Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Gates: A Samuel Johnson Tale
    The Gates: A Samuel Johnson Tale
    The Gates: A Samuel Johnson Tale
    Ebook301 pages4 hours

    The Gates: A Samuel Johnson Tale

    By John Connolly

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    • Good Vs. Evil

    • Friendship

    • Demons & Supernatural Beings

    • Courage & Bravery

    • Parallel Universes

    • Demonic Invasion

    • Fish Out of Water

    • Unlikely Heroes

    • Demonic Possession

    • Portal Fantasy

    • Portal to Another World

    • Supernatural Creatures

    • Haunted House

    • Serial Killer

    • Ancient Evil

    • Parent-Child Relationships

    • Mystery

    • Supernatural

    • Supernatural Occurrences

    • Demons & Supernatural Creatures

    About this ebook

    Bursting with imagination and impossible to put down, this “wholly original” (People) and “refreshing” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel from New York Times bestselling author John Connolly is about the pull between good and evil, physics and fantasy—and a quirky boy, who is impossible not to love, and the unlikely cast of characters who give him the strength to stand up to a demonic power.

    Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund, Boswell, are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Halloween, which is how they come to witness strange goings-on at 666 Crowley Road. The Abernathys don't mean any harm by their flirtation with the underworld, but when they unknowingly call forth Satan himself, they create a gap in the universe, a gap through which a pair of enormous gates is visible. The gates to Hell. And there are some pretty terrifying beings just itching to get out...

    Can one small boy defeat evil? Can he harness the power of science, faith, and love to save the world as we know it?

    Editor's Note

    Good vs. evil…

    When one boy and his dog stand at the gates to hell, all manner of magic, chaos, and adventure is released in this highly imaginative tale of good versus evil.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtria Books
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9781439173053
    The Gates: A Samuel Johnson Tale
    Author

    John Connolly

    John Connolly is the author of the #1 internationally bestselling Charlie Parker thrillers series, The Book of Lost Things and its sequel The Land of Lost Things, the Samuel Johnson Trilogy for younger readers, and (with Jennifer Ridyard) the Chronicles of the Invaders series. He lives in Dublin, Ireland. For more information, see his website at JohnConnollyBooks.com, or follow him on X @JConnollyBooks.

    Read more from John Connolly

    Related to The Gates

    Titles in the series (3)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    YA Fantasy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      A Year in Reading: Paul Tremblay

      Dec 3, 2020

      For the first time in weeks, I was swept along into that trance, that magic inner space where stories live. The post A Year in Reading: Paul Tremblay appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Just Trust Me: In Praise Of Strange Books

      Dec 23, 2017

      Author Victoria Schwab says she loves the books that can't be categorized, that fall between library-shelf categories, and that spark passionate debate among readers who either love them or hate them.

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Walking Wonder

      May 16, 2024

      A Sixteenth-Century Automaton and its Legend Elizabeth King & H David Todd Getty Publications 2023 Hb, 246pp, £40, ISBN 9781606068397 This is a fascinating and beautifully illustrated book about an astounding little piece of machinery, just 16 inches

      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Books

      Oct 10, 2022

      Books
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Nine Haunting Postapocalyptic Novels

      Feb 3, 2022

      The paradox of imagined apocalypses is that they’re always more about the present than the future. Here's a list of a few haunting and evocative titles. The post Nine Haunting Postapocalyptic Novels appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The 10 Strangest Dystopias

      Oct 7, 2021

      With the daily news seeming apocalyptic and standard dystopias feeling a little tame, Lincoln Michel breaks down some of the strangest dystopian novels. The post The 10 Strangest Dystopias appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Bourne To Run

      Feb 24, 2022

      Bourne To Run
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Bourne To Run

      Feb 24, 2022

      Bourne To Run
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Books

      Aug 28, 2023

      Books
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Five Non-Fiction Books for Writers in an Emergency

      Jul 14, 2017

      I read non-fiction books that I thought might indirectly tell me something about fiction, even though they were really about something else. The post Five Non-Fiction Books for Writers in an Emergency appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Letters

      Nov 5, 2020

      Sadly, the wonderfully prescient quotation from Samuel Pepys [FT397:70], “A dram in exchange for the pox is an ill bargain indeed,” is not by the great diarist, but from a spoof Twitter account. (https://londonist.com/london/books-and-poetry/samuel-p

      13 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Terrify Yourself with These Ten Horror Novels

      Jun 19, 2019

      A list of books so scary you definitely won't keep them on your nightstand. The post Terrify Yourself with These Ten Horror Novels appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Miscellaneous

      Apr 3, 2024

      Hamish Hamilton, 160pp, £18 In The Spectator, Robert Adès found that in this ‘collection of seven new, loosely associated essays… two stand out in their brilliant use of the dialectical psychoanalytic method (otherwise known as the old switcheroo, or

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Letters

      Jul 15, 2021

      Regarding ‘Hunting Bigfoot’, in “Creatures on the Loose” [FT405:26]: adopting Justin Humphrey’s position on the reality of Bigfoot, surely one would be required to establish its nature before designating it a suitable subject for the huntsman. If it

      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Spectre Of The Past

      Jan 25, 2024

      The Spectre Of The Past
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Descent Into Nothing

      Sep 30, 2024

      The Descent Into Nothing
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Book Reviews

      Nov 28, 2019

      Book Reviews
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The World Of Writing

