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Black Moon
“…a black moon had risen, a sphere of sleeplessness that pulled at the tides of blood—and invisible explanation for the madness welling inside.”
The world has stopped sleeping. Restless nights have grown into days of panic, delirium and, eventually, desperation. But few and far between, sleepers can still be found – a gift they quickly learn to hide. For those still with the ability to dream are about to enter a waking nightmare.
Matt Biggs is one of the few sleepers. His wife Carolyn however, no stranger to insomnia, is on the very brink of exhaustion. After six restless days and nights, Biggs wakes to find her gone. He stumbles out of the house in search of her to find a world awash with pandemonium, a rapidly collapsing reality. Sleep, it seems, is now the rarest and most precious commodity. Money can’t buy it, no drug can touch it, and there are those who would kill to have it.
Kenneth Calhoun’s dark, hallucinatory and brilliantly realised debut confronts one of our deepest needs – and fears – with style, vision and a very human heart.
The world has stopped sleeping. Restless nights have grown into days of panic, delirium and, eventually, desperation. But few and far between, sleepers can still be found – a gift they quickly learn to hide. For those still with the ability to dream are about to enter a waking nightmare.
Matt Biggs is one of the few sleepers. His wife Carolyn however, no stranger to insomnia, is on the very brink of exhaustion. After six restless days and nights, Biggs wakes to find her gone. He stumbles out of the house in search of her to find a world awash with pandemonium, a rapidly collapsing reality. Sleep, it seems, is now the rarest and most precious commodity. Money can’t buy it, no drug can touch it, and there are those who would kill to have it.
Kenneth Calhoun’s dark, hallucinatory and brilliantly realised debut confronts one of our deepest needs – and fears – with style, vision and a very human heart.
274 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
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October 12, 2019
oh look - another book about a mysterious insomnia epidemic and the physical and psychological toll a body in severe sleep deprivation undergoes.
and it is great.
but i get that it's not a crowd-pleaser. it is necessarily hallucinatory in places, there are several story lines to follow (although they do overlap at points), it is unremittingly bleak and fairly violent, and there aren't a whole lot of answers at the end of it.
but it is still an incredible journey.
at its best points, it reminded me of Zone One, in its various scenes of a lone figure walking through a nightmare landscape and coming across the tableaux of people in their final moments, or people so transformed by their circumstances that they may as well already be dead.
to back up a little: so - insomnia epidemic. a prolonged insomnia epidemic, into the middle of which we the reader are dropped - where so many people have been without sleep for so long that society has already fallen apart. people are completely dissociated; wandering the streets muttering to themselves, sleeping pills have no effect, everything is broken and scattered and most of the world is existing in a completely personal and isolated state of perpetual living dream. except for those who are somehow unaffected, who can still sleep. and these people become targets. the sight of someone sleeping causes the insomniacs to fly into violent rages and try to tear the sleeper apart with their bare hands if necessary. parents will try to kill their sleeping children, and feel awful about it afterward as long as they still have their moral center, but as they fall deeper into insomnia-dementia, people become increasingly violent, and anything goes, my friends. as long as they stay awake, the unaffected can move through the streets in relative safety, but there are very few places where it is safe to sleep.
and there is nothing scarier than being woken up out of a deep, restorative sleep by people trying to kill you. especially if it happens to be at the hands of a loved one.
there are many angles to this story. it is part love story, part sci-fi tale, part psychological suspense, and part post-apocalyptic survival story. some of the most important scenes are elided and only later revealed in anecdotes from another character, which i kind of love, but seems to be irritating to other readers.
all i know is that there is one chapter in here, involving two characters who never again come into play, that is SO chilling, it pretty much made the whole book for me.
but it did make me feel exhausted, reading about the exhaustion of others. perhaps not the best book to read late at night. or the very best book to read late at night. you decide.
come to my blog!
and it is great.
but i get that it's not a crowd-pleaser. it is necessarily hallucinatory in places, there are several story lines to follow (although they do overlap at points), it is unremittingly bleak and fairly violent, and there aren't a whole lot of answers at the end of it.
but it is still an incredible journey.
at its best points, it reminded me of Zone One, in its various scenes of a lone figure walking through a nightmare landscape and coming across the tableaux of people in their final moments, or people so transformed by their circumstances that they may as well already be dead.
to back up a little: so - insomnia epidemic. a prolonged insomnia epidemic, into the middle of which we the reader are dropped - where so many people have been without sleep for so long that society has already fallen apart. people are completely dissociated; wandering the streets muttering to themselves, sleeping pills have no effect, everything is broken and scattered and most of the world is existing in a completely personal and isolated state of perpetual living dream. except for those who are somehow unaffected, who can still sleep. and these people become targets. the sight of someone sleeping causes the insomniacs to fly into violent rages and try to tear the sleeper apart with their bare hands if necessary. parents will try to kill their sleeping children, and feel awful about it afterward as long as they still have their moral center, but as they fall deeper into insomnia-dementia, people become increasingly violent, and anything goes, my friends. as long as they stay awake, the unaffected can move through the streets in relative safety, but there are very few places where it is safe to sleep.
and there is nothing scarier than being woken up out of a deep, restorative sleep by people trying to kill you. especially if it happens to be at the hands of a loved one.
there are many angles to this story. it is part love story, part sci-fi tale, part psychological suspense, and part post-apocalyptic survival story. some of the most important scenes are elided and only later revealed in anecdotes from another character, which i kind of love, but seems to be irritating to other readers.
all i know is that there is one chapter in here, involving two characters who never again come into play, that is SO chilling, it pretty much made the whole book for me.
but it did make me feel exhausted, reading about the exhaustion of others. perhaps not the best book to read late at night. or the very best book to read late at night. you decide.
come to my blog!
January 25, 2015
There's a recurring trend in popular literature - a large number of debuting authors begin their careers with publishing a dystopia. Dystopias are in; readers - nowadays especially the younger ones - love them, and even more so when they are expanded into a series - just look at the great success of The Hunger Games (okay, technically not a debut) or countless other series of dystopian fiction aimed at teenagers. The real question is - how many golden eggs can this goose hatch?
Kenneth Calhoun's Black Moon is another example of this trend, and has been compared to The Age of Miracles and The Dog Stars - two other debut novels, and also popular dystopias. I didn't particularly like either of them - and I can't say I found much to enjoy in this book as well.
It's not that Black Moon is a terrible book, it's that the genre has been literally flooded with entries in recent years that it's extremely difficult to come up with something new. The most arresting element of a book like this is its central idea - in this case, the sudden outbreak of insomnia; but reading it feels like going through all familiar motions. World-building is minimal; characters are barely sketched, and given little personality. Plotting is haphazard, and jumps between events almost at random; in the end, there is little to remember about the book after we're finished with it.
Black Moon will not take too much of your reading time - but I don't think it's really worth it in the first place. There are many other, better books to be read; why waste your time with mediocre ones?2014 also saw the release of Bird Box - which, while disappointing for very much the same reasons, is a much more interesting and entertaining book. But it's still not the dystopia this readers is looking for - I hope that one day someone will give us something which we'll be able to call the next The Stand.
Kenneth Calhoun's Black Moon is another example of this trend, and has been compared to The Age of Miracles and The Dog Stars - two other debut novels, and also popular dystopias. I didn't particularly like either of them - and I can't say I found much to enjoy in this book as well.
It's not that Black Moon is a terrible book, it's that the genre has been literally flooded with entries in recent years that it's extremely difficult to come up with something new. The most arresting element of a book like this is its central idea - in this case, the sudden outbreak of insomnia; but reading it feels like going through all familiar motions. World-building is minimal; characters are barely sketched, and given little personality. Plotting is haphazard, and jumps between events almost at random; in the end, there is little to remember about the book after we're finished with it.
Black Moon will not take too much of your reading time - but I don't think it's really worth it in the first place. There are many other, better books to be read; why waste your time with mediocre ones?2014 also saw the release of Bird Box - which, while disappointing for very much the same reasons, is a much more interesting and entertaining book. But it's still not the dystopia this readers is looking for - I hope that one day someone will give us something which we'll be able to call the next The Stand.
March 15, 2016
I found this story of insomnia-caused apocalypse very entertaining. The writing was immediately gripping, and the glimpses into the characters' inner thoughts, memories, and reasoning made them immediately relatable.
NO ONE CAN SLEEP! ERMAHGERRD! This drives people batty! No chance to refresh the mind and body. As the book puts it, one can no longer transition experiences into memories. And not only do you have the expected physical and mental breakdown, but eventually the sleepless become unthinkingly violent toward "sleepers."
At once an end-of-the-world tale, a pseudo-zombie story, and an examination of just how important dreams are to our species, this wonderfully-written, sometimes hallucinatory novel is great!
NO ONE CAN SLEEP! ERMAHGERRD! This drives people batty! No chance to refresh the mind and body. As the book puts it, one can no longer transition experiences into memories. And not only do you have the expected physical and mental breakdown, but eventually the sleepless become unthinkingly violent toward "sleepers."
At once an end-of-the-world tale, a pseudo-zombie story, and an examination of just how important dreams are to our species, this wonderfully-written, sometimes hallucinatory novel is great!
February 2, 2014
I can't help but wonder if the ARC I've been given through work is different to everyone else's (judging by the star ratings anyway). The writing is great, flows well, the characters are all distinctive, there's not much to fault initially. In fact, I thought that it was going to turn into a Stephen King or GM Hague type stomach turning/churning horror fest, and I was well pleased at the thought.
My low score isn't because it wasn't what I was hoping for, it's because of the lack of tie up at the end, I'm fairly sure that one poor character is still out there, with no gory death or semi happy ending, and the tie up for another is sort of a bit "oh and yeah, this happened and it all ended ok for that person".
