Black Moon
by Kenneth Calhoun
science fiction
copyright 2014
read in October 2014
rated 5/10: readable, but only if there's nothing else
The premise is good: what if 99% of people cannot sleep ? The results: are scary and believable. So why don't I like this book ?
If it's not as miserable as The Road -- it's not for want of trying.
Actually, with a bigger cast, it's hard to not find one or more sympathetic characters. Yet when the last of these is killed off I think, How stupid was that ?!
Trying not to spoil it too much: Has no-one heard of an on switch with a timer ? Or an emergency override button ?!
Then I'm confused. Was the owl significant ? What happened to the girl sleeping in the drain ? (Though I think I can guess that one. Unless the author really did forget about her.)
What really puts me off this book is my own preference for science fiction. I'm just not into the detailed examination of the psychology of troubled but otherwise ordinary people. And boy, is there a lot of that !
The book is set post-apocalypse. Yet at least half of the story -- so it seems to me -- is set back in the good old days. Back in the good old days of internal -- mental -- problems rather than external apocalyptic and life-threatening problems.
Boring.
More correctly... I find it boring.
I read half of Black Moon. Went away for a month. And found it difficult to convince myself to read the rest.
I'm sure it's a good book... by some standards. Runner-up book of the week for suicidal readers perhaps ?
It's just not a book that interests me.
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Problems ? Solved
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