Elitist Book Reviews

My first introduction to Tim Lebbon was in the SWORDS & DARK MAGIC anthology a while back. In a collection of stories full of absolute WIN, Tim Lebbon's "The Deification of Dal Bamore" was one of the best. After that I read ECHO CITY and was similarly impressed. Lebbon's ability to write Horror the way Miéville writes Weird Fiction is astounding.

And then I heard Lebbon was going to write a YA novel, and it would be published through Pyr SF&F. Holy anticipation, Batman!

LONDON EYE, Lebbon's YA novel, is the first in a series that follows a group of teens as they enter London in search of their families, and the truth about what really is happening in the city. You see, London isn't what it used to be. A terrorist attack poisons the city, killing a majority of the people there (just imagine the numbers) as the city is quarantined.

The setting is the the first thing that jumps out. I love the idea. I love that London has been quarantined, and the mystery surrounding it. The characters in the novel all wonder what really goes on in that poisoned city, and it sets up the mystery and suspense well.

This being a YA novel, the characters are the most important part of the novel. It is my opinion that all great YA novels have one thing in common: strong, likable characters. In the few works of Lebbon's that I have read, it usually took me a bit to warm up to the characters. LONDON EYE is no exception. For whatever reason I just couldn't make myself care too much about the teenagers. Jack, the main character, just didn't draw me in. Neither did his kid sister, or his girlfriend, Lucy Anne (who becomes ridiculously annoying in the last part of the novel). Two other friends round out the group, but I never really felt they mattered much.

Can you see why this is an issue to me? All of the characters are just...there. They are stuck reacting to every situation, and really never make any actual decisions on their own until the end of the book--literally, the very end. They begin making active decisions, and the book just ends. In a book that is so short, hardly anything happens. The teens go into the city, get attacked, meet a few of London's survivors, then the book ends. I wasn't left thinking about this book once I had finished it. I turned the last page, closed the book, and moved on to the next one. For me, this all comes down to the characters not holding my interest.

All this said, there is a lot to like in LONDON EYE. I've already mentioned the setting. Did I mention the paranormal elements? Yeah. See, this poison (or whatever it actually is) that caused untold numbers of people to to die also evolves a small number of humans. They develop powers that allow them to heal, seek out bloodlines, employ telekinesis, use voices as weapons, control animals...you name it, someone can do it. To go along with this is a group of people--Choppers--that hunt out these evolved survivors to capture and experiment on them. It's all very grim and horrific.

This leads me to my next criticism. I can't help but feel like Lebbon was holding back. He does the weird and horrible better than most authors. It is one of his greatest strengths as an author. In LONDON EYE it feels like he is just about to do something awesome...then remembers he is writing YA. The perception while reading is that Lebbon is worried about his ideas being too much for the readers. The novel is already for the upper end of YA--what the cool kids call New Adult--but it ends up in a sort of limbo. I do think that as Lebbon writes some more YA, he'll find his stride. I mean, he's freaking Tim Lebbon.

LONDON EYE, when you really look at the full body of work, feels like the first half of a novel. Right when things started to get interesting, the book ended. I was left wondering if my ARC was missing 150 pages. The setup is good, but by the time a sequel comes out, I worry that any small measure of interest I had in the characters will be lost. The setting and paranormal elements were enough to carry the story for me, but I feel like we are missing out on a huge amount of potential so far.

Will I read the sequel? Probably. I do want to see what happens next. I want to see Lebbon really grab this new type of novel (for him) by the horns. I trust Lebbon, so I'll give this series another chance. I just wish the "sequel" had been the second half of this novel so there was the tiniest bit of resolution.

Recommended Age: 15+.
Language: Fairly strong for a YA novel, but not frequent.
Violence: In some scenes, Lebbon goes absolutely crazy. He lets loose. Then in others he totally holds back. Inconsistently, insanely violent.
Sex: These are older teens in a dystopian future. They talk about sex, and have sex. Nothing detailed, but it's there.

Want to give this a shot? Here's the link:

LONDON EYE

A while back I read and reviewed a collection of short stories titled SWORDS & DARK MAGIC (read the review here). Hopefully after reading that review you went out and grabbed a copy, because it was fantastic. One of the surprise stories contained in that anthology was The Deification of Dal Bamore by Tim Lebbon. It was a dark, grim and violent tale that impressed me and left me with the desire to read more of Lebbon’s work.

