Kel Boon, simple wood-carver in a tiny fishing village, has a dark past: he was once a member of a secret organization known as the Core, dedicated to tracking down and killing the alien Strangers, who they believe are spies, harbingers of a coming invasion. He deserted the Core after a mistake confronting a Stranger causes the death of a group of children as well as his lover, but his instincts and his Core training return when an island mysteriously appears, causing a tsunami that destroys half the village. Kel is the only one who distrusts the benign Komadians who arrive, even as they use their superior yet odd technology to help restore the village. Intent on discovering their real purpose, he and his current lover Namior, a witch, infiltrate the island. There, they find evidence of the Komadians' tragic history and the horrible plans they have for the people of Pavmouth Breaks.

Lebbon's world, Noreela, has a long, dark, distinct history, chronicled in several novels and shorter works, but you don't need to know it to enjoy this stand-alone book (though if you want details, here's a great link: http://www.noreela.com/noreela.htm). I've only read one other Tim Lebbon book before, After the War, a collection of two very bleak Noreela novellas, and I was both happy and apprehensive when I got The Island. Happy because I thought After the War had superb writing -- plotting and characterization and world-building -- and apprehensive because the stories both had endings of such hopelessness that they were difficult to read. The Island has its grim and distressing moments, but the ending has enough light to it that you're not ready to throw yourself out a window. There is potential for the characters to have happiness or at least some sense of peace, and the invasion plot has a satisfactory (and bloody) resolution.

Kel and Namior both narrate and they play off one another well: Kel wants to hide and rest, to avoid the world and live in simple anonymity, while Namior is young and hopeful and wants to experience life outside her tiny fishing village. They react very different to this sort of enormous, potentially world-destroying plan in its beginning stages (after the Komadians take over the village, the rest of Noreela is within reach) but they end up in the same place; they both want to avoid trouble, yet their sense of responsibility leads them into doing the opposite.

The Island has a complicated sense of moral ambiguity, in which the bad guys have understandable reasons for being monsters and the good guys resist being heroes for equally understandable reasons. Backstory -- the past -- is important to both the characters and the world, and Lebbon does a great job bringing it in organically without going overboard on details you don't care about. I never felt buried in an info-dump. There's a decent amount of stealthy action, but what Lebbon really does well is evoke a constant sense of dread, low-level at first and increasing slowly to oppressive levels as Kel's paranoia proves to be justified. The final scenes are suspenseful and brutal but, like I said before, there's an undercurrent to the ending that people in this bleak world can succeed, can save something even if they also lose plenty, too. That's something I didn't get out of After the War, and I was glad not to read a novel-length story of such hopelessness. ( )

Kel is a member of the Core, a secret army protecting Noreela from the Strangers, an alien race that's been sending spies to investigate the land. At least, until an operation goes wrong, people die, and Kel decides to chuck it all and hide in a small fishing village. All's well, even though he'll be killed if he's ever found by the Core. Then, during a massive storm, an island appears off the coast off the village, which is wiped out in the aftermath. People from the island come ashore to help with the recovery, but just who are they? And do they really ust want to help?

In The Island, Tim Lebbon has mixed fantasy with a classic alien invasion horror story and just a bit of steampunk to make a pretty good story - just about the best mix I can think of for escapist fare. I was a bit hesitant at first, since this is the fourth book he's set in Noreela, but as it turns out, this one works quite well as a stand-alone novel. Now I've got to stir up the previous books! ( )

This book is just as good as Dusk, and a little better than Dawn.The ending was a small letdown, but the rest of the book was well worth it. ( )