Angela Gough is a criminal caught between worlds. In Relics – the first novel in this series – she found out about the Kin, astonishing mythological creatures who exist out of sight of our ordinary life, but whose body parts are priceless trophies for those who would hunt them. And the hunters have been successful because the Kin population has been decimated, and Angela’s boyfriend Vince was involved in trafficking whatever was left, whether living or dead. But now the Kin are fighting back, and Angela has fled to the States where her niece Sammi has been struck by lightning and is now in mortal danger. It is a journey that will lead her towards the mysterious Folded Land and put Angela on a deadly trajectory with Gregor, an assassin who will stop at nothing to destroy the Kin and anyone else who gets in his way.
Tim Lebbon has created an intensely realistic, often deeply moving, fantasy world in the Relics series and it’s clear to see why he is such a favourite with readers. Whatever he turns his mind to – horror, science-fiction, or magical realism – and whatever audience he writes for – whether adult or YA – his rich imagination seems to spin everything into gold. The Folded Land is yet another enviable tick on his CV but (possibly because this particular writer hadn’t read the first book) I personally didn’t find it quite as engaging as other reviewers. It’s a chilling and engrossing ride but, for the first time since encountering Lebbon’s fiction (and I’ve read quite a lot of it), I thought the author has finally crossed the line between writing ‘in the vein of’ Clive Barker or Neil Gaiman and fallen into creating a pastiche of Barker’s Nightbreed crossed with Gaiman’s Neverwhere. True, as falls go it’s a very stylish one and he lands perfectly on both feet with an ending that leaves us hungry to read the next instalment, but The Folded Land ultimately feels like a superior third generation Xerox of ideas we’ve read several times before. Maybe I’m hungry to read the follow-up because this serving didn’t quite fill up the hole in my creative belly.
Still, there’s a lot to like about The Folded Land and Lebbon’s phantasmagorical Kin are worthy neighbours to the Nightbreeds of Midian. They are complicated creatures who are both victim and monster, and Lebbon elicits our sympathy for them even as he repels us with some of the actions they take. But, unlike Barker’s protagonist Boone, Angela is not fascinating enough to keep the human story in balance. The Folded Land feels uneven and second-hand, which in the final reckoning is its undoing.
THE FOLDED LAND / AUTHOR: TIM LEBBON / PUBLISHER: TITAN BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
