The Silence - Book Review

The Silence
by Tim Lebbon

What is it about:
In the darkness of a vast cave system, cut off from the world for millennia, blind creatures hunt by sound. Then there is light, there are voices, and they feed... Swarming from their prison, they multiply and thrive. To scream, even to whisper, is to summon death.

Deaf for many years, Ally knows how to live in silence. Now, it is her family's only chance of survival. To leave their home, to shun others, to find a remote haven where they can sit out the plague. But will it ever end? And what kind of world will be left?

What did I think of it:
*Warning: will get a bit spoilery*

This is mostly a cool read.

I had expected Ally to be the heroine, but it turns out it's more the fact that her being deaf means her whole family is familiar with sign language that makes them more likely to survive than Ally's skills.

That aside: I mostly very much enjoyed this story. There's icky, creepy wasp-like creatures that hunt everything that makes sound, and there's chaos. The panic that spreads across Europe after the creatures emerge is well written, and I liked how each chapter started with news feeds, twitter messages and such to show how things slowly unravel.

Ally and her family decide to leave their home and flee towards a less populated area in the UK. Mostly they seem to be smart about it, but there's one thing that really annoyed me: they take their dog...

Really?! They have seen how these creatures attack anything that makes a noise. They have seen what happens to people who get caught by the creatures. And they take a dog with them! Why not just take a Ghettoblaster as well?!

Spoiler: The dog starts barking at the creatures!

And then there's the ending...

If Lebbon had written this story in another format I might have accepted the ending he gave me, but the way this story is written: I was pissed off by the ending.

It's not a proper ending, but a gimmicky ending. Some people might think it's clever, but it mostly gave me the feeling that Lebbon didn't know how to give the story another ending. It really ruined the book for me.

So even though I had mostly enjoyed the book, I won't reread or keep the book. And I'm not so sure I will try anything else by Lebbon either.

Why should you read it:
It's mostly a cool read, and maybe you will like the ending.

Mind the Gap - Book Review

Mind the Gap by Tim Lebbon and Christopher Golden

What is it about:
Always assume there's someone after you. That was the paranoid wisdom her mother had hardwired into Jasmine Towne ever since she was a little girl. Now, suddenly on her own, Jazz is going to need every skill she has ever been taught to survive enemies both seen and unseen. For her mother had given Jazz one last invaluable piece of advice, written in her own blood.

Jazz Hide Forever

All her life Jazz has known them only as the "Uncles," and her mother seemed to fear them as much as depend on them. Now these enigmatic, black-clad strangers are after Jazz for reasons she can't fathom, and her only escape is to slip into the forgotten tunnels of London's vast underground. Here she will meet a tribe of survivors calling themselves the United Kingdom and begin an adventure that links her to the ghosts of a city long past, a father she never knew, and a destiny she fears only slightly less than the relentless killers who'd commit any crime under heaven or earth to prevent her from fulfilling it.

What did I think about it:
I got very mixed feelings about this book. The story starts out really suspenseful and exciting, but then suddenly turns into some kind of Oliver Twist in the Underground as Jazz meets some people who're not as much persons as rather grotesk caricatures. I was really waiting for the moment Jazz would (like Oliver Twist) run into her benefactor and swoon in his arms and was getting a bit disappointed by the story I must confess. Just when I was about to totally lose my patience however a new character turns up and steers the story away from the all too Dickensian plot and towards something more promising. From there on the story does indeed get full of action and suspense once more and leads to a cool conclusion. So.... In the end I did enjoy the story although I could have done without the Oliver Twist caricatures.

(I must say I wonder if Lebbon and Golden meant this whole Dickensian stuff as some kind of tribute as at one point one of the characters is reading a novel by Dickens.)

Why should you read it:
It is well written and if you don't mind the Dickens stuff a good story.