Book Fifteen 2014: 

Black Moon – Kenneth Calhoun

First-time novelist Kenneth Calhoun has chosen very, very crowded waters to swim in by creating a book set in a post-apocalyptic world. In the last 3 years alone I’ve read, amongst others, The Road, the Wool trilogy, The Girl With All The Gifts, World War Z, I Am Legend, The Passage and The Twelve… It’s the SF du jour at the moment and he is a brave man indeed.

The premise is the first thing that sets him apart – his characters are all living in a world in which almost everyone on Earth has slowly, inexplicably all lost the ability to sleep. After a few weeks all of human life unravels and those who can are sought out and ripped to shreds by those who can’t.

He gives us equal parts human stories of those seeking loved ones through the ruins of a feral society and meditation on the nature of sleep, dreams, hallucinations and what happens to the human mind when it loses its downtime.

There are some beautiful images and turns of phrase in here (always meaning it’ll get my vote) and, in particular, two chapters spent with characters who are quickly losing their grip on reality that will make the bottom fall out of your stomach and realise that we are really only a few steps away at any given time from falling into the 9th circle of hell over the simplest change in our make-up.

It’s very much worth your time and one that will easily be snapped up for a movie or series.

Read the book first 🙂

It’s out in Irish shops on March 6th.