Fantastic first half with Alan Campbells' typical rich world building and jaw dropping visual set pieces. It seemed to suffer in the middle sections, as some of the previous novels, with directionless sub plots seemingly designed just to move characters around for the end game. Much like Deepgate, in Scar Night he creates a mesmerising and exciting setting - the half drowned prison city of Euthugra in this case - and then abandons it half way through. However; a brilliant climax which I wish he had dwelt on a little longer and automatically 4 stars for having a bad guy with a secret trapdoor, scene. Fabulous! ( )

This book blew me away, mostly thanks to its excellent worldbuilding. In this world, humanity was formerly enslaved by the Unmer, a race of evil sorcerer types. When the Unmer were overthrown by the Haurstaf, an order of human telepaths, the Unmer threw millions of magic bottles into the ocean, enchanted to constantly spray out poisonous brine that turns human skin into "sharkskin," and ultimately renders those fully immersed in it into the Drowned, a sort of aquatic mindless zombie.

It's a bleak world that the author portrays, and bleaker still since it's apparent that everybody is too busy caught up in their own agenda to do anything about it. Aside from that, it feels like a complete world, full of interesting tidbits. Everything from the mysterious magical Unmer artifacts to the use of dragon/monster bones in construction, right down to the way people dress or cook their food, feels like it was carefully considered and makes perfect sense for the world they live in. That, and these nifty details come hard and fast, so I was enthralled by the worldbuilding throughout.

The characters are kind of a mixed bag. Granger is a super badass and capable of McGuyver-ing his way out of tough scrapes, but I don't really get why he risks so much to save Ianthe. Speaking of Ianthe, she's another major POV character, but aside from her unusual powers, doesn't offer much beyond the typical endangered child protagonist. My favorite character was the sadistic Ethan Maskelyne, a sort of scientist/wizard/antiquarian who's also quite the psychopath.

The plot is a real masterwork. The pacing may be a bit slow right before the middle, but overall it moves at a good clip and never left me bored. Like the worldbuilding, everything about the plot fits together perfectly. No scenes are wasted. Everything serves a purpose, and everything happens for an established reason, more often than not as the result of another character's actions.

Overall, I think I like this book in particular because it has many of the elements of the New Weird, i.e. weird magic, extensive, anti-Tolkienesque worldbuilding, a sick, dirty world in the hands of irresponsbile sadists, etc. without being yet another urban steampunk fantasy. Sea of Ghosts fits right in with the New Weird, but very much carves its own niche. If you like China Mieville's Bas-Lag series or Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris series, you need to read this. ( )

Fantastic first half with Alan Campbells' typical rich world building and jaw dropping visual set pieces. It seemed to suffer in the middle sections, as some of the previous novels, with directionless sub plots seemingly designed just to move characters around for the end game. Much like Deepgate, in Scar Night he creates a mesmerising and exciting setting - the half drowned prison city of Euthugra in this case - and then abandons it half way through. However; a brilliant climax which I wish he had dwelt on a little longer and automatically 4 stars for having a bad guy with a secret trapdoor, scene. Fabulous! ( )

well. something went wrong there. i mean take a bit of Mieville, along with a bit of Asher straight out of Spatterjay world, add an idea or three, and it should add up to something, shouldn't it? maybe the pot got overstirred and the contents muddied, or something - it has the dead weight of about three radical rewrites too many. the characters don't come alive, the ideas seem overexplained, there's no throughline and no momentum. the emphasis on nasty, brutish, and short is so unrelenting you have to wonder, given the state and prospects of the world (and worldview), why they bother to go on. perhaps it's a study in devolution? yeah, let's go with that, it kinda covers all the ground. still, what you can see of what might have been gets it that extra half a star. ( )

I usually avoid fantasy, but I picked up this book because a) Martin Lewis recommended it, and b) the cover art features a deep sea diver. There’s some interesting world-building in this, and a nice line in wit, but the thinly-disguised discussions on quantum mechanics wore thin very quickly, and the unnecessary brutality was also a little wearying. I enjoyed it, but I don’t think I’ll bother with the sequels. ( )