By Alan Campbell
After the breathtaking start to the series that was Scar Night and the incredible cliffhanger that marked the ending of Iron Angel, I expected a lot of this, the conclusion of one of the most imaginative fantasy series to come along in ages, Alan Campbell’s Deepgate Codex. However, despite some decent set pieces, I have to say that God of Clocks is a bit of a disappointment.
In the cataclysm of the battle of the gods, a portal to Hell has been opened, releasing unnatural creatures that were never meant to be and threatening to turn the world into a killing field. In the middle, caught between warring gods and fallen angels, humanity finds itself pushed to the brink of extinction, its only hope the most unlikely of heroes.
Former assassin Rachel Hael has rejoined the blood-magician Mina Greene, on one last desperate mission to save the world from the grip of Hell. Carried in the jaws of a debased angel, they rush to the final defensive stronghold of the god of time – pursued all the while by the twelve arconites, the great iron-and-bone automatons controlled by King Menoa, the Lord of the Maze. Meanwhile, in the other direction, the giant John Anchor, still harnessed to his master’s skyship, descends into Hell itself to meet Menoa on his own ground.
But neither Heaven nor Hell is anything they could ever expect. Now old enemies and new allies join a battle whose outcome could be the end of them all. Rachel’s ally, the god Hasp, finds himself in the grip of a parasite and struggles against conflicting orders to destroy his own friends; and a dangerous infant deity comprised of countless broken souls threatens to overcome them all. As Rachel travels to the final confrontation she has both sought and feared, she begins to realize that time itself is unraveling. And so she must prepare herself for a sacrifice that may claim her heart, her life, her soul – and even then it may not be enough.
It’s not that it’s bad, I wouldn’t want to do it such an injustice, but you get the impression, after only two or three chapters, that the whole story has rather run out of steam. The characters are well established which leaves little there to develop, and unfortunately the plot doesn’t really go anywhere which leaves a lot of unexplored and/or unresolved storylines just hanging while we blindly stumble into a nicely written, but fairly hackneyed, time travelling paradox, which is fun in places but nothing new and certainly a lot less than this epic fantasy deserves, until we falter and stumble over the finish line with something of a ‘meh’ rather than the grandstanding finale I was anticipating. The other big issue for me was the dialogue which, in places, is not just lifted from the modern vernacular but is also juvenile.
If you’ve read the first two in the series then definitely read this. Campbell’s writing is still as creative and inventive as ever and that alone is enough to carry the book through but it is, for all its faults, a decent read. I think it’s safe to say that the former video game designer has metamorphosed into a fantasy author of uncommon talent and I look forward to seeing more of his work in the future.
As long as he spends more time on his endings.
God Of Clocks is published by Tor through Pan Macmillan and is available from Play.com, Blackwell and all good book stores.
Alan Campbell has a website.