A sort of good book, with so much potential, just not fulfilled. I'll give the author another chance with his next book (assuming there will be one), and see what happens, but all up, not thrilled with this one.
My low score isn't because it wasn't what I was hoping for, it's because of the lack of tie up at the end, I'm fairly sure that one poor character is still out there, with no gory death or semi happy ending, and the tie up for another is sort of a bit "oh and yeah, this happened and it all ended ok for that person".
A sort of good book, with so much potential, just not fulfilled. I'll give the author another chance with his next book (assuming there will be one), and see what happens, but all up, not thrilled with this one.
June 23, 2014
Overall, I enjoyed this book. The first 3/4 were fascinating. I couldn't stop reading, I wanted to know what would happen next as the main characters came to grips with the insomnia epidemic. The forays into the insomniacs' thoughts as they descended into madness were gripping.
However, the story lines and plot pacing were odd. Each character was in their own timeline relative to the epidemic--some began in the middle, like Biggs, and others were introduced before it broke out, like Chase. Sometimes we would get a wealth of description and exacting details, in other instances we would lose weeks of time. It was the same with characters: we heard a lot about Lila at the beginning, pretty much lost her in the middle, and completely left her hanging in the end. I was also surprised by how much the author leaves up to the reader to assume. At times this worked well, as with the chapter about Adam, Jorie, and their newborn. But Chase's storyline had big information gaps: once when Chase escaped their campsite, and the other after his rampage at the rest area. In the first instance, yes, I could guess what happened: people came to camp and attacked Jordan who is presumably dead. The second time, though, I can't really assume what happened. Not that I want to know more about what happened to Chase in the bathroom stall, but really--he was pretty far gone in that scene. He had just hatcheted a dozen or more people, many to their deaths. He was fully nuts. Yet he somehow managed to travel to Felicia's house (on foot?) and chain himself up there so that he could see her for her birthday. When most of the insomniacs are described as extremely forgetful, it's hard to believe that after going so crazy Chase was able to get it together enough to accomplish all this, especially when none of it is conveyed to the reader. Yes, it's more surprising to suddenly find him in Felicia's house, but it's not very believable. Especially considering all this is done so that we can hear a gruesome yet brief second-hand account of Felicia's death.
Once Biggs was rescued, the story line fell apart. It became less about the epidemic and the survivors, and all about Biggs dealing with his wife's secret miscarriage & assumed death. Yet even that was shallow, since by the end, his reaction was more typical for a break-up than mourning a death. There were also the unanswered questions surrounding Biggs and his dream experiences. Did Carolyn really get his ring back for him or not? Did Carolyn kill all the people who were trying to attack him, or did they all conveniently die on their own? The idea that Carolyn was interacting with him supernaturally was introduced, but it went nowhere. Instead of adding to the mystery, it felt hollow, like the author just chose not to do anything with those scenes.
Once Biggs was at the sleep center and became The Dreamer, the epidemic was no longer important. Nothing more was said about the epidemic itself, no hints of other sleepers who had survived. Should we take Dr Lee's comments at face value and believe that the implant survivors would go crazy without Biggs' second-hand dreams? Was Biggs the only one truly immune? I had an awful lot of questions by the end. I'm okay with not tying up every loose end, but this felt more like the first in a series than a stand-alone book.
However, the story lines and plot pacing were odd. Each character was in their own timeline relative to the epidemic--some began in the middle, like Biggs, and others were introduced before it broke out, like Chase. Sometimes we would get a wealth of description and exacting details, in other instances we would lose weeks of time. It was the same with characters: we heard a lot about Lila at the beginning, pretty much lost her in the middle, and completely left her hanging in the end. I was also surprised by how much the author leaves up to the reader to assume. At times this worked well, as with the chapter about Adam, Jorie, and their newborn. But Chase's storyline had big information gaps: once when Chase escaped their campsite, and the other after his rampage at the rest area. In the first instance, yes, I could guess what happened: people came to camp and attacked Jordan who is presumably dead. The second time, though, I can't really assume what happened. Not that I want to know more about what happened to Chase in the bathroom stall, but really--he was pretty far gone in that scene. He had just hatcheted a dozen or more people, many to their deaths. He was fully nuts. Yet he somehow managed to travel to Felicia's house (on foot?) and chain himself up there so that he could see her for her birthday. When most of the insomniacs are described as extremely forgetful, it's hard to believe that after going so crazy Chase was able to get it together enough to accomplish all this, especially when none of it is conveyed to the reader. Yes, it's more surprising to suddenly find him in Felicia's house, but it's not very believable. Especially considering all this is done so that we can hear a gruesome yet brief second-hand account of Felicia's death.
Once Biggs was rescued, the story line fell apart. It became less about the epidemic and the survivors, and all about Biggs dealing with his wife's secret miscarriage & assumed death. Yet even that was shallow, since by the end, his reaction was more typical for a break-up than mourning a death. There were also the unanswered questions surrounding Biggs and his dream experiences. Did Carolyn really get his ring back for him or not? Did Carolyn kill all the people who were trying to attack him, or did they all conveniently die on their own? The idea that Carolyn was interacting with him supernaturally was introduced, but it went nowhere. Instead of adding to the mystery, it felt hollow, like the author just chose not to do anything with those scenes.
Once Biggs was at the sleep center and became The Dreamer, the epidemic was no longer important. Nothing more was said about the epidemic itself, no hints of other sleepers who had survived. Should we take Dr Lee's comments at face value and believe that the implant survivors would go crazy without Biggs' second-hand dreams? Was Biggs the only one truly immune? I had an awful lot of questions by the end. I'm okay with not tying up every loose end, but this felt more like the first in a series than a stand-alone book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 14, 2014
Sleep is important! I know a certain four-year-old who wishes that Bedtime could be destroyed, so I find myself stressing that fact on a nightly basis. When most of the population loses the ability to fall asleep, they all start wandering around talking in word salads & getting murderously enraged at anyone they find who can still sleep. “’You have sleeping in you, the way you talk and your eyes are telling me so fucking obviously so!’” I don’t know who I feel more sorry for here, the folks who are so exhausted they’ve become deranged or the few characters who would just like to get some shut-eye without being interrupted at their most vulnerable by someone trying to violently murder them. This starts off brilliantly, with some lovely tense apocalyptic development, which when done well is something I enjoy a lot more than the aftermath of whatever disaster has befallen the characters. But after the build-up, I got distracted & my interest waned. While the chapter about Adam & Jordie who can’t sleep & their new baby who can works as an utterly horrifying stand-alone piece even with no follow-up, there’s a lot of other stuff that gets introduced and not resolved. Calhoun can turn an elegant phrase even though he’d lost me a bit by the end & although it sounds like a convenient joke, I took a cat-nap halfway through reading this just because I could. It was beautiful.
April 2, 2014
The writing was quite beautiful in places, and it was cleverly structured. The characters were interesting, believable, and not tropey. And yet I just didn't like the book. Like a date who is good on paper, but leaves you cold.
Not my book?
YMMV.
Not my book?
YMMV.
June 30, 2014
Terrible. Just terrible.
People ask me all the time why I hang out in Young Adult if that genre is awful and it's because at least a great deal of it is not as pretentious as Adult fiction.
I don't even know where to start with this book.
Black Moon is the story about some people who can't sleep because of reasons. So we follow a few different characters on their insanity or desire to run away from people who can't sleep because the people who can sleep are being killed by the people who can sleep.
That's it. That's seriously all this book is about. Central plot? Nah, there's not one. Convincing characterizations? Nope, that's not here either. Entertaining? No. I skimmed the last twenty because I had to read it for book club and I really couldn't even have cared less.
The book jumps perspective every chapter, and that's fine. It's third person limited. But it also jumps timelines very early on, so then I'm just wondering what's happening when and if everyone's timeline is in sync or what.
What's with adult fiction mentioning sex very off-handedly all the time? It's mentioned like once a chapter and really has no bearing on the plot whatsoever. There's even a character who can't get it up except when he's asleep and then he just "slips" in his girlfriend when he's asleep and doesn't think about who he's fucking.
You do know how sex works, right? Was the chick prepping herself while you were asleep to make that so easy and then try to rape you in your sleep? Because that shit requires coordination.
Oh, and don't even get me started on how the guy who can't get it up is supposed to be a symbol for everyone who can't fall asleep and then has to rely on medication to do it. Or some chick who sings lullabies, which is never explained either why she's the freaking sandman with her voice.
Want to be beaten over the brow with the symbolism stick? Come right on in! I wonder how many times the statue of the angel with the trumpet can be mentioned. The answer is a fuck ton. A fuck ton of times.
I GET IT! We all know what an angel with a trumpet means! Especially in a goddamn half-ass dystopia.
But the cardinal sin of this book is that it was boring. There was no plot to move it forward, no characters to care about. Focus on one character. Show me a sleeper who's trying to get by in this world. Then flash to someone who's slowly going insane with no sleep. Make me care about these characters.
All in all, it's like someone decided to delve into the psyche of someone who can't sleep and stopped there. Explored that idea, but left out all of the conventions of fiction writing. This was fodder for a short story at most. The fact that is was dragged into a long novel is criminal.
In the end, there is only one thing to say:
People ask me all the time why I hang out in Young Adult if that genre is awful and it's because at least a great deal of it is not as pretentious as Adult fiction.
I don't even know where to start with this book.
Black Moon is the story about some people who can't sleep because of reasons. So we follow a few different characters on their insanity or desire to run away from people who can't sleep because the people who can sleep are being killed by the people who can sleep.
