it doesn’t diminish from the overall effect.

Instead what you get is two different perspectives. One from thief and liar Caulker, who accompanies John Anchor herald of Cospinol, as they quest to find Dill and Rachel across the world. The other view is from Haper, and engineer who can reshape souls, who who shows us hell and Menoa’s unbending will.

It feels fresh and unlike a lot of generic fantasy – it’s almost gothic steampunk in places. And for all those overflowing ideas and rounded characters that are neither good or bad but shaped from experience as well as abandoning the confines of Scar Night, Iron Angel is a brilliant achievement.

There is a sense that it should have been more even and well paced and focused but it’s hard to untangle and reshape this creation but you’ll be happy if you stick with it. I’m more than happy to get stuck in to God of Clocks.

[Adam Whitehead · Rating 3 out of 5]

A devastating conflict between the defenders of Deepgate and the Heshette tribes has left the city in a precarious position, but the Spine priest-assassins are reluctant to let the civilian population flee. Former Spine operative Rachel Hale and the temple archon Dill are on the run, whilst the fallen angel Carnival has vanished. But, from the pit under Deepgate, a strange mist is rising...

On the other side of the vast eastern ocean, the continent of Pandemeria has served as the battleground between the armies of Hell and those of the surface world, led by Ulcis' brothers. With their brother MIA, the rest of the family dispatches Cospinol, god of brine and fog, and his immortal champion John Anchor to investigate and seal the rent that Carnival and Dill accidentally created, before the world is destroyed.

In Iron Angel, the sequel to Scar Night and the middle volume of The Deepgate Codex trilogy, events take a turn for the Biblical. The armies of Hell are gathering and key characters from the first book are revealed to have major roles to play in the struggle to come. Characters from the first book, most notably Carnival, are unfortunately sidelined, but some of their replacements, like the superbly-realised John Anchor, more than make up for the lack.


The biggest difference between the two books, and Iron Angel's biggest weakness, is the lack of a milieu to rival Deepgate. A large chunk of the book is set in Hell and whilst it is vividly described, we are firmly in the traditional post-Dante vision of the underworld (with a dash of mid-1980s movie Labyrinth thrown in for good measure) more thoroughly explored by the likes of Gaiman (in the Sandman graphic novels) and it has to be said that there's a bit too much over-familiarity in this sequence. Also, whilst Dill grew a pair at the end of Scar Night and seemed to grow as a character, Iron Angel throws him back into ultra-nervous emo mode and he lost my sympathy and became a figure of pity before the halfway mark of the book. There's a notable lack of focus in the book as well, with the earlier sequence depicting John Anchor's mission, the central Hell section and the conclusion (which opens with an unexpected take on Murder on the Orient Express) not quite hanging together as a cohesive whole, although the three sections are individually compelling.

Things do come together at the end of the book, and Iron Angel's vast final battle redefines the meaning of 'epic', with events culminating with a powerful cliffhanger ending which redeems the weaker sections of the book and leaves the reader eager to press on to the final volume, God of Clocks.

Iron Angel (***½) is a mixed bag which eventually overcomes its problems to deliver a readable and entertaining tale, although the measured pace and rich worldbuilding of Scar Night is sadly missing. It is available now in the UK and USA.

[Alex Mullane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I maybe enjoyed this slightly more than the first, but it’s become very apparent that Alan Campbell has a wealth of dazzling ideas but not quite the skill to put them into a cogent story.

There are a lot of great concepts here – one character goes to Hell and grows the environment around him from his own soul, becoming both the room and its inhabitant simultaneously – while there are some fun, larger-than-life characters introduced – a superhumanly strong and good-natured man, tethered to a rope that’s attached to a huge sky-ship, which he hauls around from the ground is the stand-out.

Other elements don't work so well, such as another new character who isn’t given much development and changes role/physical form so often that it’s impossible to get attached to her. Or there’s the attempt at a weird-fantasy Agatha Christie/Murder on the Orient Express section, which feels like it was probably far more amusing to Campbell than it is to the reader.

