Publishing information: Paperback; 704 pages
Publisher: Orion Publishing Co.
ISBN 10: 0575090294
ISBN 13: 9780575090293
Series: Book 1 in The Aeons' Gate
Copy: Out of Pocket
Reviewer: Tyson
Back of the Book "Lenk can barely keep control of his mismatched adventurer band at the best of times (Gariath the dragon man sees humans as little more than prey, Kataria the Shict despises most humans, and the humans in the band are little better). When they're not insulting each other's religions they're arguing about pay and conditions. So when the ship they are travelling on is attacked by pirates things don't go very well. They go a whole lot worse when an invincible demon joins the fray. The demon steals the Tome of the Undergates - a manuscript that contains all you need to open the undergates. And whichever god you believe in you don't want the undergates open. On the other side are countless more invincible demons, the manifestation of all the evil of the gods, and they want out. Full of razor-sharp wit, characters who leap off the page (and into trouble) and plunging the reader into a vivid world of adventure this is a fantasy that kicks off a series that could dominate the second decade of the century."
Sam Sykes is a pretty likable guy, his tweets and interviews are witty and imaginative so, when Tome of the Undergates arrived I figured I was in for a wild ride that would be similar to what I would find similar to his comments found anywhere in cyberspace. After all, Gollancz is promoting him and his book pretty hard.
Tome of the Undergates starts at a breakneck pace with our heroes fighting off pirates who are bent on taking their employer and more importantly his property away from them. There is plenty of blood and gore within the first couple of pages. The action sequences are quite good. If lots of combat and blood is what you crave then you need look no further than Sykes. Sam knows how to write a great and intense fight scene.
The characters are a little different from what you expect we have our main protagonist a human who hears voices, an wilder elf (only called a Schict), a wizard, a dragon(man), and a female nun/paladin. Your basic load out for a fine D & D experience. The only difference is that they hate one another and can barely work together. This 'union' was odd from the get-go and I could never understand why they stuck together beyond the fact that they need numbers in their party. The constant bickering and one-upmanship grated on my nerves. They do start to get along later in The Tome of the Undergates, but there is still some back biting thrown in for good measure.
The pacing in Tome of the Undergates is a little off for my liking as well. We are thrown into the mix right off the bat, normally I like this but the scene was over 160 pages before anything started to make sense. The whole scene just felt jumbled and left me reeling. While the fight continues for what seems like forever, we finally get some idea of just what the heck is going on nearly 200 pages into the story. That was a lot of faith on my part because it just took far too long to get things going. The amount of pages dedicated to a fight between to ships covers the same amount of time another author would use to describe the combat between to city-states. Way, way too much time was used for a fight scene that should have taken a chapter or three but ended up nearly 1/3 of the book.
There is a lot of low-brow and dark humor in Tome of the Undergates and I was fine with some of it, but after a while some of it was far too juvenile for me. I teach middle school children and the last thing I need when I get done from a long day teaching kids that will not behave is to find the same in my book.
The book ends in a cliff hanger or what could be more aptly called a pause and in the end I was not shocked by it and as far as I am concerned it could be left there. Tome of the Undergates may be hailed by Gollancz as its big debut of 2010. But I found it hard to read. The characters had a lot of potential, especially Lenk. But the arguing drew me away from them all. The plot also had a lot going for it but just failed to deliver and the pacing jumped around so much that I lost interest many times as I read the book. Tome of the Undergates had a lot of potential and failed to live up to the hype. I do not see myself continuing with the series. I do see myself picking up Sam Sykes' next series to see how far he has grown and learned from his first trilogy. While not the worst book I have read this year it was no where near the best and that is disappointing as I really like the author.
Plot 6
Characters 6
Style 5
Overall 5.5/10
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