That's it. That's seriously all this book is about. Central plot? Nah, there's not one. Convincing characterizations? Nope, that's not here either. Entertaining? No. I skimmed the last twenty because I had to read it for book club and I really couldn't even have cared less.
The book jumps perspective every chapter, and that's fine. It's third person limited. But it also jumps timelines very early on, so then I'm just wondering what's happening when and if everyone's timeline is in sync or what.
What's with adult fiction mentioning sex very off-handedly all the time? It's mentioned like once a chapter and really has no bearing on the plot whatsoever. There's even a character who can't get it up except when he's asleep and then he just "slips" in his girlfriend when he's asleep and doesn't think about who he's fucking.
You do know how sex works, right? Was the chick prepping herself while you were asleep to make that so easy and then try to rape you in your sleep? Because that shit requires coordination.
Oh, and don't even get me started on how the guy who can't get it up is supposed to be a symbol for everyone who can't fall asleep and then has to rely on medication to do it. Or some chick who sings lullabies, which is never explained either why she's the freaking sandman with her voice.
Want to be beaten over the brow with the symbolism stick? Come right on in! I wonder how many times the statue of the angel with the trumpet can be mentioned. The answer is a fuck ton. A fuck ton of times.
I GET IT! We all know what an angel with a trumpet means! Especially in a goddamn half-ass dystopia.
But the cardinal sin of this book is that it was boring. There was no plot to move it forward, no characters to care about. Focus on one character. Show me a sleeper who's trying to get by in this world. Then flash to someone who's slowly going insane with no sleep. Make me care about these characters.
All in all, it's like someone decided to delve into the psyche of someone who can't sleep and stopped there. Explored that idea, but left out all of the conventions of fiction writing. This was fodder for a short story at most. The fact that is was dragged into a long novel is criminal.
In the end, there is only one thing to say:
June 29, 2015
This is a zombie book.
Ever heard of sleep deprivation turning you into a 'zombie'? It's not a metaphor here.
A mysterious plague of sleeplessness has infected us. A few are not (or not yet?) affected, but even the immune are out of luck, because the insomnia doesn't only degrade the faculties, it causes the sleepless to become filled with violent, killing rage at the sight of a sleeper.
We see this apocalypse through the eyes of a few different characters... Two young men, one of whom notices the creeping insomnia, and hopes to get a jump on survival by stockpiling sleeping pills. A young woman, whose position working at a sleep research lab might give her an advantage. A man who tries to cure his girlfriend through the placebo effect, then spends most of the book chasing after her after she goes missing. Some others...
Calhoun's writing style and focus on the mundane aspects of his characters' lives may cause this book to be classified into the 'literature' section, but when it comes right down to it, the book is quite firmly in the 'zombie' genre. It reminded me a bit of Alden Bell's 'The Reapers Are The Angels.'
I very much appreciated and enjoyed most of the book. I felt like the author set up a lot of interesting scenarios, introduced both heartbreak and black humor in an effective way. And then, it ended.
Yep, nothing really wrapped up, open questions left hanging, dangling plotlines everywhere, and a thoroughly inconclusive and abrupt finale. It felt very unsatisfying.
As far as I know, that's meant to be the end, too... no sequel planned.
Read as this month's post-apocalyptic book club selection.
Ever heard of sleep deprivation turning you into a 'zombie'? It's not a metaphor here.
A mysterious plague of sleeplessness has infected us. A few are not (or not yet?) affected, but even the immune are out of luck, because the insomnia doesn't only degrade the faculties, it causes the sleepless to become filled with violent, killing rage at the sight of a sleeper.
We see this apocalypse through the eyes of a few different characters... Two young men, one of whom notices the creeping insomnia, and hopes to get a jump on survival by stockpiling sleeping pills. A young woman, whose position working at a sleep research lab might give her an advantage. A man who tries to cure his girlfriend through the placebo effect, then spends most of the book chasing after her after she goes missing. Some others...
Calhoun's writing style and focus on the mundane aspects of his characters' lives may cause this book to be classified into the 'literature' section, but when it comes right down to it, the book is quite firmly in the 'zombie' genre. It reminded me a bit of Alden Bell's 'The Reapers Are The Angels.'
I very much appreciated and enjoyed most of the book. I felt like the author set up a lot of interesting scenarios, introduced both heartbreak and black humor in an effective way. And then, it ended.
Yep, nothing really wrapped up, open questions left hanging, dangling plotlines everywhere, and a thoroughly inconclusive and abrupt finale. It felt very unsatisfying.
As far as I know, that's meant to be the end, too... no sequel planned.
Read as this month's post-apocalyptic book club selection.
November 30, 2013
ARC copy for review (Netgalley).
I really wanted to like this book. Really. It sounded perfect for me - humans can no longer sleep, so they gradually lose their minds, and so comes the end of civilization. Unfortunately, I can't really say much more than that - this was a great idea but the execution was a mess. There are shifts back and forth in time that don't make sense, characters drift in and out of the narrative with no explanation and while there are some nice descriptive moments, those don't make up for the complete chaos within. Perhaps this was meant to mirror the upheaval in this new world, but, if so, it didn't really work. Despite the clever premise, I can't really recommend.
I really wanted to like this book. Really. It sounded perfect for me - humans can no longer sleep, so they gradually lose their minds, and so comes the end of civilization. Unfortunately, I can't really say much more than that - this was a great idea but the execution was a mess. There are shifts back and forth in time that don't make sense, characters drift in and out of the narrative with no explanation and while there are some nice descriptive moments, those don't make up for the complete chaos within. Perhaps this was meant to mirror the upheaval in this new world, but, if so, it didn't really work. Despite the clever premise, I can't really recommend.
November 30, 2016
It’s possible that I’m processing the appalling state of the world right now by savagely critiquing a series of random novels that I found by keyword searching ‘dystopia’ in the library catalogue. There are probably worse coping mechanisms. ‘Black Moon’, fourth in the stack, was actually a borderline case, as I’d already read another book with the exact same plot: Nod. I ended up including it in the hope that it would surpass Nod. In that, no-one in the world can sleep anymore except the narrator, a man whose utter lack of personality seems to preserve him from the insomnia plague. In 'Black Moon' ditto, except the tedious male lead (name of Biggs) is accompanied by a few other, much more interesting narrators. Without Lila, Chase, and Felicia, I would have given up on the book in disgust. Biggs’ sole motivation and character trait is trying to find his wife, who has fallen victim to the mass sleeplessness. This woman is the most extreme example of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl I have ever encountered. A selection of evidence: she’s an artist who doesn’t know any other artists and works exclusively in stop motion animation. She makes a painstaking animation for her husband, shows it to him once, then destroys it. She tells him that she doesn’t need anyone else in her life but him. She worries him by climbing on the roof and the balcony. She has depression, but in a sexy way. She treats helpless elderly people ‘like a sack of abandoned kittens’. She’s also thin and has long hair, of course. This is not a human woman, it is a collection of male wish fulfilment traits bundled together. At one point I hoped she’d returned to murder her deeply annoying husband, but sadly that was just a hallucination.
As a more general comparison with Nod, ‘Black Moon’ has none of the interesting use of language but a weirder and more erratic plot. In fact, I was most entertained by the book while wondering what the actual fuck was happening. Notably, the point when Chase has taken an overdose of viagra, which somehow compels him to steal a truck full of sheep while naked and high on sleep deprivation. Said incident also inspires the priceless line: ‘It was as though he had told his cock an incredible story and it had laughed and cried, then turned to him and said, “Then what?”’ For all the faults I found in this book, that’s a memorable turn of phrase. (As an aside, for most of the narrative I assumed that Chase was a teenager, then latterly realised he was supposed to be an adult. Nothing about his characterisation suggested an age above fifteen.)
The only plot thread with any coherence belonged to Felicia who, much like the lead female character of Nod, deserved better. Nevertheless, I liked the inclusion of attempts to fix the insomnia crisis with science, something Nod doesn’t bother with. The theme of sleep without dreams being survival rather than life was conceptually intriguing, then sadly not explored in any detail. In conclusion, I think ‘Black Moon’ could have been much improved by: a) entirely removing Biggs and his Manic Pixie Dream Wife, b) leaning into the black humour of the plot much harder as I could not take it seriously, c) giving Felicia and Lila much more time and character development, d) explaining what the hell happened to Jordan, e) giving some indication of whether this sleeplessness problem was limited to one part of America or what, and f) using insomnia as an allegory, to make this a true dystopia rather than a nonsensical thought experiment.
As a more general comparison with Nod, ‘Black Moon’ has none of the interesting use of language but a weirder and more erratic plot. In fact, I was most entertained by the book while wondering what the actual fuck was happening. Notably, the point when Chase has taken an overdose of viagra, which somehow compels him to steal a truck full of sheep while naked and high on sleep deprivation. Said incident also inspires the priceless line: ‘It was as though he had told his cock an incredible story and it had laughed and cried, then turned to him and said, “Then what?”’ For all the faults I found in this book, that’s a memorable turn of phrase. (As an aside, for most of the narrative I assumed that Chase was a teenager, then latterly realised he was supposed to be an adult. Nothing about his characterisation suggested an age above fifteen.)
The only plot thread with any coherence belonged to Felicia who, much like the lead female character of Nod, deserved better. Nevertheless, I liked the inclusion of attempts to fix the insomnia crisis with science, something Nod doesn’t bother with. The theme of sleep without dreams being survival rather than life was conceptually intriguing, then sadly not explored in any detail. In conclusion, I think ‘Black Moon’ could have been much improved by: a) entirely removing Biggs and his Manic Pixie Dream Wife, b) leaning into the black humour of the plot much harder as I could not take it seriously, c) giving Felicia and Lila much more time and character development, d) explaining what the hell happened to Jordan, e) giving some indication of whether this sleeplessness problem was limited to one part of America or what, and f) using insomnia as an allegory, to make this a true dystopia rather than a nonsensical thought experiment.