      Jul 4, 2024

      I’ve just read an amusing book called 1000 Unforgettable Senior Moments by Tom…uh…Friedman. It contains excerpts from people at all walks of life. Whereby I thought I might be going senile, I realise that among writers, artists and composers, absent-

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Jay Kristoff

      Sep 8, 2021

      MOST NOVELISTS HAVE AT LEAST ONE book in a drawer that represents an early effort, a text that will never be offered up to a wider readership. In the case of Jay Kristoff, this book was a tale of bloodsuckers he wrote in 2008. “It was right at the ta

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Man Of Letters And Warm Coats

      Nov 1, 2021

      Man Of Letters And Warm Coats
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Magic Realms: The Art Of Fighting Fantasy

      Sep 4, 2024

      ▸ RELEASED 5 SEPTEMBER 345 pages | Hardback/ebook ▸ Author Jonathan Green ▸ Publisher Unbound Deathtrap Dungeon is 40 years old this year. If that stat sends a shiver down your spine, this coffee table book celebration of the Fighting Fantasy range m

      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Gates

    4/5

    106 ratings42 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a pleasant and easy read with a great and fun story. The dry British humor and high-level physics are well-explained and add to the experience. The book has a nice mix of humor and horror, with some laugh out loud moments. The involvement of CERN and the Large Hadron Collider is a neat idea and the science references are great to read. Overall, it promises to be interesting and a really fun read.

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      In a small town called Biddlecombe, an unusual little boy named Samuel Johnson and his loyal dachshund Boswell see a strange sight. In a basement located on 666 Crowley Road, a group of bored suburbaners are attempting to open the gates of Hell.

      While that may not be surprising to anyone who has lived in a suburb, what is surprising is that they manage to succeed. It's up to Samuel (and some very confused scientists at CERN) to stop the End of the World as We Know It.

      John Connolly impressed me with his Book of Lost Things, and he did not disappoint with The Gates. The story blends quantum physics with theology, sneaks in a dozen references (the Renfields, for instance, or streets named Stoker or Lovecraft), and some truly funny characters.

      Overall, it was very reminiscent of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (with a dash of Douglas Adams) - the footnotes, particularly, but also the irreverent take on the apocalypse. While sometimes it does veer toward the more juvenile - by which I mean more simplistic than sophomoric - there were a few lines that made me laugh out loud, and the overall story was a delight.
    • 5/5
      A fantastical book with heart, and humor that makes the book zip by so that it's an effortless read.
    • 2/5
      Once again, I find myself reviewing another Connolly novel (this being the 5th novel of his I've read - only 7 more to go).

      Departing from his signature character Charlie Parker for only the 4th time in his career, Connolly offers up a tale of Hell on earth. The story follows that of ambitious 11 year old, Samuel Johnson of Biddlecombe, England as he attempts to beat the crowd and go trick or treating 3 days before Halloween. While moving door to door, Samuel stumbles upon 666 Crowley Drive (a bit cliched, but works), interupting a plan to summon Satan by it's inhabitants. Due to a malfunction with the Large Hadron Collider, a small burst of energy escapes and tears a hole in the time space continuum causing a portal to open between Earth and Hell in said home. Samuel witnesses the events and his appearance is caught by one of the demons escaping through the portal. The particular Demon in question has to juggle the termination of Samuel and the preparation for the arrival of Satan himself.

      Relying heavily on a very dry, very British wit, Connolly offers up what many are calling his first fouray into young adult fiction. Littered throughout the novel are various footnotes and diagrams offering up tidbits of information and trivia as well as explaining certain talking points in the novel. Connolly implores this with a very different sense of humour than usual, probably much to do with the subject material as he's usually writing darker stories.

      A predictible ending nonetheless, Connolly plays it smart and leaves it open for a potential sequel. While I did enjoy the book, I find that Connolly does much better with Parker or darker subject material. The novel itself was a fun and enjoyable read, I'd recommend it to most as the characters created are likeable and memorable.
    • 3/5
      Nurd made this book, his character was fantastic... I wish there was more of him in it. Not as good as "The Book Of Lost Things" but still entertaining. His dark humor shines in this book but I felt the characters weren't as developed.
    • 4/5
      Samuel Johnson is a young boy who witnesses his neighbors opening the gates of hell and being possessed by demons. At the same time, scientists notice a glitch in the Large Hadron Collider, and a random demon named Nurd finds himself popped back and forth between our world and his. I really enjoyed this one. It combines the dark wonder of Neil Gaiman with the British absurdity of Jasper Fforde. I'll definitely be reading the sequel.
    • 5/5
      Another great novel by John Connolly. If you enjoyed The Book of Lost Things then you will love The Gates. Quirky and full of laughs, this book is not to be missed by lovers of fantasy of all ages.
    • 5/5
      This book actually kept me riveted much longer than I expected, and I really enjoyed Connolly's footnotes and commentary throughout. I thought it was humorous and just adult enough not to put me off (though good for YA readers as well). I did not realize when I first read it that it was a series, and wondered where Connolly would take it after the initial book, but kept on just the same because in truth, The Gates was a fun little romp of a book for me. The main character was slightly annoying, but I found that realistic enough, as many children his age seem to be annoying and pretentious. Still, I really did enjoy the book overall, and would certain recommend it to anyone favoring the fantasy/horror genera.
    • 3/5
      This book cute in a way. The story was fairly good and the humor was great. I had quite a few laugh out loud moments. The horror element was really well done. If a young reader reads the book they can be grossed out by the descriptions but it’s not anything terrible. I liked the involvement of CERN and the Large Hadron Collider. I thought it was a neat idea using science to open the portal to hell. The science references are great to read and it was nice to learn something new from a book like this. John Connolly doesn’t disappoint.
    • 5/5
      Just a great and fun story. It's a quick and easy read.
    • 4/5
      Nice story although Boswell could have played a more dominate role. Can’t do anything more extensive since today’s version of the app doesn’t show what’s at I’m typing.
    • 5/5
      I may have a few nightmares because of it but this was a really fun read. Loved the author's style!
    • 5/5
      Promises to be interesting. I understand that I can read it for 14 days for free?
    • 5/5
      The dry British humor hooked me in and from there, the book was pleasant and easy to read. There was some high-level physics involved but it was explained well and does not detract from the experience.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      test

