Title: Among the Living

Author: Tim Lebbon

Release date: February 13th, 2024

Huge thanks to Tim, Titan Books, Netgalley and Edelweiss for the advance copy of this one. I’d requested this on Edelweiss as soon as it was on there. A month later, it popped up on Netgalley, so I requested it and was approved the same day. Then two days later – approved on Edelweiss haha! So, there we go!

It’s occurred to me that I’ve pretty much only read Tim’s ‘eco-horror’ releases while reading this one. Novels such as ‘The Last Storm,’ ‘Coldbrook,’ ‘The Silence,’ and the phenomenal ‘Eden,’ have all been set in worlds where the characters are predominantly outside fighting to survive. ‘Coldbrook’ might be the outlier there, as it’s not so much an ‘eco-horror’ like the others, but even then, it involves surviving and the great outdoors. Throw in his humourous ‘Run, Walk, Crawl,’ non-fiction release and it’s safe to say writing about the outdoors is Tim’s bread and butter. Everything seems to be more vibrant and the emotions raised that much more. Hell, even throw in his recent novella, ‘The Last Day and the First,’ and it all comes to show you, Tim is a writer who thrives when everything is outside.

Now, I prefaced this by saying I’ve read mainly his ‘eco-horror,’ which means I’ve not read really any of his sci-fi works nor any of his IP works such as his Aliens stuff or his novelizations such as Kong: Skull Island (which is essentially an ‘eco-horror’ novelization!), so others may feel the opposite where they prefer his sci-fi stuff, but for this reader, his wilderness work is pristine.

Which leads us to ‘Among the Living’ his newest novel, launching sky high from the mighty Titan Books. Everything about this one had me excited and when Tim posted a few times that this one might be one of his most straight-ahead horror novels, I knew we were in for a treat.

What I liked: The novel is set in the near-future and focuses on a subject that honestly and truly petrifies the shit out of me. The world has warmed and the permafrost is melting. Which means things that are hundreds of thousands of years old are unthawing and making their way back into the real world.

A side piece here from me. Everything about that little paragraph I’ve written is terrifying and is something that freaks me out. Much like the movie ‘Outbreak’ scared the hell out of me when it was released, the reality that this is actually happening currently is enough to keep me awake at night. Another concerning thing, for me at least, is the turning-of-the-cheek to science and vaccines and vaccination education. Working in a healthcare adjacent position, we see – daily – what the results of being vaccinated and unvaccinated are and with the world’s collective increase in turning their backs on these things, I stress over what will happen when one of these dormant diseases unthaws and spores into the air.

Anyways, I’ll get off my soapbox and get back to the meat and potatoes of this novel. Safe to say, I was scared to my core from page one. The story follows Bethan, Alile and Goyo, who travel far north after being tipped off that a group is illegally searching for rare minerals. The trio do their best to prevent climate destruction. The person who tipped off Bethan is her former best friend, Dean. He is one of the folks mining for these rare materials. While Dean and his group are deep in an unexplored cave complex, they discover old cave paintings and seemingly mummified bodies, dead for centuries. That is, until one of them moves.

It’s from here that Lebbon has created a white-knuckle thrill ride where Dean and Bethan try to overcome their differences – from an event in their past – and work together to prevent the spread of what has waken.

Each and every chapter after is a cinematic masterpiece. Tim does such a job of painting the picture of what this near-future landscape looks like, with polar bears having returned from near extinction and now rampaging across their territory, to the ever-present threat of sink holes and methane geysers erupting at a moments notice.

The Goyo character is phenomenal and becomes an almost supernatural entity within, leading Bethan and Dean across the terrain as they race to prevent the downfall of all mankind.

I loved the folklore element that Tim infuses in here and I’ll need to search out and see if the Long-Gone story shared within was based on a real story or purely from his imagination, but either way, it worked so well to share the ‘why’ of those below and leads us to the violent, chaotic ending.

The ending – for me at least – worked amazingly to cap everything off and when we look at the totality of the ‘why’ and what they are trying to prevent, made total sense. Saying that, it can also be looked at as partially open-ended and who knows, we may see more of this world in the future.

What I didn’t like: This is 100% me nitpicking here, but I had hoped much, much more of this novel was going to be happening in a subterranean setting. Only the first few chapters has anything to do with the cave discovery, so I was a bit bummed when that became obvious, but for me at least, it didn’t dampen the story in the least. I just like cave horror!

Why you should buy this: Tim writes his novels with the ever growing dread that an A-bomb is about to go off. Much like many of the high-fantasy writers (Martin etc) no character in Tim’s novels are ever safe and that makes for an edgy, uncertain read, which I’m all for.

‘Among the Living’ is cold-weather, frozen-tundra horror done so very well. Another example of why Tim’s best work is when he’s writing in the ‘eco-horror’ world and honestly, I don’t think there’s another author out there who has released books at this level, to this degree, focusing so much on the ever-growing crisis of climate change and the terror that these changes can bring.

Outstanding work.

5/5