January 1, 2015
4.5 stars. Black Moon definitely isn't for everybody - I can completely understand why someone would loathe it. For me, it was a pleasant (and timely) reminder that contemporary fiction can still be cool, experimental, and well-written. I've come upon so many books recently that TRIED to accomplish those things, and failed miserably at every turn. Black Moon had enough restraint and intelligence to achieve balance (in my opinion, at least).
The dystopian premise in Black Moon is deceptively simple: people can no longer sleep. The world becomes quickly divided between the sleepers and the sleepless. The sleepless are described as pseudo-zombies who shuffle around in a haze of disorientation until the sight of a sleeper stimulates their feral rage. The strongest aspect of this depiction is the broken language that the sleepless use to communicate. Structurally, there's a general sense of muddling. The content also becomes surreal, as the boundary between reality and hallucinations erodes. Calhoun's use of linguistic scrambling is both eerie and unexpectedly poetic. He also manages to make those sections experimental without sacrificing the reader's comprehension.
I like that the novel doesn't spend a lot of time explaining the insomnia plague. There are several instances where various characters introduce hypotheses, but there's never a direct statement about causation. Rather than focus on the plague's origin, Black Moon concentrates on its effects - and that is much more horrifying and grotesque. There were several moments where I had flashbacks to McCarthy's The Road.
At a very basic level, Black Moon is about systemic, unstoppable inversion. The title itself gestures towards this aspect. The theme also manifests itself as reality becomes supplanted with the waking dreams of the sleepless. Cause and effect become upended; filial bonds become corrupted; and homes/cars/valuables are reduced to detritus.
*sigh* I really loved this book. The exploration of dreams and their central role in determining the definition of "humanity" was also wicked cool.
The dystopian premise in Black Moon is deceptively simple: people can no longer sleep. The world becomes quickly divided between the sleepers and the sleepless. The sleepless are described as pseudo-zombies who shuffle around in a haze of disorientation until the sight of a sleeper stimulates their feral rage. The strongest aspect of this depiction is the broken language that the sleepless use to communicate. Structurally, there's a general sense of muddling. The content also becomes surreal, as the boundary between reality and hallucinations erodes. Calhoun's use of linguistic scrambling is both eerie and unexpectedly poetic. He also manages to make those sections experimental without sacrificing the reader's comprehension.
I like that the novel doesn't spend a lot of time explaining the insomnia plague. There are several instances where various characters introduce hypotheses, but there's never a direct statement about causation. Rather than focus on the plague's origin, Black Moon concentrates on its effects - and that is much more horrifying and grotesque. There were several moments where I had flashbacks to McCarthy's The Road.
At a very basic level, Black Moon is about systemic, unstoppable inversion. The title itself gestures towards this aspect. The theme also manifests itself as reality becomes supplanted with the waking dreams of the sleepless. Cause and effect become upended; filial bonds become corrupted; and homes/cars/valuables are reduced to detritus.
*sigh* I really loved this book. The exploration of dreams and their central role in determining the definition of "humanity" was also wicked cool.
June 8, 2015
Rating: 3.5/5 STARS
Black Moon is a novel riddled with insomnia, survival, and insanity. Calhoun's engrossing writing stunningly depicts a beautiful yet horrifically frightening reality of life without sleep, shedding a dark light on the possibility of a world gone mad from something entirely different than the common Robert Frost theory of fire and ice. Life has become a constant struggle. Not many people are able to sleep, and the ones who can are hunted and murdered by the ones who cannot. Each chapter took me on a wild journey that was captivating to read through even though it was mentally straining. Happy endings are not always possible, and Black Moon definitely proved that sentiment time and time again.
The cast of characters in this novel were plentiful and equally their own persons. Calhoun went out of his way to mold different ages, genders, and psyches into his story so that everyone was evenly represented. I especially enjoyed when specific characters unexpectedly crossed paths with one another. The constant back and forth chapters between the different characters’ story lines were also welcomed; it effectively added to the suspense of the entire novel. However, I was greatly discouraged when a specific character was dropped. I had no idea what had happened to them and no way of ever finding out what became of them. In fact, there were quite a bit of unanswered questions by the end of Black Moon, and I felt as though not enough closure was given to me. For this reason, I did not feel fully satisfied with the novel itself.
For me, one of the more appealing aspects of Black Moon was the reading experience. Many times the author dove into the psyches of insomniacs and wrote from their perspectives. In fact, it was almost as if I was actually looking into the mind and stream of consciousness of an actual individual suffering from sleep deprivation. This exposure was both spellbinding and haunting. However, even though I enjoyed this novel, I felt as though it drug on at times, and I believe that quite a few sections felt similar to each other and were almost repeats but from another character's perspective. Also, some of the insomniacs’ story lines become muddled and confusing to follow due to countless incoherent thoughts; however, I realize that this was definitely part of the author’s intent. In the end, I believe this book to be a worthy read, but it was admittedly not the best that I have ever come by.
Please note that I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
You can see reviews like this one and more at http://knightingalereviews.blogspot.com/.
Black Moon is a novel riddled with insomnia, survival, and insanity. Calhoun's engrossing writing stunningly depicts a beautiful yet horrifically frightening reality of life without sleep, shedding a dark light on the possibility of a world gone mad from something entirely different than the common Robert Frost theory of fire and ice. Life has become a constant struggle. Not many people are able to sleep, and the ones who can are hunted and murdered by the ones who cannot. Each chapter took me on a wild journey that was captivating to read through even though it was mentally straining. Happy endings are not always possible, and Black Moon definitely proved that sentiment time and time again.
The cast of characters in this novel were plentiful and equally their own persons. Calhoun went out of his way to mold different ages, genders, and psyches into his story so that everyone was evenly represented. I especially enjoyed when specific characters unexpectedly crossed paths with one another. The constant back and forth chapters between the different characters’ story lines were also welcomed; it effectively added to the suspense of the entire novel. However, I was greatly discouraged when a specific character was dropped. I had no idea what had happened to them and no way of ever finding out what became of them. In fact, there were quite a bit of unanswered questions by the end of Black Moon, and I felt as though not enough closure was given to me. For this reason, I did not feel fully satisfied with the novel itself.
For me, one of the more appealing aspects of Black Moon was the reading experience. Many times the author dove into the psyches of insomniacs and wrote from their perspectives. In fact, it was almost as if I was actually looking into the mind and stream of consciousness of an actual individual suffering from sleep deprivation. This exposure was both spellbinding and haunting. However, even though I enjoyed this novel, I felt as though it drug on at times, and I believe that quite a few sections felt similar to each other and were almost repeats but from another character's perspective. Also, some of the insomniacs’ story lines become muddled and confusing to follow due to countless incoherent thoughts; however, I realize that this was definitely part of the author’s intent. In the end, I believe this book to be a worthy read, but it was admittedly not the best that I have ever come by.
Please note that I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
You can see reviews like this one and more at http://knightingalereviews.blogspot.com/.
October 23, 2016
Confusing. The time lines jump all over the place with the different characters. And honestly Felicias and Chase bored me the most. Chase's made the least sense. Briggs and Lili were decent but still....
I struggled to get through this, and just as I felt I was starting to get it it threw some strange twists that didn't even make sense. And nothing is explained as to what, why etc. No resolution either. Can't have it both ways. It starts and ends in the middle of a story. Toss in multiple POVS and timelines and you get a mess.
I struggled to get through this, and just as I felt I was starting to get it it threw some strange twists that didn't even make sense. And nothing is explained as to what, why etc. No resolution either. Can't have it both ways. It starts and ends in the middle of a story. Toss in multiple POVS and timelines and you get a mess.
March 16, 2015
Beautiful, hallucinatory writing. This is the kind of weird, fragmented book I am drawn to, but it's missing something crucial. It's not quite weird enough to pull off an open ending, but it tries to. If it was either paced & plotted a bit more tightly or have into full-throttle madness, it would be perfect. A promising first novel, though.
September 27, 2017
I love it when impulse cover-based purchases pay off.
As an insomniac, this would be my worst nightmare.
I love literary horror so much. ^__^
As an insomniac, this would be my worst nightmare.
I love literary horror so much. ^__^
March 19, 2016
An insomniac's worst nightmare, in Black Moon, the whole world stops sleeping. And, it's a bloodbath. I kept looking for the redeeming qualities of this story and they were few and far between. But, here's what I scrounged up:
I liked the relationship between Biggs and Carolyn, especially The Dream (Biggs started talking to Carolyn because of a dream he had), and this description by the author of how important it was to them: "It was a sacred text in their own domestic religion." pg 17 (ebook) I feel like all relationships have those funny, structural supports to them and I rather liked Calhoun's cultural comparison to a religion. Relationships sort of are, aren't they? We believe in them, we devote time and resources to them, we build up the people involved in them into more than human, we think they'll last forever...
I also liked this discussion of the reality of sleep vs the reality of real life between Chase and Jordan: "Because if you stay awake long enough, you have them whether you're sleeping or not. Hallucinations, man. Don't you see what that means? It means that it's where we really live, and when we're awake, we're just coming up for air." pg 29 (ebook) Curious how we spend one third of our lives sleeping, but we don't really consider that a part of our lives.
