Relics (Relics 1)

I've read a few novels by Tim Lebbon now and with each the thing you always get are good believable characters. Angela and Vince feel like real people living in to start with a normal London. Quite quickly though we find all is not as it seems and the stuff of myths and legend start to become real in a nightmarish chase in the depths of London's underground tunnels. It is a good solid fantasy horror book that sets up a world full of possibilities for the future story. I like Thorn the best and hope he features some more. I like knowing the setting and I'd love to think there is more out there than we know. So much set up for the next one but neatly tied up at the end. Good job

Tim Lebbon can be an amazing and innovative writer. After reading 30 Days of Night, Alien: Out of the Shadows; and The Rage Wars trilogy, I became a fan of his. They were cracking yarns and they are now being kept among my large collection of books which I would happily read again. Relics won’t be. I was so convinced that the author was going to consistently impress me with everything that he writes that, at the same time as paying good money for Relics, I bought (yet unread) Coldbrook, The Hunt, and The Family Man. I must have been in some kind of Lebbon frenzy after finishing The Rage Wars trilogy. I realise that a lot of people are giving Relics a high rating so this is only my point of view, of course. After struggling to get through 260 pages, I just could not read any more. The truth is, if I hadn’t seen Relics listed among his other books on Amazon, I would never have believed that Relics was by the same Tim Lebbon. The style seems so amateurish at times. It’s heavily clichéd and repetitious with unconvincing scenes, and dialogue, and characters who behave illogically. For example, one of the main characters, Angela, is writing a thesis for a doctorate in criminology and she’s trying to trace her lover who has suddenly disappeared. She investigates the matter as if she is some kind of sleuth (what’s the point in bothering the police after a day or two?) and fears for his and her own safety. She’s terrified that she is being stalked by things that bump you off in the night, so: "A car passed the street’s end, lights flaring and fading again. Music from its stereo did the same. Mumford & Sons, she thought. Great, that’ll be in my head all night now, and I’ll never—" (pg 142).She’ll never what, get to sleep because she’s busy singing that annoying little song that’s stuck in her head? Not lying awake then, terrified that someone is going to come and kill her! No, she will be too busy singing a song.And I have to mention that throughout there is overuse of the em dash (long dash) — used by writers at the end of cut off sentences as a sign of interrupted speech. It is also often used as a tool at the end of a sentence for suspension, to create anticipation in the reader. Except it didn’t.I wonder if Tim Lebbon was trying out a different style for this one. I don’t know as I haven’t read the books Coldbrook etc yet. In the sci-fi books I have read, mentioned above, I don’t remember repetition about people having sex, or a strong focus on a character having an extraordinary long ‘c**k’, ‘d**k’, 'schl*ng’. Then we have repetition about blood, bleeding, faeces, and all the other gory, ghastly, things imaginable, ad nauseam. I suppose that was for shock/horror effect to pep up a storyline that badly needed pepping up.

I am an absolute avid fan of Tim Lebbon and buy all the books as soon as they are available. Needless to say I rushed out to buy relics and The Folded Land. We start with Angela and Vince a couple who live in London and are happy. She is part time researcher and he.... well he kind of works in an office.When Vince disappears one day, Angela is determined to find him whatever the cost.... and there is indeed a price to pay. She visits Soho where Fat Frank has a club, but collects all things weird like fairies, and one eyed cyclops. There is another world deep underground.It sounds like an amazing book, but just did not work for me.

I've read a few of the authors books now and this feels a little different to others - almost as if he's trying a new genre which ends up as a hybrid of the horror writer and the thriller writer.For me the book is excellent for the first two thirds and suddenly as it steps from near reality to more surreal it lost me a little. The story ends basically as you'd expect while setting up a sequel but something about the way the style of writing seemed to change towards the end lost it that fifth star for me.

I may have hoped or expected this too be much more horror in style or graphic but it really is focused on myth and folklore creatures and human characters connected to destroying or saving them. A really well written tale for fans of Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman books and the first in a trilogy out now.

A fascinating unbelievable but just maybe believable world and a book I couldn't wait to get back to. Characters I liked and cared about, even those you shouldn't...and a great story that moves along at a great pace and keeps you hooked.

There are definite echoes of other urban fantasy here, for me that was a good thing, it added to the mythos of the Kin. I eagerly await the next installment.

I like urban fantasy and this book has a distinct flavour of its own with protagonists you can believe in and root for and truly wicked villains. There are splashes of humor throughput and a sense of being on the edge of my seat. Try it and you won't be disappointed..