He just seems to throw ideas in as he comes up with them, regardless of whether they’ve had groundwork laid, or will ever be referred to again, or have any real significance whatsoever. And so even when these episodic bursts are successful, it doesn’t lend the series as a whole much narrative coherence, and inevitably such a scattershot approach provides mixed results. Plus, there’s still Campbell's tendency to get bogged down in stodgy description.

Still, I appreciate the level of imagination here, and I’m certainly not sorry I’m reading, as there a lot of great moments, I just wish it was a little better and more well-rounded as a whole.

[Danielle R · Rating 2 out of 5]

What happened here? I loved the first book so much. The world was really interesting and I loved the city of Deepgate. I enjoyed the characters across the board, even the villainous poisoner and the priests. Unfortunately, this book feels like it's written by a completely different person.

Instead of spending our time in Deepgate with Rachel, Dill, and Carnival dealing with the fallout from the last book, we instead go on a road trip with Rachel and "Trench." We eventually meet John Anchor, who is very cool and pulling a floating boat with a trapped God on it, but Anchor has some random cutthroat tagging along with him. Jack Caulker took one look at this ageless monster of a man pulling the God's boat and thought, "Yeah, I can totally steal his wallet of Soul Pearls." Only Caulker is surprised when fighting Anchor goes exactly as expected.

The introduction of Mina, a blood magician, and her demon was kind of random. Hasp was interesting, but he lost me with how strong he was followed by a time skip where he's been enslaved by Menoa. Then, we have Alice Harper who somehow manages to get more attention than Mina, Hasp, and DILL of all people in the second half. Why? She was part of a rebellion and then Menoa enslaved her and after the time skip, she's dead but out of Hell? Just... why?

The pacing was a mess. We spent the entire first half of the book with Rachel doing interesting things, but the whole second half was Dill having a bad time in Hell and then being punted aside to mope around with Harper.

I already bought the third book so I'll be continuing the series, but this is so disappointing after how much I liked the first book. 2/5

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel combines elements of high fantasy, steam punk, and body horror.

What Alan Campbell does well is world building. While Scar Night (the first novel in the series) mainly focuses on Deepgate (this big city suspended over a big pit), Iron Angel really fleshes out the world around Deepgate while also briefly returning and describing the aftermath of the events of Scar Night. It covers the nearby: dessert, town, and chemical waste forest. It covers some faraway countries. And about 1/3rd of the novel takes place in hell.

Campbell is a bit hit-and-miss in other regards. While some of the characters I found very interesting, others felt very flat/bland. Some of the combat scenes are very well done, while others didn't really read well. I think my main issue with this book is the pacing. It has some notable lulls, often feels choppy, and overall doesn't flow that great - but this doesn't make it unreadable.

If you like assassins, angels (non biblical), demons (non biblical), giant steam punk style automatons, Gods who are sort-of mortal, just rich vividly described fantasy environments in general, and are looking for a fantasy novel that isn't about wizards, elves and unicorns - you'll probably like this series. I would recommend reading Scar Night before reading this one. But despite the fact that there are references to Scar Night, Iron Angel's plot is separate enough to be read as a stand alone novel. So you don't have to read Scar Night to understand what's going on.

[Costin Manda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Iron Angel starts where Scar Night left us. Even if the scope of the story now expands tremendously, doing credit to the author's imagination, I didn't feel so good reading it as I did Scar Night. Frankly, I don't know exactly why. It may have to do with the several character groups in the plot, which we follow separately for quite some time and that I know are bound to encounter each other or influence each others destinies. When that fails to happen for a long time, I get nervous. Also, while the description of hell was very nice, I found it difficult to swallow.

That doesn't mean it is not still a brilliant story, just that it seemed to falter a little in the middle. Now, almost close to the end of God of Clocks, I can say that the quality will improve, at least as measured from my own level of pleasure, although it doesn't get close to Scar Night yet.

I love that Alan Campbell really worked on his characters, making them very different to the formulas we are used to see in the field. Heroes are cowardly and impotent, women are strong, gods are flawed and some characters are simply likable even if they don't see reason and exist for the sole purpose of physical revenge.

I can say that God of Clocks is at least intriguing, although I have to ask myself if the author didn't bite more than he can chew with the new concepts involved. Anyway, that is another post, coming soon on a blog near you.