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      An enjoyable read about a boy who along with some friends have to save the world from Hell.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      LOVED this story! Thought it was so adorable and it was just an amazing story. I love John Connolly's other than suspense/mystery novels. I hope he writes more they are just so perfect. I loved the writing style, the foot notes, and the characters. The chapter titles will have you giggling to yourself too. A good, quick, easy read which will have you smiling throughout.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This book is chock full of cheeky brit humor. It was a fun listen and I found that I could not put it down...despite it's malevolent undertones.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      I was blown away by John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things, a journey into the land of darkly twisted fairy tales, so I had high hopes for The Gates. This one is distinctively juvenile fiction, humerous and light-hearted . . . and there's not a thing wrong with that, but I can't say that it grabbed me. Samuel is a precocious young boy who, with his loyal dog Boswell, discovers that the neighbours have a portal to Hell in their basement, and have been taken over by demons. I was very aware that Connolly was trying to write in the style of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, he even tries to do their humerous footnotes, but he sort of pales in comparison. Partly, I think it's because he overdoes the "funny footnote" thing, and partly because Adams and Pratchett already did it and did it better - also, Connolly sometimes comes off as weirdly condescending. There's also nothing that new or interesting about a young boy fighting demons and monsters. The inclusion of CERN and the Large Haydron Collider is an interesting touch, but as amusing and timely as it is, I had trouble suspending my disbelief enough to buy the whole particle-escapes-from-the-collider-and-becomes-a-portal-to-hell thing.I don't know, maybe I'm being too critical, I think if I were a child I would find this a fun book, but as an adult I'd pick Hitchhiker's Guide or a Discworld novel over this any day.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Rating: 3.25* of fiveThe Book Report: Samuel Johnson and his dachshund Boswell are on an early trick-or-treat run, demonstrating initiative by beating out the competition or so Samuel thinks. Boswell sighs a lot. I think he knows. They go to the Abernathys house, and Mr. Abernathy (a miserably unhappy self-help book writer, married to Satan...no, seriously!) sends them on their way before rejoining his horrifying wife and two of their revolting bores of friends.They are summoning a demon for fun and, maybe, profit.Trouble is...heard of CERN? The quest for the God Particle?...no one ever thought that maybe, just maybe, it was the DEVIL particle....My Review: The world is saved from enslavement and destruction by a nebbishy little boy. Does this ring a bell? It's less portentous than the Harry Potter books, more like an extra-long boy-centric episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.It's amusing and it's a charming way to spend a few hours. If it changes your life, you didn't have much of a one before. If the next installment somehow makes it through my door with no effort whatsoever on my part, I'll get around to reading it. About the best I can say is that I chuckled every half-hour or so.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I really should have posted this review for this weekend, but I didn't get it done in time. Wow, let's just say if it had played out like the book, we'd (well, most of us) have been in Serious Trouble.So much to love in this book, but I'm afraid that when I try to describe it, you'll think it just plain sounds insane. If you've read The Book of Lost Things, you're familiar enough with Connolly's work to take it on faith (so to speak) that this will be worth reading. If not, this is a weirder but more accessible place to start. See, it starts with a seance, the Large Hadron Collider, and a small boy named Samuel Johnson and his dog Boswell. Then it all goes to Hell from there. Pretty much literally.I don't want to give more away. There are spoiler reviews out there, but I think that's enough right there to decide if this book is for you or not. It's stinking hilarious, if you have the right sense of humor. You can't be easily offended and you much enjoy the absurd, but as far as religion goes - I am a religious person and I still thought it was dang funny. I'm giving it 5 stars and I totally loved it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Acquired: Received a review copy from Simon & Schuster Canada.Reason for Reading: I've always wanted to read this author and this sounded like a fun book to start with.This is Connolly's first children's/teen book. It can be gross (in a demon/monster sense) and the language is a high level, not written down to anyone so I personally would recommend the book to teens even though the main character is only 11-years old. This book is humour at tongue-in-cheek's finest. Connolly takes stabs and jabs at all concerned and you need to be able to laugh at yourself and not take offense to appreciate this type of humour. Think Christopher Moore, but clean! without the profanity or sex. Seriously, the book is a riot.The story involves Samuel Johnson who just happens to see his next door neighbour and some friends conduct a ritual in their basement which opens a portal to Hell and brings forth four of The Great Malevolence's top demons who take over the four unfortunate participants' bodies to prepare the way for his arrival to take over the world. What ensues is comic slapstick, witty repartee and just plain silliness, but it is full of demons, death and Hell, so not for the squeamish either.I love Christopher Moore and got the CM vibe right away as I started to read so settled down for a comedic ride. If you are expecting thrills and chills this is not what you'll find here. The most endearing character is a down-on-his-luck demon named Nurd who has been shunned by the other demons and finds himself mysteriously zipping back and forth between our world and Hell. Once he is here to stay, we find out he is lovable in a stray mutt kind of way and he helps Sam who happens to be targeted for death by Ba'al, the GM's number one in command.A fun book, which certainly made me smile, and giggle a few times. Not exactly laugh out loud funny, like Christopher Moore, but a good show nevertheless. The book ends obviously hinting at a sequel and a bit of searching shows me that a sequel has been released in the UK this month (May, 2011), Hell's Bells. I'll be keeping my eyes open for it's appearance this side of the ocean.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Young Samuel and his trusty dachschund Boswell witness something they shouldn't - the Gates of Hell are opening. Let the fun begin! This is a quirky & often laugh out loud funny 'ohno stop the apocalypse!' read (reminds me of 'Good Omens' by Gaiman/Pratchett). It's fairly light and fast so a great read for summer.