Carolyn's thoughts about the space between, (in her stop motion films) applies so well to life: "There are spaces between the events we see where things get past us... If you can find the rhythm of those spaces, the openings in time, you can hide whole worlds inside them." pg 44 (ebook)
An obvious comparison perhaps, but that reminded me of the Dave Matthews song:
The space between the tears we cry
Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more
The space between the wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep safe from the pain
But will I hold you again? (from the Space Between, lyrics from metrolyrics.com)
One more part that I enjoyed, Biggs thoughts on the disaster and how it had occurred: "He recognized now that a slow-moving catastrophe like this one was a series of surrenders. You lose something you assumed you couldn't live without, but then you do live. So you fall back to your next most cherished possession. Then you lose that too, triggering yet another retreat and adjustment of expectations. At some point it has to bottom out." pg 86 (ebook) That's the way of disasters, a series of surrenders. I thought it was a poetic way to describe them.
So, other than those bits, Black Moon is a nightmare landscape of insomniacs trying to kill people who can still sleep. Perhaps, if you enjoy horror, you might find more to this than I did. Actually, folks who liked Station Eleven might want to pick this up. It's a slow moving, end-of-the-world scenario with intertwining narratives.
I liked the relationship between Biggs and Carolyn, especially The Dream (Biggs started talking to Carolyn because of a dream he had), and this description by the author of how important it was to them: "It was a sacred text in their own domestic religion." pg 17 (ebook) I feel like all relationships have those funny, structural supports to them and I rather liked Calhoun's cultural comparison to a religion. Relationships sort of are, aren't they? We believe in them, we devote time and resources to them, we build up the people involved in them into more than human, we think they'll last forever...
I also liked this discussion of the reality of sleep vs the reality of real life between Chase and Jordan: "Because if you stay awake long enough, you have them whether you're sleeping or not. Hallucinations, man. Don't you see what that means? It means that it's where we really live, and when we're awake, we're just coming up for air." pg 29 (ebook) Curious how we spend one third of our lives sleeping, but we don't really consider that a part of our lives.
Carolyn's thoughts about the space between, (in her stop motion films) applies so well to life: "There are spaces between the events we see where things get past us... If you can find the rhythm of those spaces, the openings in time, you can hide whole worlds inside them." pg 44 (ebook)
An obvious comparison perhaps, but that reminded me of the Dave Matthews song:
The space between the tears we cry
Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more
The space between the wicked lies we tell
And hope to keep safe from the pain
But will I hold you again? (from the Space Between, lyrics from metrolyrics.com)
One more part that I enjoyed, Biggs thoughts on the disaster and how it had occurred: "He recognized now that a slow-moving catastrophe like this one was a series of surrenders. You lose something you assumed you couldn't live without, but then you do live. So you fall back to your next most cherished possession. Then you lose that too, triggering yet another retreat and adjustment of expectations. At some point it has to bottom out." pg 86 (ebook) That's the way of disasters, a series of surrenders. I thought it was a poetic way to describe them.
So, other than those bits, Black Moon is a nightmare landscape of insomniacs trying to kill people who can still sleep. Perhaps, if you enjoy horror, you might find more to this than I did. Actually, folks who liked Station Eleven might want to pick this up. It's a slow moving, end-of-the-world scenario with intertwining narratives.
June 7, 2014
I still can't decide if I think this book was good or not. I know I didn't like it, but I think I didn't like it in a good way.
Lemme try to explain. Okay, so we have an apocalyptic book here, somewhat on par with a zombie book, in that almost everyone has insomnia. It gets wiggy because just a few people can still sleep—and the insomniacs in full swing go nuts when they see someone sleeping, or suspect someone can sleep, and freakin' attack their asses in crazy malicious ways.
The reason I didn't like it is because it kept making me feel like I hadn't slept in a couple of days, even though most of the POV characters are getting some form of sleep. And I could totally see why the sleepless wanted to kill them.
The world-building was cool, and I thought the character motivations were cool. I could see these people.
But I'm not real sure what the point was. At the same time, I kind of wondering if that was the point. I could almost get behind that, except that I got all invested in these characters, and then for there not to be a...a real point was a let-down.
The way things ended for Chase and his girlfriend just... It made me toss my hands up in the air, like, Really? Not so much because of what happened, but because of how it was told. That is, it wasn't shown; their last scene of the book happened off-camera, and it shouldn't have.
Then there's another character who had one more thing to do, and we never had another section of her POV. So, in the end, even though we followed more than one character, it seemed the only one we were supposed to care about getting any kind of ending was Biggs. Which, would have been fine, if only I hadn't been led to believe I was right to care about the others.
In the end, when I look back, my main problem is that it seems Calhoun only wrote on this novel at times when he didn't have any sleep. Method writing, I suppose. Interesting, I guess, but not anything I'd care to read again.
Lemme try to explain. Okay, so we have an apocalyptic book here, somewhat on par with a zombie book, in that almost everyone has insomnia. It gets wiggy because just a few people can still sleep—and the insomniacs in full swing go nuts when they see someone sleeping, or suspect someone can sleep, and freakin' attack their asses in crazy malicious ways.
The reason I didn't like it is because it kept making me feel like I hadn't slept in a couple of days, even though most of the POV characters are getting some form of sleep. And I could totally see why the sleepless wanted to kill them.
The world-building was cool, and I thought the character motivations were cool. I could see these people.
But I'm not real sure what the point was. At the same time, I kind of wondering if that was the point. I could almost get behind that, except that I got all invested in these characters, and then for there not to be a...a real point was a let-down.
The way things ended for Chase and his girlfriend just... It made me toss my hands up in the air, like, Really? Not so much because of what happened, but because of how it was told. That is, it wasn't shown; their last scene of the book happened off-camera, and it shouldn't have.
Then there's another character who had one more thing to do, and we never had another section of her POV. So, in the end, even though we followed more than one character, it seemed the only one we were supposed to care about getting any kind of ending was Biggs. Which, would have been fine, if only I hadn't been led to believe I was right to care about the others.
In the end, when I look back, my main problem is that it seems Calhoun only wrote on this novel at times when he didn't have any sleep. Method writing, I suppose. Interesting, I guess, but not anything I'd care to read again.
August 27, 2015
What if the world is hit with an epidemic of insomnia? That is the premise of Black Moon, Calhoun's debut novel. Often called hallucinogenic by other reviewers, this book is an engaging book about the end of the world as we know it.
Biggs doesn't know why, but he can still sleep, even though everyone around him is in the grasp of insomnia. Then one day he can no longer find his wife. Biggs and a cast of other characters try to find their way as society crumbles.
Sometimes reading other reviews can influence your thoughts on a book, and with Black Moon I'm glad I went in blind. The book has an absolutely atrocious average rating on Goodreads. A rating I wasn't expecting at all, making me wonder whether we all read the same book - because the one I read was a solid apocalyptic science-fiction novel.
What might put some people off is that Black Moon isn't always an easy read. The plot isn't completely linear, there are multiple characters to keep track of, and the sleep-deprived points of view sometimes take a turn towards the bizarre. However, I would by no means call this book unnecessarily convoluted or complex. It doesn't take the reader by the hand, but the main story is never far off either, and there are no chances of getting lost.
In a way Black Moon reminded me of World War Z - how it should have been. The comparison by the insomniacs and zombies isn't far off, and the emphasis on the crumbling of society is similar. Our heroes go through some pretty big peril before a sort of balance is restored, and like in World War Z, not all characters are sympathetic. I really held my heart at some instances, not wanting my favourites to meet a terrible fate.
Black Moon combines solid writing with a true and tried concept of an apocalyptic scenario. Though it doesn't give many answers of the why and how, it's an adventure novel that hits the spot.
Biggs doesn't know why, but he can still sleep, even though everyone around him is in the grasp of insomnia. Then one day he can no longer find his wife. Biggs and a cast of other characters try to find their way as society crumbles.
Sometimes reading other reviews can influence your thoughts on a book, and with Black Moon I'm glad I went in blind. The book has an absolutely atrocious average rating on Goodreads. A rating I wasn't expecting at all, making me wonder whether we all read the same book - because the one I read was a solid apocalyptic science-fiction novel.
What might put some people off is that Black Moon isn't always an easy read. The plot isn't completely linear, there are multiple characters to keep track of, and the sleep-deprived points of view sometimes take a turn towards the bizarre. However, I would by no means call this book unnecessarily convoluted or complex. It doesn't take the reader by the hand, but the main story is never far off either, and there are no chances of getting lost.
In a way Black Moon reminded me of World War Z - how it should have been. The comparison by the insomniacs and zombies isn't far off, and the emphasis on the crumbling of society is similar. Our heroes go through some pretty big peril before a sort of balance is restored, and like in World War Z, not all characters are sympathetic. I really held my heart at some instances, not wanting my favourites to meet a terrible fate.
Black Moon combines solid writing with a true and tried concept of an apocalyptic scenario. Though it doesn't give many answers of the why and how, it's an adventure novel that hits the spot.
December 8, 2013
I'm a sucker for insomnia stories in my early 20's I was a person of little sleep and sometimes relate to these characters in such stories.
In "Black Moon" insomniacs become the living with very few people who can sleep and dream. Biggs being one of those people who walks the hallucinating town in search for his girlfriend/ex-girlfriend (well she dumped him). Biggs friend Jordan a drugstore cashier steals drugs saying this will help them sleep.
Overall the novel has its ups and downs. Some points being funny, then some points dragged along which gives me a chance to sleep. Worth a reading though.
In "Black Moon" insomniacs become the living with very few people who can sleep and dream. Biggs being one of those people who walks the hallucinating town in search for his girlfriend/ex-girlfriend (well she dumped him). Biggs friend Jordan a drugstore cashier steals drugs saying this will help them sleep.
Overall the novel has its ups and downs. Some points being funny, then some points dragged along which gives me a chance to sleep. Worth a reading though.
