Book Review: ‘The Tunnels’ by Ian Watson

The Tunnels by Ian Watson is a fast-paced quest-style adventure. We follow Sam Samuels on an everyday trip to the supermarket. Once there he can’t resist entering the ‘staff only’ section of the bakery in order to acquire the freshest pastries. Only instead of baked goods he encounters a strange man who orders him to go down a ladder to an underground chamber and take part in a treasure hunt through an array of confusing and increasing odd tunnels and locations.

The book is fast-paced to the point of chaotic but this feels like a deliberate choice. The characters are always moving, there is always something happening (whether it be mundane or bizarre). This quickness of storytelling is reflected in the chapter length which all tend to be quite short. The Tunnels is story that never slows down. It wasn’t to my particular taste but I’m sure plenty of readers will enjoy this speed of storytelling.

Although The Tunnels is written in third person, the prose felt very much like stream of consciousness as the story jumps from one idea to the next. This mimics both Sam’s wonder as he tries to absorb every details of these new locations and his new friend Takara’s ADHD style thought process as her attention is constantly caught by different things.

Watson’s enthusiasm for his story is clear with a plethora of details that make it easy to visualise what Sam is seeing – from actions, events, characters and objects. It reminded me a little of March’s End by Daniel Polansky which also includes a similar wealth of creative details when describing its fantastical characters.

That said, while many of the descriptions were certainly imaginative, the sheer amount of information the novel presents its reader did often leave me feeling overwhelmed and struggling to remember so many new facts at once. In my opinion there were places where this over-description distracted from the plot, such as the pages devoted to listing every type of pie and where each pie would sit in the hierarchy if pies were a kingdom. While quirky these descriptions and extended metaphors pulled me out of the story as I had to stop and interpret what I had just read.

The Tunnels is by no means a bad novel and I’m sure its humour will appeal to many readers but sadly the narrative held too much chaos and frenetic energy for me to enjoy it. I wish the novel had taken a breath and given us more deeper character moments, such as Sam discovering Tanaka’s connection to the ghostly theatre-goers, rather than jumping from one event to another without a pause between them.

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A digital copy of ‘The Tunnels’ and the images used in this review were kindly provided by the team at Secret Name Books. For more information check out their website with further details provided about ‘The Tunnels’.

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