The Gates [Hardcover]

John Connolly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 2009

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 Avenue. 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 which holds a pair of enormous gates—the gates to Hell. And there are some pretty terrifying beings determined 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??

Bursting with imagination and impossible to put down, The Gates is about the pull between good and evil, physics and fantasy. It is about a quirky and eccentric 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. Like Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, this novel manages to re-create for grownups that magical and scary world of childhood that we’ve all left behind but so love to visit.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this frothy fantasy thriller from bestseller Connolly (The Book of Lost Things), 11-year-old Samuel Johnson witnesses an inadvertent intersection of science and the supernatural while trick-or-treating at the Abernathy household in Biddlecombe, England. Something nasty reaches through an atomically engineered portal to Hades and possesses four suburban sorcerers. From that point on, Samuel finds himself battling hordes of invading demons and desperately trying to convince disbelieving adults that the impending end of the world is not a fancy of his overactive imagination. Connolly plays this potentially spooky scenario strictly for laughs, larding the narrative with droll jokes, humorous asides and the slapstick pratfalls of Nurd, an amusingly incompetent subdemon whom Samuel ultimately befriends. Though billed as an adult book for children, this light fantasy will strike even adult readers as divertingly whimsical. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Critics compared John Connolly to two first-rate children's authors (Eoin Colfer and Madeline L'Engle) and two great satirists (Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams—whom many of us started reading in middle school anyway). The Gates, they said, displays the wonder and wit of the works of each of this impressive quartet while also having a personality of its own. Reviewers were especially impressed with the explanations of quantum mechanics, wormholes, black holes, and the Hadron Collider—which lent more scientific substance to the story. While noting a few spots that made the plot drag, critics generally recommended the book to both children and adults.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Atria Books; 1st edition (October 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439172633
• ISBN-13: 978-1439172636
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #440,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1968 and have, at various points in his life, worked as a journalist, a barman, a local government official, a waiter and a "gofer" at Harrods department store in London. I studied English in Trinity College, Dublin and journalism at Dublin City University, subsequently spending five years working as a freelance journalist for The Irish Times newspaper, to which I continue to contribute, although not as often as I would like. I still try to interview a few authors every year, mainly writers whose work I like, although I've occasionally interviewed people for the paper simply because I thought they might be quirky or interesting. All of those interviews have been posted to my website, http://www.johnconnolly.co.uk.

I was working as a journalist when I began work on my first novel. Like a lot of journalists, I think I entered the trade because I loved to write, and it was one of the few ways I thought I could be paid to do what I loved. But there is a difference between being a writer and a journalist, and I was certainly a poorer journalist than I am a writer (and I make no great claims for myself in either field.) I got quite frustrated with journalism, which probably gave me the impetus to start work on the novel. That book, Every Dead Thing, took about five years to write and was eventually published in 1999. It introduced the character of Charlie Parker, a former policeman hunting the killer of his wife and daughter. Dark Hollow, the second Parker novel, followed in 2000. The third Parker novel, The Killing Kind, was published in 2001, with The White Road following in 2002. In 2003, I published my fifth novel - and first stand-alone book - Bad Men. In 2004, Nocturnes, a collection of novellas and short stories, was added to the list, and 2005 marked the publication of the fifth Charlie Parker novel, The Black Angel. In 2006, The Book of Lost Things, my first non-mystery novel, will be published.

I am based in Dublin but divide my time between my native city and the United States, where each of my novels has been set.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sheer delight, October 9, 2009

By 

Ellen C. Lamb (Gardiner, ME United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gates (Hardcover)

If Neil Gaiman and Christopher Moore were to collaborate on a 21st-century version of "The Phantom Tollbooth," they MIGHT come up with something as brilliant, hilarious and purely enchanting as Connolly's first novel for young people. Out for an early Halloween walk one night, young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund, Boswell, see the neighbors conducting a ritual that accidentally opens the gates of Hell -- just a little, enough for the Large Hadron Collider to start sending energy across the multiverse in a way that can't be good for human beings. I found myself reading passages aloud to my dog, just because I wanted someone else to hear them.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laughter and Fears, a Great Combination, August 15, 2010

By 

Karen Holtz "NJ Book Girl" (Woodside, New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gates (Hardcover)

Deep beneath a mountain in Switzerland scientists accelerate a couple particles to about the speed of light, colliding them in the 17 mile long Large Hadron Collider, but unknown to the scientists far, far away in America Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy and a couple new friends are playing around in their basement with a pentagram and some other things that may or may not have been so innocent. When those particles collide as the Abernathy's are calling forth they know what, without realizing a small boy and his dog are secretly watching, something happens and the gates of Hell are opened. Not far, just a bit.

But something wants them opened all the way and that something is Satan himself. He wants out, can you blame him? There's other things in there that want out as well, but you won't want out of this horribly entertaining story. I've never laughed so hard even as spiky chills zinged up my spine. If you like a good read, literary or not, you'll be more than pleased with this book. And you will just love Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund, Boswell.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Gates of Hell Opened, October 22, 2009

By 

Ruth B. Ingram (East Texas, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Gates (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Yes they did and out came one of the nastiest demons ever to walk the earth. Samuel and his dog Boswell were peeking through the basement window of the Abernathy's house while they and 2 friends were summoning the great evil one and got more that they desired. Of course, this has a little bit to do with the particle accelerator charging up in another country but a bit flung off the accelerator and ended up in the Abernathy's basement. Now that the gates of Hell are open it will eventually fall to poor little Samuel and his little dog Boswell to save the world. Samuel is a great little kid, bright, somewhat nerdy, compassionate and caring. Boswell is pretty neat too and oh yes, there is also a demon lord named Nurd who is pretty darn neat himself, once you get to know him.
All in all this is a very well written si-fi, fantasy, mystery that will keep you well entertained while you read it and give you a sense of delight that will stay with you for a while.