Scar Night - Deepgage Codex

Zusatztext “Campbell’s debut may appeal most to those who like novels in the manner of Dickens ... whose highly evocative ... memorable style Campbell’s recalls.”— Booklist “[A] stunning debut…. Campbell has Neil Gaiman's gift for lushly dark stories and compelling antiheroes.”— Publishers Weekly ! starred review "A chain-wrapped industrial city so real you can feel the iron and smell the fumes—and a violent tale told in murderously beautiful prose."—Sharon Shinn! author of Archangel "Vividly imagined! visceral and intensely involving...a stunning debut. I can’t wait to see what follows in the next volume."—Sarah Ash! author of the Tears of Artamon series “With undead armies! psychotic angels and exploding airships! Scar Night is a gripping! ripping yarn which rattles along at a great pace. Tether all that to the knock-out image at the heart of the novel—Deepgate! a Gothic city built on a network of chains over a great abyss—and you have urban fantasy at its best.”—Hal Duncan! author of Vellum Informationen zum Autor Alan Campbell was a designer and programmer for the internationally bestselling video game series Grand Theft Auto . Scar Night is his first novel. Klappentext Suspended by chains over a seemingly bottomless abyss, the ancient city of Deepgate is home to a young angel, an assassin, and a psychotic murderer hungry for revenge--or redemption. Soon a shocking betrayal will unite all three in a desperate quest. Original. Leseprobe Chapter One DILL Twilight found the city of Deepgate slouched heavily in its chains. Townhouses and tenements relaxed into the tangled web of ironwork, nodded roofs and chimneys across gently creaking lanes. Chains tightened or stretched around cobbled streets and hanging gardens. Crumbling towers listed over glooming courtyards, acknowledging their mutual decay. Labyrinths of alleys sagged under expanding pools of shadow; all stitched with countless bridges and walkways, all swaying, groaning, creaking. Mourning. As the day faded, the city seemed to exhale. A breeze from the abyss sighed upwards through the sunken mass of stone and chain, spilled over Deepgate's collar of rock, and whistled through rusted groynes half-buried in sand. Dust-devils rose in the Deadsands beyond, dancing wildly under the darkening sky, before dissolving to nothing. Lamplighters were moving through the streets below, turning the city into a bowl of stars. Lanterns on long poles waved and dipped. Brands flared. Gas lamps brightened. From the district known as the League of Rope, right under the abyss rim, and down through the Workers' Warrens to Lilley and the lanes of Bridgeview, lights winked on among thickets of chain. Chains meshed the streets, wrapped around houses or punctured them, linking, connecting, weaving cradles to hold the homes where the faithful waited to die. Now all across the city, sounds heralded the approach of night: shutters drawn, bolted with a clunk and snap; doors locked, buttressed; padlocks clicked shut. Grates slammed down over chimney tops, booming distantly in all quarters. Then silence. Soon only the echoes of the lamplighters' footsteps could be heard, hurried now, as they retreated into the shadowy lanes around the temple. The Church of Ulcis rose unchallenged from the heart of Deepgate, black as a rip in the blood-red sky. Stained glass blazed in its walls. Rooks wheeled around its spires and pinnacles. Gargoyles crowded dizzy perches among flying buttresses, balconies, and crenellated crowns. Legions of the stone-winged beasts stared out beyond the city, facing towards the Deadsands: sneering, grinning, furious. Lost amidst these heights, a smaller, stunted spire rose from the shadows. Ivy sheathed its walls, smothered one side of a balcony circling the very top. Only a pe...

Product details

• Authors: Alan Campbell
• Publisher: Random House USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 27.11.2007
• EAN: 9780553589313
• ISBN: 978-0-553-58931-3
• No. of pages: 560
• Dimensions: 104 mm x 173 mm x 22 mm
• Series: Deepgate Codex
• Subject: Fiction > Science fiction, fantasy