June 28, 2024
I saw this at a used bookstore for 4 bucks and when I realized it was an end of the world plaguey kind of book, which is right up my alley, I figured, yes, let's do this.
The premise of Black Moon is a simple one. Suddenly, almost everyone is infected with incurable insomnia. It only takes a few days for people to start hallucinating and struggle to communicate clearly. A few days more and they are outside wandering around, lost and babbling nonsense, but they can start to sniff out a sleeper. The longer they go without sleep, the more aggressively they go after the sleepers when they stumble upon one actually sleeping. Kind of like zombies, only they aren't dead and they won't eat your brains, they will just beat you to death in an attempt to release your sleep.
Through a series of alternating chapters, we follow a few of those who haven't been affected, and one who is but is in a place that believes it can help the sleepless begin to sleep again, and travel with them on their individual journeys as they try to find their families, or attempt to leave them behind, in this new hellscape.
While I liked it overall, it felt too much like of a knock-off of Nod. And the length of time in which the people appeared to still be alive and functioning, if you could call it that, without sleep seemed a little unbelievable. I'm no expert but I would think that no one would be alive after nearly a month of no sleep. I mean, ok, yes, I googled how long a human body can go without sleep so you won't have to, ha, and the longest recorded length of time was 11 days, so there's no way to know for sure, but a MONTH? To still be alive and walking around, even if you're completely out of it and zombie-like? Eh. I mean, I'll give Calhoun some credit, because towards the end of the book, the sleepers were seeing more and more dead bodies laying around, but even still, I couldn't suspend belief and buy into it, and that kept pulling me out of the book.
A decent read if you're into pandy fiction and don't mind if you never learn what triggered the pandemic or whether society is able to recover from it...
Q: What's your favorite pandemic/end of world novel(s)?
The premise of Black Moon is a simple one. Suddenly, almost everyone is infected with incurable insomnia. It only takes a few days for people to start hallucinating and struggle to communicate clearly. A few days more and they are outside wandering around, lost and babbling nonsense, but they can start to sniff out a sleeper. The longer they go without sleep, the more aggressively they go after the sleepers when they stumble upon one actually sleeping. Kind of like zombies, only they aren't dead and they won't eat your brains, they will just beat you to death in an attempt to release your sleep.
Through a series of alternating chapters, we follow a few of those who haven't been affected, and one who is but is in a place that believes it can help the sleepless begin to sleep again, and travel with them on their individual journeys as they try to find their families, or attempt to leave them behind, in this new hellscape.
While I liked it overall, it felt too much like of a knock-off of Nod. And the length of time in which the people appeared to still be alive and functioning, if you could call it that, without sleep seemed a little unbelievable. I'm no expert but I would think that no one would be alive after nearly a month of no sleep. I mean, ok, yes, I googled how long a human body can go without sleep so you won't have to, ha, and the longest recorded length of time was 11 days, so there's no way to know for sure, but a MONTH? To still be alive and walking around, even if you're completely out of it and zombie-like? Eh. I mean, I'll give Calhoun some credit, because towards the end of the book, the sleepers were seeing more and more dead bodies laying around, but even still, I couldn't suspend belief and buy into it, and that kept pulling me out of the book.
A decent read if you're into pandy fiction and don't mind if you never learn what triggered the pandemic or whether society is able to recover from it...
Q: What's your favorite pandemic/end of world novel(s)?
May 14, 2015
'Black Moon' is a chilling dystopian novel that shows the reader what the world could become if sleep was all but eliminated and insomnia ruled the masses. The book's main character - Biggs - is one of the last people who is still able to sleep. Insomnia is taking over the lives of the majority of the world's population - including Biggs' wife, Carolyn. One day, Carolyn disappears into the masses and Biggs has no idea where she went or how to even find her. He sets out on a journey to rescue her and bring her back home. Along the way, he meets several other people like himself, who haven't been turned into the creepy insomniacs. Biggs is determined to find his wife before she's gone for good, and ends up learning more about himself and the world in the process.
This is one of the strangest, thought provoking books I've ever read - and I couldn't get enough of it. It's a little hard to get into at first, but once I was able to get used to the writing style - I slipped into Biggs' world and didn't come back out until the end. There are so many amazing aspects and concepts throughout the novel that it's almost impossible to catch everything in just one read. This is the type of book that merits at least two reads - if not more - which is exactly what I plan on doing. I know I'll re-read this one at least two more times - and that's just a minimum. The world and story line that the author creates are so complex and fascinating that I have to revisit it - one read wasn't enough. I find it really hard to review books like this, because I can't seem to write the right words to describe the story itself, the various aspects within it, and how each made me feel. There's no way my review will come anywhere near what this book deserves, but I'll attempt to write one anyways.
The characters in the book - both our main character Biggs and the secondary characters that we get to meet along the way - are incredibly well written. They all have distinct personalities and quirks, along with strengths, weaknesses, and back stories. I loved learning about each person that Biggs meets in the book - to find out what their story is and how the insomnia epidemic is affecting them. I thought they were all quite interesting and rounded - which is pretty rare for secondary characters, especially when there's more than one or two of them. Biggs is an interesting main character for the book. He's a typical man - there's nothing really special about him except for the fact that he's one of the few who aren't succumbing to the insomnia. Even though he's quite ordinary, we do get to see his character grow during the course of the book. He finds that he has more determination, resolve, and inner strength than he ever knew. I enjoyed watching his character interact with the others he meets on his journey to find his wife, along with the different ways he changes and grows. By the end of the book, Biggs is the same person he was at the beginning - just a better version of himself, which I think makes him very realistic and easy to identify with.
The plot was creepy and mesmerizing at the same time. I couldn't learn enough about the insomnia problem that had gripped the world - what had caused it, the symptoms, what happened to the people who finally gave in to it - I could go on and on. The author did a fantastic job bringing this dystopian world to life using vivid descriptions and detailed imagery. I could close my eyes and see Biggs' world in front of me as easily as I could a memory. The pace was a little slow to begin with, but once it picked up - it didn't slow down at all. There was so much going on at once. Some readers may become confused by this, while others, like myself, enjoyed it all the more because of the chaos. Even though the pace was fast and the story a bit crazy at times, the flow felt natural and effortless to me. Like I mentioned, once you get used to the writing style, you're able to slip into Biggs' world quite easily - at least I did. One of the truly creepy aspects of the story was the realistic nature of the epidemic and how the world basically fell apart because of it. I found it eery because I can easily envision something like this happening in our world today. With the knowledge that this could even possibly occur in my world, I was both freaked out and fascinated. I found myself battling between the two feelings throughout the majority of the book, which is one of the several reasons I loved it so much. As I said before, there's no way I can adequately describe the book or my reactions and experience with it. There just aren't the right words and anything else I write probably sounds confusing and doesn't make sense to those who haven't read the book themselves. Overall, this was one of the most speculative and mesmerizing novels that I've read and it deserves several re-reads, which I fully intend on doing. I very highly recommend it to fans of science fiction and dystopias, along with readers who enjoy fantasy, speculative fiction, thrillers, and horror novels.
Disclosure: I received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review through the Blogging for Books Program.
This is one of the strangest, thought provoking books I've ever read - and I couldn't get enough of it. It's a little hard to get into at first, but once I was able to get used to the writing style - I slipped into Biggs' world and didn't come back out until the end. There are so many amazing aspects and concepts throughout the novel that it's almost impossible to catch everything in just one read. This is the type of book that merits at least two reads - if not more - which is exactly what I plan on doing. I know I'll re-read this one at least two more times - and that's just a minimum. The world and story line that the author creates are so complex and fascinating that I have to revisit it - one read wasn't enough. I find it really hard to review books like this, because I can't seem to write the right words to describe the story itself, the various aspects within it, and how each made me feel. There's no way my review will come anywhere near what this book deserves, but I'll attempt to write one anyways.
The characters in the book - both our main character Biggs and the secondary characters that we get to meet along the way - are incredibly well written. They all have distinct personalities and quirks, along with strengths, weaknesses, and back stories. I loved learning about each person that Biggs meets in the book - to find out what their story is and how the insomnia epidemic is affecting them. I thought they were all quite interesting and rounded - which is pretty rare for secondary characters, especially when there's more than one or two of them. Biggs is an interesting main character for the book. He's a typical man - there's nothing really special about him except for the fact that he's one of the few who aren't succumbing to the insomnia. Even though he's quite ordinary, we do get to see his character grow during the course of the book. He finds that he has more determination, resolve, and inner strength than he ever knew. I enjoyed watching his character interact with the others he meets on his journey to find his wife, along with the different ways he changes and grows. By the end of the book, Biggs is the same person he was at the beginning - just a better version of himself, which I think makes him very realistic and easy to identify with.
The plot was creepy and mesmerizing at the same time. I couldn't learn enough about the insomnia problem that had gripped the world - what had caused it, the symptoms, what happened to the people who finally gave in to it - I could go on and on. The author did a fantastic job bringing this dystopian world to life using vivid descriptions and detailed imagery. I could close my eyes and see Biggs' world in front of me as easily as I could a memory. The pace was a little slow to begin with, but once it picked up - it didn't slow down at all. There was so much going on at once. Some readers may become confused by this, while others, like myself, enjoyed it all the more because of the chaos. Even though the pace was fast and the story a bit crazy at times, the flow felt natural and effortless to me. Like I mentioned, once you get used to the writing style, you're able to slip into Biggs' world quite easily - at least I did. One of the truly creepy aspects of the story was the realistic nature of the epidemic and how the world basically fell apart because of it. I found it eery because I can easily envision something like this happening in our world today. With the knowledge that this could even possibly occur in my world, I was both freaked out and fascinated. I found myself battling between the two feelings throughout the majority of the book, which is one of the several reasons I loved it so much. As I said before, there's no way I can adequately describe the book or my reactions and experience with it. There just aren't the right words and anything else I write probably sounds confusing and doesn't make sense to those who haven't read the book themselves. Overall, this was one of the most speculative and mesmerizing novels that I've read and it deserves several re-reads, which I fully intend on doing. I very highly recommend it to fans of science fiction and dystopias, along with readers who enjoy fantasy, speculative fiction, thrillers, and horror novels.
