Book Review: “Among the Living” by Tim Lebbon
A Trashy Eco-Thriller
Every so often, I’m faced with reviewing a book that didn’t quite capture me, and I’m given a bit of a dilemma. Do I review the book and try to find something good to say about it — not wanting to incur the wrath of vengeful publicists who may stop the flow of books to me? Do I not review the book at all — thus impacting my Netgalley read-to-review ratio and potentially gumming up getting books from publishers to review in the future? What do I do? Well, we have now come to one of those books I’m not sure what to do with. Tim Lebbon’s Among the Living is, by most accounts, a trashy read (which is ironic as climate change and pollution play a part in this tale). However, I can say one thing and that this is a book that’s fun in a potato chip and popcorn munching way. It’s bad for you, but sometimes you want to indulge in nothing but a pint of ice cream in your pajamas, which this novel is the literary equivalent of. All in all, Among the Living is what you’d get if you merged the paranoia of John Carpenter’s The Thing with the bioterror of the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Given that two of the author’s previous novels have been turned into movies (and he has written his share of novelizations), I’m sure there’s a good chance that this book may soon be haunting your local multiplex. However, that doesn’t escape the fact that Among the Living is not going to win any literary awards. Still, I can say a charitable thing or two about it — at least, I hope so.
The novel — set in the not-too-far-off future — is about two former friends, Dean and Bethan, who both were climate activists who accidentally blew something up in Alaska, resulting in the deaths of frackers. (How either of them didn’t get arrested or what actually happened is never fully explained in this work, which is one of its many glaring shortcomings.) Dean has since joined the other side, and his team is now, six years later, on a remote Arctic island to measure the terrain for all sorts of valuable minerals. (Which ones are never explained, either.) When Dean’s team extracts some of these minerals to show to investors who would be interested in strip mining the whole island, they unleash some kind of superintelligent virus that turns people into zombie-like creatures before erupting in spores that then pass on the contagion to other people. Faster than you can say “outbreak,” Dean is reunited with Bethan — who is on the island to put a stop to Dean’s team’s activity’s (and how she knew they were there is never explained, either) — to kibosh this ancient biological terror that could be as old as thousands of millennia before it starts to spread and infect the island’s other residents. (And, thus, eventually wipe out the whole world.)
On the plus column, Among the Living features one of the most genuine depictions of failed friendships and platonic love between straight men and women I have ever read. It’s good to read a book (or even see in a movie, should one exist) where there’s a relationship between a man and a woman that is not romantic or sexual in any way. In that sense, the novel passes a variation on the reverse Bechdel test (as it features men who talk to other people — men and women both — about something other than a woman). Two, it’s a fun and fast read. That might sound like a backhanded criticism, but, you know, do I sometimes like to read a book where I can check my brain at the door and be lulled into a state of pure escapism? Oh, hell, yes! To that end, this book succeeds. Thirdly, I suppose this is as good a warning about climate change that can be read in a work of horror fiction. While Dean and his three other colleagues are responsible for releasing the virus, it is strongly suggested that it might have come to the surface eventually due to global warming and the subsequent melting of glacier ice and the expulsion of methane gasses thanks to the erosion of permafrost. Thus, the book is a bit of a warning wrapped up in its candy-coated genre trappings.
However, there are gaps of illogic and plot holes you could drive a Land Rover into. When a colleague of Bethan’s discovers the presence of the virus without being affected by it, he hops into his team’s vehicle and drives it into Dean’s team’s SUV — creating a fiery crash. Then, he decides that the team needs to head back to the nearest town to warn others. Had he not destroyed their teams’ vehicles, a two or three-day walk would have been a two-hour drive, tops. It’s logic like that which does this book in. The ending, too, while entertaining and satisfying, is not all that surprising and has been done better in either of the two movies I’ve alluded to earlier in this review. Therefore, Among the Living earns no special marks for being innovative. Still, once you realize that this is a novel that isn’t going to win a Pulitzer Prize, or even be on par with the worst of Stephen King’s novels, you might find yourself having a bit of fun with this book. You’ll groan at plot lapses and unintentional humour, you’ll gasp as another member of the combined group’s team bites the dust, and you’ll chew on your fingernails even if you can see what you think might happen coming from about, oh, a thousand miles away. Among the Living is not a great book, but it’s not an outright terrible one, either. It’s fun, it’s trashy, it’s entertaining. If that’s what you’re in the mood for, then by all means — dig in! However, if you’re looking for more substance, well, there are probably other books out there that might do the environmental angle more justice. That said, there’s enough here to warrant giving this a look if you just want to have a good-bad time with a book. It’s certainly one worth writing about, and I sincerely hope I haven’t drawn the ire of publicists here. After all, why talk about a book when it can prevent you from getting another one? To that end, I hope that readers of this will use this as a jumping-off point to have hard conversations with their conservative friends who deny climate change or perhaps, just maybe, go on to read something better.
Tim Lebbon’s Among the Living will be published by Titan Books on February 13, 2024.
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