Set in the same created world as Dal Bamore, Lebbon’s new novel, ECHO CITY took some of the interesting concepts from the short story and twisted them even more. The short answer is that ECHO CITY is a great read…for a certain kind of reader.

Have you read China Miéville’s PERDIDO STREET STATION? It is one of those novels that people generally seem to love or hate. You should know by now that Miéville is one of my favorite authors, with PERDIDO being high on my list of favorite novels. What does Miéville have to do with Tim Lebbon’s ECHO CITY? If there is one book (or series) that ECHO CITY is comparable to, it is Miéville’s creation of New Crobuzon. After reading that last sentence, you will probably already know if you want to pick up a copy of ECHO CITY.

The premise of ECHO CITY is that this sprawling city is surrounded by a vast and poisonous desert. Echo City is in a constant state of decay, but it has nowhere to go for aide. It is a veritable prison. Things start getting wild when someone arrives from beyond the deserts, apparently immune to that poisonous environment.

Immediately from reading descriptions of the Echo City, Miéville’s work comes to mind. It’s not really fair to compare anything to Miéville (whether you like him or not, his writing is incredible), but the comparisons are almost mandatory. The dingy, gritty, stagnated Echo City is realized in such an evocative way that it could be New Crobuzon’s sister city. Within this city the science of “chopping” is prevalent. The inhabitants of Echo City can be chopped and have extra appendages added, or really anything else for that matter. Some become so altered after being chopped that they aren’t even human. Anything biological can be chopped and altered, and it gives Lebbon’s setting and created society virtually absolute freedom. Yeah, it is very similar to New Crobuzon’s Remade. The comparisons are natural.

Really once one gets past the setting similarities, the differences are key. First is Lebbon’s writing. His approach, especially in the beginning of the novel, is more akin to Horror than Fantasy. ECHO CITY isn’t quite as dense in trying to come across as overly-literary. This serves to increase the pacing of the novel without actually adding faster-paced elements to the story. The scope of the story also seems bigger than that of PERDIDO. There is so much history alluded to in ECHO CITY that I can’t help but wish for novels set in those time periods.

The main difference is the characters. To say Lebbon’s characters or Miéville’s are better shouldn’t really enter the conversation beyond this mention. Apples and oranges. They all feel distinct, and all have hefty flaws. The majority of the novel follows Peer, a political exile. She is the one who discovers the man from beyond the deserts who she Rufus. Gorham is the head of the organization that has been waiting and watching for an event that is supposed to change everything about Echo City. He is also Peer’s former lover. Nadielle is the Baker. She is the most gifted person in the city at chopping, and is the only person that can stop a rising calamity. She is Gorham’s new lover. All the characters are great, with Nadielle being my personal favorite.

This book wasn’t perfect. The middle of the novel lags with little movement towards the end goals of the novel. I’ve continually compared ECHO CITY to PERDIDO, and that goes for content as well. Sex, violence and language. Lebbon seems like he uses it as more shock value than other authors perhaps due to completely and purposefully avoiding the “questionable” content in other sections of the novel. Lastly, the “big bad” of the novel doesn’t get enough screen time. It was the perfect time for Lebbon to really outdo himself, but for some reason he holds back. It’s made up for by a near perfect end-piece that bookends the prologue, but man, that lack of power behind the “big-bad” really hurt the story.

In the end, ECHO CITY is a very good novel. It makes me want to go back and pick up some of his faster-paced stuff to see how it compares. Will you like it? Well, if you like Miéville’s work, you should like ECHO CITY. If you hate Miéville’s work, there’s still a chance that Lebbon will grab you with his more Horror-ish writing style, but I'm not going to promise you anything. I found ECHO CITY to be well worth the read, and we hope you give Lebbon a shot.

Recommended Age: 18+
Language: There are moments with a ton, and then moments where Lebbon completely avoids using it. The inconsistency actually bothered me a bit.
Violence: Yeah. And Lebbon is GREAT at describing violence and the grotesque.
Sex: Talked about in detail a few times. If Miéville’s scenes in PERDIDO bothered you, these might a tad bit more.