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Bar None, by Tim Lebbon
Feb. 17th, 2010 01:07 pmA few weeks ago I started to read Tim Lebbon's 2009 novel Bar None. I had to put it down because I wasn't in the mood for a dark and gloomy novel about the means, methods, techniques, and importance of love and human memory,* even if it was delivered in a post-apocalyptic package.
Monday evening I felt unwell, so I wrapped myself up in a cozy spot and resumed Bar None. I finished it last night.
I'm going to find more of Lebbon's stuff. Bar None was damn impressive. His use of a different beer as a chapter title/chapter theme was charming, appropriate, and not nearly as annoying or cutesy as it sounds. He created several convincing characters in a very short novel. And he offered up a different twist on the apocalyptic scenarios I've seen/read before.
Now, it doesn't move fast, and there's not a lot of terrifying moments. I think he missed a couple opportunities to make it a truly horrifying horror novel, but since he remains admirably true to the first-person narrative (a tricky thing in horror, IMO), I don't know that he could have pulled them off anyway. While showing those events might have upped the cred for this as a horror novel, it would have sacrificed the integrity of the narrative. So I think he made the right choice there.
Anyway. For those of you who like horror (this is also billed as "dark fantasy"), I'd recommend it.
*I wanted some action and rousing storytelling, which This Is Not a Game offered in spades. Great read. It was The Bourne Identity gone nerdy.
Monday evening I felt unwell, so I wrapped myself up in a cozy spot and resumed Bar None. I finished it last night.
I'm going to find more of Lebbon's stuff. Bar None was damn impressive. His use of a different beer as a chapter title/chapter theme was charming, appropriate, and not nearly as annoying or cutesy as it sounds. He created several convincing characters in a very short novel. And he offered up a different twist on the apocalyptic scenarios I've seen/read before.
Now, it doesn't move fast, and there's not a lot of terrifying moments. I think he missed a couple opportunities to make it a truly horrifying horror novel, but since he remains admirably true to the first-person narrative (a tricky thing in horror, IMO), I don't know that he could have pulled them off anyway. While showing those events might have upped the cred for this as a horror novel, it would have sacrificed the integrity of the narrative. So I think he made the right choice there.
Anyway. For those of you who like horror (this is also billed as "dark fantasy"), I'd recommend it.
*I wanted some action and rousing storytelling, which This Is Not a Game offered in spades. Great read. It was The Bourne Identity gone nerdy.