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I love me a little humor with my demons and end of world type books and The Gates delivered on that promise. This is my first Connolly book but I’ve picked them up before thinking that a fantasy thriller might work for me. It did, and now I can say it won’t be my last either. Samuel Johnson is an enterprising 11 year-old. Instead of waiting for Halloween and having to fight the crowds, he decides to start trick or treating a few days early. Unfortunately for him, his mildly brilliant plan doesn’t work out the way he intended. Instead of loads of candy, he sees something in the neighbors’ basement that makes him believe his neighbor, Mrs. Abernathy, is now a demon. He soon finds himself attempting to convince his mother and friends that not only is Mrs. Abernathy an actual demon but that more demons will be arriving very soon through the portal that now exists in the Abernathy’s basement. No one wants to believe Samuel the end of the world is nearing which makes for an amusing little apocalypse tale. Don’t pick up this book and think it’s a dark one; it’s actually a really funny take on the usual end of the world scenario and I enjoyed it quite a lot. There’s some slapstick here --- even the dog gets in on it at times --- and random jokes laced throughout reminding you what you’re reading isn’t serious. And that’s good! I wanted a break from my normal reading which was starting to feel heavy and this came along at the right time. One particularly amusing character in the book is a demon named Nurd who was banished to a flat, deserted world with a little annoying fellow as his only company. Somehow he ends getting sucked into Samuel’s world and befriends him. You see, Nurd is a nice demon looking for a friend to connect with. His little adventures, especially his one driving a Porsche, are a good interlude and I do wish there had been more time featuring Nurd. What can I say, if you’re looking for a small break in your regular reading pattern, pick this one up. Connolly didn’t disappoint and thanks to this book, I plan to pick up more of his work.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I happened upon this book at a local bookstore in the "these books have pretty covers" section. Not really, but rest assured I had no idea this was a YA book until I read the GoodReads reviews.That being said I honestly don't think I had this much fun reading a book in a while. I'm not a fan of footnotes so the first chapter I was slightly annoyed. I admit, I thought the book was going to be your standard "Satan graces us with his presence/Hell on Earth" problem however it was a pleasant twist from that. Actually it was a comical departure and definitely a unique take on the situation. First the book delves into the "science" of such a comical descent. Who knew that the Large Hadron Collider could be responsible for opening a portal?! I laughed so much because let's face it, you hear about the LHC and the enigmatic Higgs and if you're like me it's incredibly interesting. But having it inadvertently create a portal for the demon scourge of the underworld? Fantastic.The book is comical throughout, lending itself to teaching along the way. With bits about science, philosophy, and psychology, you're in for an amusing ride. Samuel and Boswell along with the friends that they've got and the people they meet along the way to saving all of mankind is a wonderful blunder all the way through. Seriously this books reminded me of a bit of Good Omens but I honestly laughed out loud at certain points. It's worth the venture.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Spookily brilliant, sweet and funny with a bite! Connolly has created a delightfully normal young protagonist in Samuel who decides to show initiative by trying to trick-or-treat 3 days before Halloween -- and stumbles upon a very spooky house indeed! The house that opens the Gates to Hell... Can Samuel and his patient pet dachsund save themselves and the world?! Great for all readers, ages 10 to 100!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I absolutely loved and adored John Connolly's fairy-tale for adults fantasy novel The Book of Lost Things. Due to my sheer love of that book, I expected to love The Gates as well. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I spent the majority of the book in like with it. Meaning, I thought it was okay, but nothing to write home about. The main thing I did actually like about The Gates were the silly demons, especially Nurd. I adored Nurd. While he wasn't exactly cute and cuddly (He is a demon after all), he did have that "kicked puppy" attitude that made you want to hug and cuddle him. I thought his friendship with Samuel was the greatest thing in this book. It was so aww-worthy. It was certainly much better than the half-assed attempt to make Samuel have Harry Potter rip-off friends. I also did the philosophical and religious discussions that came up every once in a while. They were very intriguing and I loved that Samuel asked those kind of questions even if they really aren't the norm for eleven-year-old boys. And that is the extent of my likeness with The Gates. I guess my main problem with The Gates was that it took a while for me to get into it and even when I was into it, I didn't have a strong desire to pick it back up once I had to put it down. Sure, while I was reading The Gates, I was semi-enjoying it. But once I had to put it down, I tried to rationalize my way out of picking it back up. Maybe it was the endless footnotes (even though these were the most interesting parts of the book) or the sort of patronizing way Connolly speaks to the readers when it comes to the meanings of "difficult" words. Or maybe it was the fact that this is clearly a young adult novel, but is categorized as "Adult Fiction" and therefore has the price of an "Adult Fiction" book when it really should have the price of a young-adult book (which are much cheaper especially if you're comparing Hardcover prices). But either way, I just couldn't love this book. So, I thought The Gates was just okay. I did chuckle out loud through some parts, but it wasn't that guffawing, laughing out loud kind of book for me. I thought it was pretty cute and I'm sure the younger set will love it, but (and I am so shocked about what I'm going to write considering my love for Young-Adult books. Seriously, check out my bookshelf...) I thought that The Gates was just a tad bit too juvenile for me. From the description of the book, I expected a dark, creepy, adult tale that was mildly funny. But I didn't get any of that except the mildly funny. Oh well. I'll still read whatever Fantasy book that John Connolly publishes in the hopes that it'll be half as good as The Book of Lost Things.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Enjoyable, but a bit too childish for my taste. But of course it was meant that way.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The Gates by John Connolly had me laughing and reading bits and pieces out loud to my husband for the entire book. Yes ... there are demons, witchcraft dabblers, The Great Malevolence, mayhem, and the possible end-of-the-world. I know these are not typically characters and topics that one would think of as funny, but in Connolly's hands they are screamingly so. It helps that there is a narrator who pops in, mainly in the footnotes ... Let me stop here for a moment and discuss the footnotes bit. I find footnotes to be quite distracting and usually do not appreciate them in my fiction. Heck, I can hardly stand them when I'm reading scholarly material, but I understand the necessity in that venue. But the footnotes Connolly writes into The Gates add to the hilarity. I couldn't help hearing the musical jingle from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fade in and out as I read the footnotes. I also couldn't help hearing the narrator's voice from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when I read the footnotes. I can probably attribute this to the fact that in both Hitchhikers Guide and The Gates the narrator is trying to explain the outrageous that really can't be explained. So, what I'm trying to say is that I didn't find the footnotes to be a distraction at all and thought they made the book even funnier. Anyway, moving on from the footnotes ...Young Samuel Johnson is a little boy that you can't help but love. He is rather nerdy, wears thick glasses and tries really hard to please people. For instance, he thinks he is showing initiative (and don't adults love it when kids show initiative?) by getting a head start on the Halloween night crowds and going door-to-door three days early. Instead he simply baffles the adults who misinterpret his actions as obnoxious or, at the very least, see him as a bit daft. So when Samuel witnesses the beginnings of an invasion of earth by a horde of demons he has a difficult time convincing the adults that he is not just a little boy with an overactive imagination. YES! Impending doom! The end-of-the-world is coming! Caused by the intersection of the supernatural and science (this is where the Hadron Collider comes in; really, you just have to read it)!Can little Samuel Johnson and his dog, Boswell, save the world?

