The Gates: A Samuel Johnson Adventure: 1 - Softcover

Destined to be another runaway success appealing to both young adults and their parent alike. * Sunday Independent * Brilliant. I loved every word of it. John has found a voice that compares favourably with Stephen King and Monty Python which is not an easy trick. * Eoin Colfer * A demonic, darkly comic tale . . . satisfyingly peppered with science, history and amusing footnotes on everything from St Thomas Aquinas to quantum theory, and will go down well with readers of Eoin Colfer and Lemony Snicket. * Daily Telegraph *

A strange novel for strange young people. Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund Boswell are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Hallowe'en. Which is how they come to witness strange goings-on at 666 Crowley Avenue. The Abernathys don't mean any harm by their flirtation with Satanism. But it just happens to coincide with a malfunction in the Large Hadron Collider that creates a gap in the universe. A gap in which there is a pair of enormous gates. The gates to Hell. And there are some pretty terrifying beings just itching to get out . . . Can Samuel persuade anyone to take this seriously? Can he harness the power of science to save the world as we know it?