[Andrea Zanotti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sono trascorsi diversi anni da quando lessi Il Raccoglitore di Anime, primo volume della Saga di Deepgate di Alan Campbell e devo confessare che non ricordavo fosse così affascinante.
E’ probabile che i miei gusti siano nel frattempo mutati, ma ho trovato questo secondo volume, Il Dio delle Nebbie, eccellente. Soprattutto mi ha colpito la varietà dei personaggi e l’originalità dell’ambientazione. Non è poco, direi!
Le vicende coinvolgono infatti oltre ai poveri mortali, creature angeliche, demoniache, mesmeristi, taumaturghi dai grandi poteri, divinità più o meno fuori di testa, e commistioni fra tutti questi, capaci di dar vita a soggetti unici, innovativi, carismatici e ricchi di fascino.
Inoltre, quando ci si mettono di mezzo bizzarre deità capricciose io vado in brodo di giuggiole.
Mi piace osservare come i diversi autori facciano reagire i mortali al cospetto del capriccio divino, visto che ne tratto abitualmente nei miei romanzi.
Per tornare a Campbell non posso che esprimergli la mia stima più convinta e lo consiglio a ogni lettore curioso di scoprire un mondo finalmente nuovo e ricco di peculiarità ben studiate.
Quella di Campell è una trilogia fantasy weird nel senso più intimo della parola, con elementi horror, dark e stempunk, mescolati in modo certosino e capaci di lasciare il segno. Recensione completa: https://www.scrittorindipendenti.com/...

[Phil Leader · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first novel in the Deepgate Codex trilogy, Scar Night, explored the immediate surroundings of the suspended city of Deepgate. This second entry follows the fallout from the battle of Deepgate as the balance between the powers of the world realign themselves.

As with Scar Night, Campbell's imagination creates some stunning characters and imagery; the Soft Men, John Anchor, a nightmarish journey through hell. The descriptions are extremely evocative, the whole having a sort of Gothic Steampunk feel to it.

This is, however, weaker than Scar Night, partly because there is just so much Campbell is keen to show us that the detail gets lost, and at times the story grinds to a halt for some lingering descriptions of something that although interesting has no real bearing on the story and just means momentum is lost. The result is unfortunately a bit of a mess.

Not a bad book by any means, but a case of an author's enthusiasm for their own creations reducing the focus on developing an interesting and coherent story.

[Kristýna Obrdlíková · Rating 3 out of 5]

Na tuhle knížku jsem se pár let těšila. Než jsem se na ni vrhla, přečetla jsem si ještě jednou jedničku, abych si to připomněla (a je to vcelku dobrý nápad).
Jestli Zjizvená noc byla temná, tak Anděl je černý jako samo peklo. Dante by se tu dovedl slušně inspirovat pro to svoje. Kniha stojí na prostředí, které je strašlivé, beznadějné a hmatatelně odpudivé. Člověk slyší všechny ty trpící duše. Bez problému knihu posadím vedle Veniss Underground.
Co jsem nezkousla, je práce s postavami. Mám k nim nějaký vztah, ale ten se tady nedá udržet. Ani děj se tu kdovíjak neodehrává a navíc se připojuje syndrom druhého dílu - končíme před tím, než se něco fakt důležitého semele.
Třetí díl, pokud vyjde, si nejspíš přečtu, ale nebudu ho očekávat tak nažhaveně.

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book jumped around and did not do it smoothly. Often without any transition. Also the book got mired down in way too much description, details of the surroundings and got caught up in emotional gobbledygook thereby hampering a pace of the action and the story. I found myself skipping over past whole sections and zoning out in others not paying attention to what I was reading. This book could have been completed in far less than four hundred plus pages. The ending sucked in that it was a terrible cliffhanger with no resolution to the conflict underway or sense of hope or the future for the main characters.

[Shelby Denison · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a phenomenal continuation of the series! This book ramps up the intensity, delivering non-stop action in a dark and gritty horror fantasy world. The storytelling is wickedly engaging, and the evil lurking around every corner makes it impossible to put down. I was thrilled to see connections to the novella *Lye Street*, adding extra layers to the plot. If you love your reads dark, twisted, and thrilling, this series is a must-read!