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The Gates introduces us to Samuel Johnson and his beloved dachshund Boswell. Samuel is a strange boy who likes to confuse his teachers and dreams of getting his soon-to-be-divorced parents back together. In order to get a leg up on all the other kids during Halloween Samuel goes trick-o-treating two days before only to witness the gate to Hell opening up at 666 Crowley Road due to the rituals the owners playing at devil worship while at the exact time the Hadron Collider is working on the other side of Europe. No one believes poor Samuel that the end of Earth is near, demons are trying to kill him and that the neighbors are Satan’s minions. No one except Boswell and his friends Maria and Thomas. The book becomes a keystone- cops type of comedy, with the minions of Hell being roughed up and a lower entity demon - Nurd, The Scourge of Five Deities - becoming a lovable figure which I hope we’ll meet again.Even though I’m not the target audience for this book, I found this book hilarious (dry English humor), enchanting, and brilliant and wonderfully told.I even learned a thing or two along the way.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Here we have a different John Connolly - one who can make the reader laugh as well as thrill and horrify. In 'The Gates' (Samuel Johnson Versus The Devil : Round 1) we are introduced to a small boy called Sam and his faithful dog Boswell. They have to defeat the Devil and his demons,when due to a miscalculation by a group of scientists,the portal of Hell is opened. However help is at hand in the form of a minor demon called Nurd,who is rather partial to fruit gums and fast cars.Some of the jokes along the way are very funny and the only small fault is that the footnotes tend to slow the pace somewhat. (but you can always skip those)Of course this is a book written for older children but why shouldn't adults have the enjoyment of reading it too.Just an extra point in that I must say that I much prefer my cover (The one showing the Devil's mouth as Hell's portal) to any of the others shown.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    The Gates - John Connolly