Disclosure: I received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review through the Blogging for Books Program.
February 19, 2018
Truly lovely, prose as sharp as broken glass, moving characters, innovative story line. The only reason I didn't give it five stars is the end felt rushed. But overall, fantastic book!
February 4, 2014
http://www.mybookishways.com/2014/02/...
People aren’t sleeping at all anymore, but Matt Biggs is. His wife, Carolyn, is slowly going mad under the weight of the insomnia that seems to have gripped the majority of the population. Sleep is now a dirty little secret among those that are still capable of it, and in order to avoid injury, or much worse, they must sneak away and hide to in order to get any sleep at all. The sight of a sleeper can send an insomniac into a murderous rage, and when Biggs attempts to convince his wife, via the use of a few innocuous pills, that a cure has been found, hoping to trick her into sleep, she turns on him with single-minded viciousness. Biggs eventually has to tie her to a chair for his safety, and hers, but when she escapes her bonds, he goes in search of her, and emerges into a world that has descended into chaos.
This is one of those book that when I finished it, I had to just sit there for a minute, wondering what I could read next that could possibly follow it. Calhoun offers a terrifying vision of an apocalypse of a very different kind. We know that when people don’t sleep, bad things can start to happen. In Black Moon, the author concentrates on the psychological breakdown that occurs when sleep ceases to exist. People hallucinate and become unable to distinguish reality from delusion. Speech becomes rearranged and fragmented and people are reduced to their basest forms. I’m sure parallels will be drawn to zombies, especially during attack scenes when the insomniacs converge on someone that is asleep. That said, Black Moon isn’t really an apocalyptic book, at least to me. It’s a love story, and while the focus is on Matt Biggs and his wife Carolyn, it also follows a young man, Chase, in his search for the girl he loves, Felicia. Felicia happens to work at a sleep study center, and we get glimpses of her work there throughout the novel. We also follow Lila, a sleeper who is forced to go on the run after her parents cast her out for fear they will hurt her.
However, this is really Biggs’s book. When he first met Carolyn, he dreamt about her, and in sharing that dream with her, started what would eventually be a fraught, but ultimately loving marriage. Carolyn, a visual artist, had a few secrets though, and these unfold as Biggs searches for her amongst the ruins of humanity. What is always evident is his fierce love for her, and the lengths that he will go to in order to find her are endless. The narrative frequently takes on a dreamlike quality (keep in mind, people are hallucinating), and is ripe with symbolism and meaning. Calhoun, who has a musical background, certainly makes terrifyingly good music on the page, and the result is brutal, surreal, and gorgeous. The characters’ threads do intertwine in the end, and the conclusion, and what it reveals, hit me like a sledgehammer. It’s not ironic at all that a book about insomnia will keep you up at night reading the whole damn thing in one sitting, is it?
Simply put: stunning book, stunning ending, stunningly talented author. Put this one on your Must list.
People aren’t sleeping at all anymore, but Matt Biggs is. His wife, Carolyn, is slowly going mad under the weight of the insomnia that seems to have gripped the majority of the population. Sleep is now a dirty little secret among those that are still capable of it, and in order to avoid injury, or much worse, they must sneak away and hide to in order to get any sleep at all. The sight of a sleeper can send an insomniac into a murderous rage, and when Biggs attempts to convince his wife, via the use of a few innocuous pills, that a cure has been found, hoping to trick her into sleep, she turns on him with single-minded viciousness. Biggs eventually has to tie her to a chair for his safety, and hers, but when she escapes her bonds, he goes in search of her, and emerges into a world that has descended into chaos.
This is one of those book that when I finished it, I had to just sit there for a minute, wondering what I could read next that could possibly follow it. Calhoun offers a terrifying vision of an apocalypse of a very different kind. We know that when people don’t sleep, bad things can start to happen. In Black Moon, the author concentrates on the psychological breakdown that occurs when sleep ceases to exist. People hallucinate and become unable to distinguish reality from delusion. Speech becomes rearranged and fragmented and people are reduced to their basest forms. I’m sure parallels will be drawn to zombies, especially during attack scenes when the insomniacs converge on someone that is asleep. That said, Black Moon isn’t really an apocalyptic book, at least to me. It’s a love story, and while the focus is on Matt Biggs and his wife Carolyn, it also follows a young man, Chase, in his search for the girl he loves, Felicia. Felicia happens to work at a sleep study center, and we get glimpses of her work there throughout the novel. We also follow Lila, a sleeper who is forced to go on the run after her parents cast her out for fear they will hurt her.
However, this is really Biggs’s book. When he first met Carolyn, he dreamt about her, and in sharing that dream with her, started what would eventually be a fraught, but ultimately loving marriage. Carolyn, a visual artist, had a few secrets though, and these unfold as Biggs searches for her amongst the ruins of humanity. What is always evident is his fierce love for her, and the lengths that he will go to in order to find her are endless. The narrative frequently takes on a dreamlike quality (keep in mind, people are hallucinating), and is ripe with symbolism and meaning. Calhoun, who has a musical background, certainly makes terrifyingly good music on the page, and the result is brutal, surreal, and gorgeous. The characters’ threads do intertwine in the end, and the conclusion, and what it reveals, hit me like a sledgehammer. It’s not ironic at all that a book about insomnia will keep you up at night reading the whole damn thing in one sitting, is it?
Simply put: stunning book, stunning ending, stunningly talented author. Put this one on your Must list.
February 20, 2015
Actual Rating 3.5
*I received this book from Blogging For Books for this review*
One thing is for sure, I will never ever take sleep for granted. I love to be able to get into the state of rest, even if I have bad dreams. I suffered from a bit of insomnia while my mom was sick, and a little after she died. I just don’t know how people who have it constantly, do it. And this form of insomnia in the book, is quite freaking scary. What if this happened for real? This freaks me out more than a zombie apocalypse.
This book is full of violence and I’m not even sure that some people can even read it. It’s focus is on what a body without lack of sleep goes through. The hallucinations, muddled speech patterns, irritability and viciousness of the sleep deprived people, make for a great take on the dystopian genre. Killing anyone who is still able to sleep and turning the world into pandemonium, seems like a great objective to lean towards. However, my problem is the way that the author ended this book.
In introducing these survivors into this chaotic world, the author left loose ends everywhere. There was no resolution to about 40% of the circumstances that he brought forth with these characters. What happened to them? Did they live? Die? Happily ever after? Find what they seek? Or succumb to the insomnia before it all ended? These are things that every reader takes into account when there are characters brought forth into such a devastating world. You can’t give us all of these plot points and not follow through without closure. The book is written beautifully, even with the violence in the forefront. I’d say that the world building and processing were spot on, but if there’s no rhyme or reason to the characters who play a role in it, then that kills everything else.
A good take on this genre, but I need more. I was left feeling disappointed because this book could have been great. Recommend? I can say yes and no. Simply because there’s something that I think everyone who reads this genre will love. And there’s a part of me that wants to say no, because of how the author chose to end it all. I’d need a second book to see if this is just not what the author intended to do. Character development is the key to enjoying this book, but I don’t see how one could really get around the lack of purpose the author gives the characters.
*I received this book from Blogging For Books for this review*
One thing is for sure, I will never ever take sleep for granted. I love to be able to get into the state of rest, even if I have bad dreams. I suffered from a bit of insomnia while my mom was sick, and a little after she died. I just don’t know how people who have it constantly, do it. And this form of insomnia in the book, is quite freaking scary. What if this happened for real? This freaks me out more than a zombie apocalypse.
This book is full of violence and I’m not even sure that some people can even read it. It’s focus is on what a body without lack of sleep goes through. The hallucinations, muddled speech patterns, irritability and viciousness of the sleep deprived people, make for a great take on the dystopian genre. Killing anyone who is still able to sleep and turning the world into pandemonium, seems like a great objective to lean towards. However, my problem is the way that the author ended this book.
In introducing these survivors into this chaotic world, the author left loose ends everywhere. There was no resolution to about 40% of the circumstances that he brought forth with these characters. What happened to them? Did they live? Die? Happily ever after? Find what they seek? Or succumb to the insomnia before it all ended? These are things that every reader takes into account when there are characters brought forth into such a devastating world. You can’t give us all of these plot points and not follow through without closure. The book is written beautifully, even with the violence in the forefront. I’d say that the world building and processing were spot on, but if there’s no rhyme or reason to the characters who play a role in it, then that kills everything else.
A good take on this genre, but I need more. I was left feeling disappointed because this book could have been great. Recommend? I can say yes and no. Simply because there’s something that I think everyone who reads this genre will love. And there’s a part of me that wants to say no, because of how the author chose to end it all. I’d need a second book to see if this is just not what the author intended to do. Character development is the key to enjoying this book, but I don’t see how one could really get around the lack of purpose the author gives the characters.
September 3, 2018
I hated this book so much! It sucked so much, I dreaded turning each page, but since I started book, I had to finish, because that is how I am. Some of you may be asking, well Sophie, what was so bad about this book? What set you over the edge? Well friends, let's unpack this.
