Book review
Written by Sam Sykes
Gollancz hardback / paperback
Release date 15 April 2010

As the leader of a pack of mis-matched adventurers, Lenk has a lot on his plate. Trying to control a human-hating Shict, a bloodthirsty Dragonman and a wizard with unpredictable abilities is bad enough, but when his crew are hired to retrieve a precious tome from the hands of indestructible demons whose ferocious power they’ve witnessed firsthand, his job goes from challenging to nigh-on-impossible...

Much like the opening scenes of a movie, the first few chapters can say a lot about a book – and the first few chapters of Sam Sykes’s debut are intriguing to say the least. Thrown into the midst of a turbulent sea battle, we meet our protagonists doing what they do best as they slash, carve and crush their way through an onslaught of fearsome opponents. It’s not the smoothest way to begin a book, as it asks us to feel the tension, violence and sadistic joy of characters we don’t yet know. As such, it takes a little while to settle into Tome of the Undergates before you come to enjoy the continuous butchery and slaughter that soak the pages. It is perfect, however, in establishing the colourful characters that are to propel the story forward as it presents them in (as soon becomes apparent) the only environment they collectively understand.

Sykes’s adventurers comprise of Lenk, a young man with silver hair who is traumatised by a sadistic intruder residing in his head; Kataria, a pointy eared Shict who sees humans as a parasite to be eradicated; and Dreadaeleon, a wizard known to set both friend and foe alight indiscriminately. Making up the remainder of the group are Gariath, a huge, red, near-indestructible Dragonman who finds anyone not of his race a major irritation; Asper, a healing priestess who doesn’t really know why she’s with the crew in the first place; and Denaos, a cowardly rogue who would rather abandon his comrades to certain death than risk a hair on his head.

It’s a hectic set-up to say the least, and one that promises a lot by way of excitement, adventure and action. Thanks to Sykes’s deftly handled prose and limitless imagination, it delivers on this promise.

Each character develops at a different pace throughout the novel meaning that some take longer to appreciate than others. Yet by the closing stages each one has established a quirky, individual persona that makes them loveable and loathsome at the same time. They continuously win us over by finding new ways to assert their own levels of depravity and corruption, creatively insulting each other and articulating various barbaric ways of dispensing one another. Sykes does well to credit each one with their own convoluted, interesting past, succeeding in evoking sympathy in the unlikeliest of places.

Possessing a style of writing that is both eloquent and well-paced, Sykes thoroughly absorbs, making even the journey of a drop of sweat more captivating than you would think possible. His demonic creations are as varied in appearance as they are in actions, destroying or devouring their foes in ever more gruesome and inventive ways. Balancing the action and the narrative impeccably, Sykes makes Tome of the Undergates a speedy read, despite its lengthy page count. Alice Wybrew

VERDICT: 9/10
With imaginative characters, a well-paced narrative and enough maiming, decapitation and evisceration to make 300 look tame, Sykes’s debut proves a bloody good read.