The Aeons' Gate

Not a bad read.

I recently picked up a book called Tome of the Undergates, by Sam Sykes. I was at Barnes and Noble (a dangerous store) and saw it on the shelves. Looked like it might be decent, so I gave it a shot.

Sykes could, in my humble opinion, benefit from a new cover artist. Seriously,
are there no fantasy artists out there who can draw a person in a natural looking pose?

All in all, I was pretty happy with it. It's the author's first book, and it shows. His pacing could use some improvement (especially in the beginning), his pronouns and descriptors can be confusing at times, and he needs to think through his scenes a bit more carefully with regards to where characters are in the scene. He could also lay off the thesaurus a bit... his word choice, while diverse, doesn't always do a good job of conveying the proper mood or the correct flavor of a character's actions.

But that's the bad stuff. If it stopped there, the subtext at the beginning of this post would have read something like "stab yourself in the face before you read this book". And it doesn't. Here's why (pay attention).

His characters are a lot of fun, yet have surprising depth as well. They're memorable and distinct, both great qualities. By the time I was halfway through the book, I could give you a fairly detailed description of each one of the six main characters. And not just what they do (Denaos is a thief and a scoundrel, Dreadaeleon is a wizard), but their personality quirks (Kataria is proud and haughty, Asper is conflicted and indecisive). Not bad considering that some authors can't manage that feat for even one character despite having 5 times the page count to work with (I'm looking at YOU, Russell Kirkpatrick).

Throughout the book, he continues to develop his characters well, revealing glimpses of the backstories, motivations, and shadowy pasts behind each one, continuing to flesh them out so that they are more than just 2 dimensional (read: dry-as-dust boring) caricatures.

As an interesting twist, they are all basically xenophobic (which causes friction, seeing as how there are 3 races between the 6 of them), arrogant, and generally distrustful of each other. The only thing that really links them all together is their allegiance to their leader, Lenk. It makes for some interesting, and often hilarious, interplay. I posted a small example of this in my Facebook status the other day, and I'll repost it here...

"‎I resent you assuming that I beat the stupid out of him until he was lying in a pool of it." He folded his arms over his chest. "But, as it stands, I did."
~Gariath

That particular line exemplifies some of the interplay between the group. They're often as (or even more) busy threatening each other than they are threatening the baddies.

Sam Sykes also had a few moments of straight up genius. In one scene, Lenk and Kataria have just met up after battling an evil shark siren and a badass nether-woman, respectively...

He took a step forward, then winced to a halt. Smiling sheepishly, he extended his arm to her. "Help me?"
"Help you?" She gestured to her own wreck of a body. I fought a hulking, purple-skinned white-haired man-woman!"
He patted the severed head at his belt. "I took the skull off a three-headed shark-lady."
"She kicked me," Kataria said, gesturing to the long bruise running down her flank, "might've broken my ribs, too. This was all after I stabbed her."
"Yeah? Well, she..." Lenk looked at the head disparagingly. "She yelled at me."
Kataria stared at him blankly. He coughed.
"Really loudly."
She pursed her lips. He sighed and offered his shoulder to her.
"Fine, get on."

I quite literally burst out laughing after reading that one.

In the end, the author could use some improvement, but I think he's got potential. His story, while not overly complex, is exciting and will probably capture your attention if you give it a chance. It caught mine, anyway, enough that I'm going to go and hunt up his next book and see how it continues.