Reviewed by Joshua R. Parker

Alan Campbell follows up his Deepgate Codex (Scar Night, Iron Angel, God of Clocks, and the Subterranean Press novella Lye Street) with a new epic fantasy series, The Gravedigger Chronicles. The initial entry, Sea of Ghosts, is a gateway into a violent realm where magic alters everything: dragons, firearms, even the planet itself.

Colonel Thomas Granger is a military officer burdened by a legacy of death and betrayal. His unit–the Gravediggers–was mostly wiped out due to the impetuousness of his own Emperor, Hu. When Granger points this out to Hu’s court in a moment of pique, he and his men are promptly outlawed. Forced to claw out what life he can find, Granger perseveres. He smuggles himself and a sergeant to the prison city of Ethugra in the belly of a dead dragon.

Six years after going on the lamb, Granger now runs a ramshackle jail that is losing levels to the encroaching sea. The bottom floors are infested with the drown, unfortunate humans who have been altered into half-sentient sea creatures due to exposure to too much of the poisoned ocean. He supplements his jailer’s dues by salvaging artifacts of a long defeated race, the Unmer, hoping to find or fix enough to keep him fed and dry.

Two new prisoners change his life. One is a woman, Hana, who he loved briefly when he was a young man on campaign. The other, Hana’s daughter Ianthe, is a mutant who has the ability to see through anyone’s eyes but her own.

Granger realizes the vast scope of Ianthe’s power, and attempts to sell her to a mercenary group of psychics, the Haurstaff, who keep the vanquished Unmer imprisoned under the constant threat of mental torture. They also sell their insights to the squabbling seaborne warlords, taking no sides but reaping the benefit of all the world’s conflicts.

Here Granger runs afoul of Maskelyne, a powerful criminal who rules Ethugra through a combination of insight, treachery, and piles of hard currency. When Maskelyne discovers the girl’s powers, he kills Hana, abducts Ianthe, and tries to have Granger imprisoned and ultimately executed. While fighting for his life, Granger also learns that Ianthe is his daughter; he has a family just long enough for the greed of another man to rip it apart.

Eschewing the bounds of a traditional fantasy, Campbell has built a world whose foundations are being eaten away by pettiness and spite helped along with a generous infusion of science and magic. Sea of Ghosts has a distinctly post-apocalyptic flair, including cast off technologies of a defunct civilization, cobbled-together habitats and vehicles, and a reduced sense of the sanctity of life. Humans occupy a steadily dwindling landmass that is sinking beneath the brine at an alarming rate. The wrecked environment is the legacy of a war wherein men sold themselves into perpetual servitude to the psychic Haurstaff. Now every day is a struggle where the victors are confounded by the magic of those they have vanquished.

Campbell shows a deft hand during the unfolding conflict pitting Granger against Maskelyne. Both men are ultimately motivated by concern for their children. Maskelyne hopes to use Ianthe to help rid the world of the Unmer artifacts that have been magically poisoning and filling the seas for centuries. He considers it his duty to make the world a better place for his son, literally removing the dangers no matter the risk or cost.

Granger is another matter. A pure survivor, Granger’s chief virtue is his stubborn inability to accept defeat. No matter the odds stacked against him, he wades through death, destruction, and the flesh-eating brine itself.

As the two men battle through dragons, gladiatorial combat, sorcerous warriors, deadly artifacts, and a planet that is literally trying to kill them, Campbell also takes the time to show us glimpses of his world’s history. It is old, having lived through countless struggles akin to the conflict between Maskelyne and Granger.

The novel leaves us with many tantalizing issues. At what point does the price of victory become too high? How much destruction is enough to balance out the loss of a people’s freedom, their way of life? Can an individual ever realize the impact of following a course of destruction and mayhem to whatever end before it is too late?

Unfortunately Campbell fails to provide the answers to these questions, leaving off for the inevitable sequels. The build-up is phenomenal, as are the action set pieces, but the necessity for a sequel sadly robs Sea of Ghosts from the ending it so richly deserves. The world is fascinating, the characters nuanced, and in the end that will have to be enough.