"The Tunnels embodies a very English sense of absurdity, putting Lewis Carroll, Monty Python and Douglas Adams in a blender with a generous helping of pop-culture references and fantasy motifs." - Financial Times
Sam Samuel is in trouble.
After a visit to his local supermarket takes an unexpected turn, he's press ganged into a treasure hunt in a set of supernatural tunnels, and now he doesn't know who to trust.
His bickering team mates clearly hate each other. A grumbling minotaur and two thuggish heavies are obviously up to no good. His new best friend Takara has a fluid relationship with the truth. The Duke, The Inspector, The Mighty Malphas and a gang of androids with a dangerously sweet tooth aren't making things any easier. And reality itself - which seems to have given up on the basics - isn't being an enormous help either.
The Tunnels is a suburban science fantasy ghost story featuring robots, magicians, avenging clowns, spectral staircases, occult boot fairs, ancient scrolls, chilling incantations and tables that defy the laws of normality, alongside lashings of banoffee pie, seditionary cupcakes, cider brewed by an anarchist collective, mind-blowing curry and discount egg-slicers.
It is both a doomed love story and a hymn to community, with just a tiny bit of revolution stirred in for good measure.
The Tunnels is the debut novel by English arts journalist Ian Watson. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times, Independent On Sunday, Evening Standard, The Scotsman, Scotland On Sunday, The Sunday Herald, Melody Maker, NME, Rolling Stone Australia and Empire.