    I

    In Which the Universe Forms, Which Seems Like a Very Good Place to Start

    IN THE BEGINNING, ABOUT 13.7 billion years ago, to be reasonably precise, there was a very, very small dot.¹ The dot, which was hot and incredibly heavy, contained everything that was, and everything that ever would be, all crammed into the tiniest area possible, a point so small that it had no dimensions at all. Suddenly, the dot, which was under enormous pressure due to all that it contained, exploded, and it duly scattered everything that was, or ever would be, across what was now about to become the Universe. Scientists call this the Big Bang, although it wasn’t really a big bang because it happened everywhere, and all at once.

    Just one thing about that age of the universe stuff. There are people who will try to tell you that the Earth is only about 10,000 years old; that humans and dinosaurs were around at more or less the same time, a bit like in the movies Jurassic Park and One Million Years B.C.; and that evolution, the change in the inherited traits of organisms passed from one generation to the next, does not, and never did, happen. Given the evidence, it’s hard not to feel that they’re probably wrong. Many of them also believe that the universe was created in seven days by an old chap with a beard, perhaps with breaks for tea and sandwiches. This may be true but, if it was created in this way, they were very long days: about two billion years long for each, give or take a few million years, which is a lot of sandwiches.

    Anyway, to return to the dot, let’s be clear on something, because it’s very important. The building blocks of everything that you can see around you, and a great deal more that you can’t see at all, were blasted from that little dot at a speed so fast that, within a minute, the universe was a million billion miles in size and still expanding, so the dot was responsible for bringing into being planets and asteroids; whales and budgerigars; you, and Julius Caesar, and Elvis Presley.

    And Evil.

    Because somewhere in there was all the bad stuff as well, the stuff that makes otherwise sensible people hurt one another. There’s a little of it in all of us, and the best that we can do is to try not to let it govern our actions too often.

    But just as the planets began to take on a certain shape, and the asteroids, and the whales, and the budgerigars, and you, so too, in the darkest of dark places, Evil took on a form. It did so while the residue of the Big Bang spread across the Universe,² while the earth was cooling, while tectonic plates shifted, until, at last, life appeared, and Evil found a target for its rage.

    Yet it could not reach us, for the Universe was not ordered in its favor, or so it seemed. But the thing in the darkness was very patient. It stoked the fires of its fury, and it waited for a chance to strike . . .

    II

    In Which We Encounter a Small Boy, His Dog, and Some People Who Are Up to No Good

    ON THE NIGHT IN question, Mr. Abernathy answered the door to find a small figure dressed in a white sheet standing on his porch. The sheet had two holes cut into it at eye level so that the small figure could walk around without bumping into things, a precaution that seemed wise given that the small figure was also wearing rather thick glasses. The glasses were balanced on its nose, outside the sheet, giving it the appearance of a shortsighted, and not terribly frightening, ghost. A mismatched pair of sneakers, the left blue, the right red, poked out from the bottom of the sheet.

    In its left hand, the figure held an empty bucket. From its right stretched a dog leash, ending at a red collar that encircled the neck of a little dachshund. The dachshund stared up at Mr. Abernathy with what Mr. Abernathy felt was a troubling degree of self-awareness. If he hadn’t known better, Mr. Abernathy might have taken the view that this was a dog that knew it was a dog, and wasn’t very happy about it, all things considered. Equally, the dog also appeared to know that Mr. Abernathy was not a dog (for, in general, dogs view humans as just large dogs that have learned the neat trick of walking on two legs, which only impresses dogs for a short period of time). This suggested to Mr. Abernathy that here was a decidedly smart dog indeed—freakishly so. There was something disapproving in the way the dog was staring at Mr. Abernathy. Mr. Abernathy sensed that the dog was not terribly keen on him, and he found himself feeling both annoyed, and slightly depressed, that he had somehow disappointed the animal.

    Mr. Abernathy looked from the dog to the small figure, then back again, as though unsure as to which one of them was going to speak.

    Trick or treat, said the small figure eventually, from beneath the sheet.

    Mr. Abernathy’s face betrayed utter bafflement.

    What? said Mr. Abernathy.

    Trick or treat, the small figure repeated.

    Mr. Abernathy’s mouth opened once, then closed again. He looked like a fish having an afterthought. He appeared to grow even more confused. He glanced at his watch, and checked the date, wondering if he had somehow lost a few days between hearing the doorbell ring and opening the door.

    It’s only October the twenty-eighth, he said.

    I know, said the small figure. I thought I’d get a head start on everyone else.

    What? said Mr. Abernathy again.

    What? said the small figure.

    Why are you saying ‘what’? said Mr. Abernathy. I just said ‘what.’

    I know. Why?

    Why what?

    My question exactly, said the small figure.

    "Who are you?" asked Mr. Abernathy. His head was starting to hurt.

    I’m a ghost, said the small figure, then added, a little uncertainly, Boo?

    "No, not ‘What are you?’ Who are you?"

    Oh. The small figure removed the glasses and lifted up its sheet, revealing a pale boy of perhaps eleven, with wispy blond hair and very blue eyes. I’m Samuel Johnson. I live in number 501. And this is Boswell, he added, indicating the dachshund by raising his leash.

    Mr. Abernathy, who was new to the town, nodded, as though this piece of information had suddenly confirmed all of his suspicions. Upon hearing its name spoken, the dog shuffled its bottom on Mr. Abernathy’s porch and gave a bow. Mr. Abernathy regarded it suspiciously.

    Your shoes don’t match, said Mr. Abernathy to Samuel.

    I know. I couldn’t decide which pair to wear, so I wore one of each.

    Mr. Abernathy raised an eyebrow. He didn’t trust people, especially children, who displayed signs of individuality.

    So, said Samuel. Trick or treat?

    Neither, said Mr. Abernathy.

    Why not?

    Because it’s not Halloween yet, that’s why not.

    But I was showing initiative. Samuel’s teacher, Mr. Hume, often spoke about the importance of showing initiative, although anytime Samuel showed initiative, Mr. Hume seemed to disapprove of it, which Samuel found very puzzling.