First off, the plot. So everyone suddenly has insomnia? Okay, seems pretty chill. Everyone is supposed to be dying, but they're not, they are just going crazy. So, seems like a good idea. I was intrigued when I saw this at Barnes and Noble. The only thing that kept reading this shit show of a novel, and trust me it was a shit show, was the burning desire to know why everyone couldn't sleep. But guess what? Never mentioned at all. Just a giant plot hole. I was livid. Who writes an entire book without any reason to driving idea of the whole thing.
Second, the characters, mainly my man Chase. Let me tell you, man, that character was off the chain wild. Reading a chapter about Chase made me want to down a bottle of an acetone hydrogen peroxide cocktail. Not only were they incredibly uncomfortable to read, I literally stopped reading for days when I got to a chapter about this son of a bitch. He was impotent, okay cool, so he takes a SHIT ton of viagra, seems like a good idea. Then, I shit you not, the entire fucking story he has a raging boner. No matter how many times this motherfucker jacks off, it does not go away. And even as he cracks a man's skull open with an axe, he's still turned on. Reading from Biggs' point of view was boring, and had me interested like .001% of the story. And I liked reading about Lila and Felicia, I loved their sisterly bond, but then guess what? Felicia gets her head bashed in by that absolute fucking walnut Chase.
And the ending? The fuck was that, Kenneth? No resolution, a crappy solution, no explanation! And what happened to my girl Lila?
There were little good things, I mean, the writing style was good and darkly poetic, but that's about it.
Overall, this book frustrated me beyond anything you could ever fathom. By far the worst book I have ever read in my entire life. Therefore Kenneth Calhoun, I would like to bestow upon you the title of worst book ever read. Thank you, Kenneth, thank you.
First off, the plot. So everyone suddenly has insomnia? Okay, seems pretty chill. Everyone is supposed to be dying, but they're not, they are just going crazy. So, seems like a good idea. I was intrigued when I saw this at Barnes and Noble. The only thing that kept reading this shit show of a novel, and trust me it was a shit show, was the burning desire to know why everyone couldn't sleep. But guess what? Never mentioned at all. Just a giant plot hole. I was livid. Who writes an entire book without any reason to driving idea of the whole thing.
Second, the characters, mainly my man Chase. Let me tell you, man, that character was off the chain wild. Reading a chapter about Chase made me want to down a bottle of an acetone hydrogen peroxide cocktail. Not only were they incredibly uncomfortable to read, I literally stopped reading for days when I got to a chapter about this son of a bitch. He was impotent, okay cool, so he takes a SHIT ton of viagra, seems like a good idea. Then, I shit you not, the entire fucking story he has a raging boner. No matter how many times this motherfucker jacks off, it does not go away. And even as he cracks a man's skull open with an axe, he's still turned on. Reading from Biggs' point of view was boring, and had me interested like .001% of the story. And I liked reading about Lila and Felicia, I loved their sisterly bond, but then guess what? Felicia gets her head bashed in by that absolute fucking walnut Chase.
And the ending? The fuck was that, Kenneth? No resolution, a crappy solution, no explanation! And what happened to my girl Lila?
There were little good things, I mean, the writing style was good and darkly poetic, but that's about it.
Overall, this book frustrated me beyond anything you could ever fathom. By far the worst book I have ever read in my entire life. Therefore Kenneth Calhoun, I would like to bestow upon you the title of worst book ever read. Thank you, Kenneth, thank you.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 31, 2014
This One Will Keep You up at Night!!
If you don’t sleep, you will go crazy and then die. This is a biological fact.
What if something apocalyptic happens in the future and suddenly 90% of the population can no longer sleep? What if you are one of the few who CAN? How quickly would society crumble? In “Black Moon”, by Kenneth Calhoun, we are given this scenario. Calhoun here re-imagines the Zombie Apocalypse trope, only instead of turning into the un-dead, the “Insomniacs” turn into similarly lurching, insane, murderous beings, their wrath and hatred turned toward the few “Sleepers” who must now hide to sleep lest they be discovered and killed, even by their loved ones. I found this so much more interesting and horrifying than a Zombie story! For instance, there is a chillingly memorable chapter about a young husband and wife and their infant - all unable to sleep - that will stay with me for some time.
It’s a fascinating premise and Calhoun carries it through beautifully. We are introduced to several “Sleeper” characters in several settings as they navigate this nightmarish (sorry for the pun!) new world. Calhoun has a very effective way of pulling the reader into the story by often starting chapters where a particular character is in the midst of some intense action and in the ensuing pages describes how he/she got into that situation. For example, one chapter starts with one of the characters frantically driving a truck to get away from Insomniacs, while naked, with numerous sheep in the bed of the truck! Who wouldn’t keep reading given that scenario?
Fans of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novels, and Peter Heller’s “The Dog Stars”, will certainly enjoy this book as much as I did.
If you don’t sleep, you will go crazy and then die. This is a biological fact.
What if something apocalyptic happens in the future and suddenly 90% of the population can no longer sleep? What if you are one of the few who CAN? How quickly would society crumble? In “Black Moon”, by Kenneth Calhoun, we are given this scenario. Calhoun here re-imagines the Zombie Apocalypse trope, only instead of turning into the un-dead, the “Insomniacs” turn into similarly lurching, insane, murderous beings, their wrath and hatred turned toward the few “Sleepers” who must now hide to sleep lest they be discovered and killed, even by their loved ones. I found this so much more interesting and horrifying than a Zombie story! For instance, there is a chillingly memorable chapter about a young husband and wife and their infant - all unable to sleep - that will stay with me for some time.
It’s a fascinating premise and Calhoun carries it through beautifully. We are introduced to several “Sleeper” characters in several settings as they navigate this nightmarish (sorry for the pun!) new world. Calhoun has a very effective way of pulling the reader into the story by often starting chapters where a particular character is in the midst of some intense action and in the ensuing pages describes how he/she got into that situation. For example, one chapter starts with one of the characters frantically driving a truck to get away from Insomniacs, while naked, with numerous sheep in the bed of the truck! Who wouldn’t keep reading given that scenario?
Fans of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novels, and Peter Heller’s “The Dog Stars”, will certainly enjoy this book as much as I did.
March 22, 2015
'Black Moon' by Kenneth Calhoun really let me down.
It started with such high promise and gusto but slowly and surely began to get bad.
The novel follows a series of characters who can either sleep or not sleep as most of the population are now unable to.
It follows a married man looking for his wife, Biggs. A girl who ends up with a smashed up face who wears an owl mask, Lila. A boyfriend and girlfriend who recently broke up, where the girl, Felicia works in a sleep clinic and her ex is collecting pills to use as barter when shit hits the fan.
Sounds like a wild ride right ?
Well after the initial crazy, people rioting, parents trying to eat their children, a guy who can't get it up complaining, using gold to get into a strip club for a snooze it starts to get a bit boring.
Following the characters becomes rather sporadic in terms of, 'WHERE THE FUCK DID SHE GO ? WHERE IS HE NOW? WHY IS HE DOING THIS ?'
In the end the final chapter is a bit of a cop off, I think it left too many unanswered questions and not in the good way most dystopian novels do, like in Fahrenheit 451.
All in all would be better as a TV show, and shouldn't be classed as a speculative fiction novel in my opinion.
5/10
It started with such high promise and gusto but slowly and surely began to get bad.
The novel follows a series of characters who can either sleep or not sleep as most of the population are now unable to.
It follows a married man looking for his wife, Biggs. A girl who ends up with a smashed up face who wears an owl mask, Lila. A boyfriend and girlfriend who recently broke up, where the girl, Felicia works in a sleep clinic and her ex is collecting pills to use as barter when shit hits the fan.
Sounds like a wild ride right ?
Well after the initial crazy, people rioting, parents trying to eat their children, a guy who can't get it up complaining, using gold to get into a strip club for a snooze it starts to get a bit boring.
Following the characters becomes rather sporadic in terms of, 'WHERE THE FUCK DID SHE GO ? WHERE IS HE NOW? WHY IS HE DOING THIS ?'
In the end the final chapter is a bit of a cop off, I think it left too many unanswered questions and not in the good way most dystopian novels do, like in Fahrenheit 451.
All in all would be better as a TV show, and shouldn't be classed as a speculative fiction novel in my opinion.
5/10
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2015
A plague of sleeplessness descends over the majority of the population in this eerie dystopian novel by Kenneth Calhoun. Nobody understands why this suddenly happens although there is speculation that includes a wide range of wild conspiracies. Without the rejuvenating assistance of sleep the majority of population lose all reason and now “the unguarded gate in their heads was now propped wide open to suggestion and persuasion.” Only a handful of people are still able to sleep without assistance. The book follows these few as they navigate the deteriorating social landscape and search for their loved ones lost to the agonizing spell of sleeplessness. The thriller aspect of “Black Moon” is essentially like a zombie novel.
Read my full review on LonesomeReader review of Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun
Read my full review on LonesomeReader review of Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun
March 2, 2015
What happens when the world stops sleeping, but for an unexplained few? As the planet spirals into hallucinatory madness, we follow a handful of sleepers, dreamers and insomniacs as society implodes. Though society's loss is a distant second to the individual stories of people lost and found, asleep and awake.
I enjoyed seeing this through the various viewpoints; the people on the sidelines desperately trying to find safe places to sleep and locate missing loves, the sleepless slowly succumbing to their madness, the scientists desperate for a cure. I also liked that there was no pat answer as to why sleep (mostly) disappeared from the world, and the hints that it might be something beyond science, or perhaps science at its purest.
I enjoyed seeing this through the various viewpoints; the people on the sidelines desperately trying to find safe places to sleep and locate missing loves, the sleepless slowly succumbing to their madness, the scientists desperate for a cure. I also liked that there was no pat answer as to why sleep (mostly) disappeared from the world, and the hints that it might be something beyond science, or perhaps science at its purest.
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