Ever wondered what kind of creepy stuff lurks under the icy polar regions of our planet? Well, according to Tim Lebbon’s book, it’s definitely not something good. Let’s just say it’s a big, frosty nightmare down there.
Set in the near future, global warming has caused the permafrost to melt on a remote Arctic island. Dean and Bethan were once close friends, but an incident tore their friendship apart. Now they have been reunited but find themselves on opposite sides. Dean and his team are there exploring a freshly exposed cave network, looking for rare minerals to sell. Bethan and her friends are environmental activists who want to protect the already ravaged land and stop them.
Deep in the caves, Dean’s group finds an impossible yet gruesome scene, inadvertently waking a long-dormant threat in the process. A threat that one of Bethan’s friends has long worried about and is willing to prevent from happening by any means necessary. Both groups soon end up having to fight alongside each other; not only to survive, but to stop the deadly threat from escaping the remote location they are trapped in.
The premise is certainly interesting. Before reading, I was expecting maybe an updated version of H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness.” What we get is a ‘what if’ story where an ancient disease once contained in a frozen underground is rediscovered. A disease that is sentient and desires to spread by any means necessary. The infected are a curious combination of zombies and the clickers from ‘The Last of Us’, while.
My only real complaint is that at 283 pages, the story feels a bit too short. The characterization of the supporting cast suffers because of this. I would have liked a bit more character development, especially among the miners. The main characters were more fleshed out and nuanced, but I still would have liked a bit more about them.
The life or death struggle against the resurrected contagion combined with the desperate flight across a geologically unstable landscape makes “Amongst The Living” a tense and atmospheric tale that I found very enjoyable. Tim Lebbon is a very descriptive writer and does a great job of making you feel like you are actually there.
final verdict:
Thank You to Titan Books and NetGalley for sending this eARC in exchange for my honest review.
Among the Living (2024)
by Tim Lebbon
From the New York Times bestseller and author of Netflix’s The Silence comes a terrifying horror novel set in a melting Arctic landscape. Something deadly has lain dormant for thousands of years, but now the permafrost is giving up its secrets…
Estranged friends Dean and Bethan meet after five years apart when they are drawn to a network of caves on a remote Arctic island. Bethan and her friends are environmental activists, determined to protect the land. But Dean’s group’s exploitation of rare earth minerals deep in the caves unleashes an horrific contagion that has rested frozen and undisturbed for many millennia. Fleeing the terrors emerging from the caves, Dean and Bethan and their rival teams undertake a perilous journey on foot across an unpredictable and volatile landscape. The ex-friends must learn to work together again if they’re to survive… and more importantly, stop the horror from spreading to the wider world.
Expected publication February 6, 2024