    No, you weren’t, said Mr. Abernathy. You’re just too early. It’s not the same thing.

    Oh, please. A chocolate bar?

    No.

    Not even an apple?

    No.

    I can come back tomorrow, if that helps.

    No! Go away.

    With that, Mr. Abernathy slammed the front door, leaving Samuel and Boswell to stare at the flaking paintwork. Samuel let the sheet drop down once more, restoring himself to ghostliness, and replaced his glasses. He looked down at Boswell. Boswell looked up at him. Samuel shook the bucket sadly.

    It seemed like a good idea, he said to Boswell. I thought people might like an early fright.

    Boswell sighed in response, as if to say, I told you so.

    Samuel gave one final, hopeful glance at Mr. Abernathy’s front door, willing him to change his mind and appear with something for the bucket, even if it was just a single, solitary nut, but the door remained firmly closed. The Abernathys hadn’t lived on the road for very long, and their house was the biggest and oldest in town. Samuel had rather hoped that the Abernathys would decorate it for Halloween, or perhaps turn it into a haunted house, but after his recent encounter with Mr. Abernathy he didn’t think this was very likely. Mr. Abernathy’s wife, meanwhile, often looked like she had just been fed a very bitter slice of lemon, and was searching for somewhere to spit it out discreetly. No, thought Samuel, the Abernathy house would not be playing a significant part in this year’s Halloween festivities.

    As things turned out, he was very, very wrong.

    •   •   •

    Mr. Abernathy stood, silent and unmoving, at the door. He peered through the peephole until he was certain that the boy and his dog were leaving, then locked the door and turned away. Hanging from the end of the banister behind him was a black, hooded robe, not unlike something a bad monk might wear to scare people into behaving themselves. Mr. Abernathy put the robe back on as he walked down the stairs to his basement. Had Samuel seen Mr. Abernathy in his robe he might have reconsidered his position on Mr. Abernathy’s willingness to enter into the spirit of Halloween.

    Mr. Abernathy was not a happy man. He had married the woman who became Mrs. Abernathy because he wanted someone to look after him, someone who would advise him on the right clothes to wear, and the proper food to eat, thus allowing Mr. Abernathy more time to spend thinking. Mr. Abernathy wrote books that told people how to make their lives happier. He was quite successful at this, mainly because he spent every day dreaming about what might have made him happier, including not being married to Mrs. Abernathy. He also made very sure that nobody who read his work ever met his wife. If they did, they would immediately guess how unhappy Mr. Abernathy really was, and stop buying his books.

    Now, his robe heavy on his shoulders, he made his way into the darkened room below. Waiting for him were three other people, all dressed in similar robes. Painted on the floor was a five-pointed star, at the center of which was an iron burner filled with glowing charcoal. Incense grains had been sprinkled across the coals, so that the basement was filled with a thick, perfumed smoke.

    Who was it, dear? asked one of the hooded figures. She said the word dear the way an executioner’s ax might say the word thud, if it could speak as it was lopping off someone’s head.

    That weird kid from number 501, said Mr. Abernathy to his wife, for it was she who had spoken. And his dog.

    What did he want?

    He was trick or treating.

    But it’s not even Halloween yet.

    I know. I told him that. I think there’s something wrong with him. And his dog, Mr. Abernathy added.

    Well, he’s gone now. Silly child.

    Can we get on with it? said a male voice from beneath another hood. I want to go home and watch football. The man in question was quite fat, and his robe was stretched taut across his belly. His name was Reginald Renfield, and he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing standing around in a smoke-filled basement dressed in a robe that was at least two sizes too small for him. His wife had made him come along, and nobody argued with Doris Renfield. She was even bigger and fatter than her husband, but not half as nice, and since Mr. Renfield wasn’t very nice at all, that made Mrs. Renfield very unpleasant indeed.

    Reginald, do keep quiet, said Mrs. Renfield. All you do is complain. We’re having fun.

    Oh, said Reginald. Are we?

    He didn’t see anything particularly amusing about standing in a cold basement wearing a scratchy robe, trying to summon up demons from the beyond. Mr. Renfield didn’t believe in demons, although he sometimes wondered if his friend Mr. Abernathy might have married one by accident. Mrs. Abernathy frightened him, the way strong women will often frighten weak men. Still, Doris had insisted that they come along and join their new friends, who had recently moved to the town of Biddlecombe, for an evening of fun. Mrs. Abernathy and Mrs. Renfield had met in a bookshop, where they were both buying books about ghosts and angels. From then on their friendship had grown, eventually drawing in their husbands as well. Mr. Renfield didn’t like the Abernathys, exactly, but a funny thing about adults is that they will spend time with people they don’t like very much if they think it might benefit them. In this case, Mr. Renfield was hoping that Mr. Abernathy might buy an expensive television from Mr. Renfield’s electrical shop.

    Well, some of us are having fun, said Mrs. Renfield. You wouldn’t know fun if it ran up and tickled you under the arm. She laughed loudly. It sounded to her husband like someone pushing a witch in a barrel over a waterfall. He pictured his wife in a barrel falling into very deep water, and this cheered him up a bit.

    Enough! said Mrs. Abernathy.

    Everyone went quiet. Mrs. Abernathy, stern and beautiful, peered from beneath her hood.

    Join hands, she said, and they did so, forming a circle around the star. Now, let us begin.

    And, as one, they started to chant.

    •   •   •

    Most people are not bad. Oh, they do bad things sometimes, and we all have a little badness in us, but very few people are unspeakably evil, and most of the bad things they do seem perfectly reasonable to them at the time. Perhaps they’re bored, or selfish, or greedy, but, for the most part, they don’t actually want to hurt anyone when they do bad things. They just want to make their own lives a little easier.

    The four people in the basement fell into the category of bored. They had boring jobs. They drove boring cars. They ate boring food. Their friends were boring. For them, everything was just, well, dull.

    So when Mrs. Abernathy produced an old book she had bought in a used-books store, and suggested, first to her husband, and then to their slightly-less-boring-than-the-rest friends the Renfields, that the book’s contents might make for an interesting evening, everyone had pronounced it a splendid idea.

    The book didn’t have a name. Its cover was made of worn black leather, emblazoned with a star not unlike the one painted on the basement floor, and its pages had turned yellow with age. It was written in a language none of them had ever seen, and which they were unable to understand.

    And yet, and yet . . .

    Somehow Mrs. Abernathy had looked at the book and known exactly what they were meant to do. It was almost as if the book had been speaking to her in her head, translating its odd scratches and symbols into words she could comprehend. The book had told her to bring her friends and her husband to the basement on this particular night, to paint the star and light the charcoal, and to chant the series of strange sounds that were now coming from each of their mouths. It was all rather odd.

    The Abernathys and the Renfields weren’t looking for trouble. Neither were they trying to do anything bad. They weren’t evil, or vicious, or cruel. They were just bored people with too much time on their hands, and such people will, in the end, get up to mischief.

    But just as someone who wears a sign saying Kick Me! will, in the normal course of events, eventually be kicked, so too there was enough mischief being done in that basement to attract something unusually bad, something with more than mischief on its mind. It had been waiting for a long time. Now that wait was about to come to an end.

    III

    In Which We Learn About Particle Accelerators, and the Playing of Battleships

    DEEP BENEATH A MOUNTAIN in the heart of Europe, nothing was happening.

    Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Lots of things were happening, some of them quite spectacular, but because they were happening at an infinitesimally small level, it was quite hard for most people to get too excited about them.

    The Large Hadron Collider was, as its name suggested, very big. It was, in fact, 17 miles long, and stretched inside a ring-shaped tunnel burrowed through rock, near Geneva, in Switzerland. The LHC was a particle accelerator, the largest ever constructed: a device for smashing protons together in a vacuum, consisting of 1,600 electromagnets chilled to -271 degrees Celcius (or, to you and me, "Crumbs, that’s really cold! Anybody got a sweater I can borrow?"), producing a powerful electromagnetic field. Basically, two beams of hydrogen ions, atoms that have been stripped of their electrons, would whiz around the ring in opposite directions at about 186,000 miles per second, or close to the speed of light, and then collide. When they met, each beam would have the energy of a big car traveling at 1,000 miles per hour.

    You don’t want to be in a car traveling at 1,000 miles per hour that crashes into another car traveling at the same speed. That would not be good.

    When the beams collided, enormous amounts of energy would be released from all of the protons they contained, and that was where things got really interesting. The reason scientists had built the LHC was in order to study the aftermath of that collision, which would produce very small particles: smaller than atoms, and atoms are already so small that it would take ten million of them laid end to end to cover the period at the end of this sentence. Ultimately, they hoped to discover the Higgs boson, sometimes called the God particle, the most basic component of everything in the material world.

    Take our two cars traveling at 1,000 miles per hour before pounding into each other. After the crash, there isn’t likely to be much of the cars left. In fact, there will probably be only very small pieces of car (and possibly very small pieces of anyone who was unfortunate enough to be inside the cars at the time) scattered all over the place. What the scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, hoped was that the colliding beams would leave behind lots of little patches of energy resembling those that existed seconds after the Big Bang, when the dot of which we spoke at the start exploded, and among them might be the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson would stick out because it would actually be bigger than the two colliding protons that created it, but it wouldn’t hang about for very long, as it would vanish almost instantly, so the scientists would have to be quick to spot it. It would be as though our two colliding cars had come together and formed a truck, which then immediately collapsed.

    In other words, the scientists hoped to understand just how the universe came into being, which is a big question that is a lot easier to ask than to answer. You see, scientists—even the very clever ones—understand only about 4 percent of the matter and energy in the universe, which accounts for the stuff we can see around us: mountains, lakes, bears, artichokes, that kind of thing.³ That leaves them scratching their heads over the remaining 96 percent, which is a lot of scratching. To save time, and prevent unnecessary head injuries, the scientists decided that about 23 percent of what remained should be called dark matter. Although they couldn’t see it, they knew that it existed because it bent starlight.

    But if dark matter was interesting to them, whatever accounted for the remaining 73 percent of everything in the universe was more interesting still. It was known as dark energy, and it was invisible, entirely hidden. Nobody knew where it came from, but they had a pretty good idea of what it was doing. It was driving galaxies farther and farther apart, causing the universe to expand. This would lead to two things. The first thing was that human beings, if they didn’t start inventing fast ways to move somewhere else, would eventually find themselves entirely alone, as all the neighboring galaxies would have disappeared beyond the edge of the visible universe. After that, the universe would start to cool, and everything in it would freeze to death. Thankfully, that’s likely to happen hundreds of

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1