Book Review: The Hungry Moon, by Ramsey Campbell
A very English eighties horror novel with an American villain.
Tor Books, 1986, 368 pages
Isolated on the moors of northern England, the town of Moonwell has remained faithful to their Druid traditions and kept their old rituals alive, where for generations the townspeople have have decorated a cave to appease an ancient druidic custom.
However the village has been taken over by authoritarian fundamentalists, led by right-wing evangelist Godwin Mann, who preaches his intolerant brand of fundamentalism. He converts many of the people and brings a stop to the pagan ceremony. The charismatic leader rallies all but a few into fanatics who hang on his every word. Turns out, there was a good reason for the druidic ceremony of the cave. It kept an ancient, powerful entity from emerging.
But Mann goes too far when he descends into the pit where the ancient being who’s been worshipped by the Druids for centuries is said to dwell. He rouses the Druids' moon god to rise from his cave. What emerges is a demon in Mann’s shape, and the dark entity from the cave rapidly transforms Moonwell into a Hell on Earth. Some of the people are turned into sub-human creatures, and only the town’s outcasts can see that something is horribly wrong. As the evil spreads and heads toward a modern missile base to wreak havoc on the human race, Moonwell becomes cut off from the rest of the world…
Ramsey Campbell is a big name in horror fiction and I was looking forward to reading him for the first time, but this book was, frankly, a disappointment.
Set in a small town in northern England, Moonwell is your typical English town on the moors; it's damp, dark, and depressing. The townspeople are mostly normal, if just a few generations removed from Dickensian archetypes, until a fundamentalist preacher arrives to save their souls.
Fundamentalist Bible thumpers are more of an American thing, so Godwin Mann is an unsurprising cliche: a Yank fundie here to stir up shit. Slowly he brings the population of Moonwell under his sway. They become preachy, intolerant, and mean, until you know they're just a sermon or two away from burning some witches.
It's Moonwell's annual festival, a holdover from druidic times, that sets the supernatural stuff in motion. There's a cave outside of town where the villagers hang wreaths every year. Godwin Mann insists this pagan ceremony must stop.
It turns out the druids were keeping something imprisoned underground, and without the annual ritual, it's free to leave. Stuff starts getting freaky and dark quickly.
While atmospheric (Moonwell turns into a town cut off from the rest of the world, trapped in eternal night) and eventually the monsters come out at night, the story was just too meandering and long (a damning thing to say for a relatively short book). There were a lot of characters, and each chapter shifts POVs. I had trouble keeping track of who was who and who I was supposed to care about. The American schoolteacher being persecuted by a modern Thomas Gradgrind? The journalist who has a fling with his coworker? The little boy with the crappy parents? The postman and would-be standup comic with a crush on the town's midwife? Campbell does try to get us attached to characters before demonstrating he's not afraid to kill them off, and there's plenty of gore and grue, but I just didn't care.
The Hungry Moon is moody, with influences from every dreary gothic novel (Heathcliff wandering in off the moors would not have been out of place) and also reminded me a bit of Stephen King and his books about the miserableness and everyday horror of small towns; just translate Maine into northern England. But in the end, the story went on too long, and the promised finale involving an American missile base seemed to go nowhere. The ending was just... abrupt.
I've heard so much about Ramsey Campbell and I know this was one of his earlier works, but I was unimpressed. It took me a long time to finish this book just because it never made me eager to turn pages.
My complete list of book reviews.
Tor Books, 1986, 368 pages
Isolated on the moors of northern England, the town of Moonwell has remained faithful to their Druid traditions and kept their old rituals alive, where for generations the townspeople have have decorated a cave to appease an ancient druidic custom.
However the village has been taken over by authoritarian fundamentalists, led by right-wing evangelist Godwin Mann, who preaches his intolerant brand of fundamentalism. He converts many of the people and brings a stop to the pagan ceremony. The charismatic leader rallies all but a few into fanatics who hang on his every word. Turns out, there was a good reason for the druidic ceremony of the cave. It kept an ancient, powerful entity from emerging.
But Mann goes too far when he descends into the pit where the ancient being who’s been worshipped by the Druids for centuries is said to dwell. He rouses the Druids' moon god to rise from his cave. What emerges is a demon in Mann’s shape, and the dark entity from the cave rapidly transforms Moonwell into a Hell on Earth. Some of the people are turned into sub-human creatures, and only the town’s outcasts can see that something is horribly wrong. As the evil spreads and heads toward a modern missile base to wreak havoc on the human race, Moonwell becomes cut off from the rest of the world…
Ramsey Campbell is a big name in horror fiction and I was looking forward to reading him for the first time, but this book was, frankly, a disappointment.
Set in a small town in northern England, Moonwell is your typical English town on the moors; it's damp, dark, and depressing. The townspeople are mostly normal, if just a few generations removed from Dickensian archetypes, until a fundamentalist preacher arrives to save their souls.
Fundamentalist Bible thumpers are more of an American thing, so Godwin Mann is an unsurprising cliche: a Yank fundie here to stir up shit. Slowly he brings the population of Moonwell under his sway. They become preachy, intolerant, and mean, until you know they're just a sermon or two away from burning some witches.
It's Moonwell's annual festival, a holdover from druidic times, that sets the supernatural stuff in motion. There's a cave outside of town where the villagers hang wreaths every year. Godwin Mann insists this pagan ceremony must stop.
It turns out the druids were keeping something imprisoned underground, and without the annual ritual, it's free to leave. Stuff starts getting freaky and dark quickly.
While atmospheric (Moonwell turns into a town cut off from the rest of the world, trapped in eternal night) and eventually the monsters come out at night, the story was just too meandering and long (a damning thing to say for a relatively short book). There were a lot of characters, and each chapter shifts POVs. I had trouble keeping track of who was who and who I was supposed to care about. The American schoolteacher being persecuted by a modern Thomas Gradgrind? The journalist who has a fling with his coworker? The little boy with the crappy parents? The postman and would-be standup comic with a crush on the town's midwife? Campbell does try to get us attached to characters before demonstrating he's not afraid to kill them off, and there's plenty of gore and grue, but I just didn't care.
The Hungry Moon is moody, with influences from every dreary gothic novel (Heathcliff wandering in off the moors would not have been out of place) and also reminded me a bit of Stephen King and his books about the miserableness and everyday horror of small towns; just translate Maine into northern England. But in the end, the story went on too long, and the promised finale involving an American missile base seemed to go nowhere. The ending was just... abrupt.
I've heard so much about Ramsey Campbell and I know this was one of his earlier works, but I was unimpressed. It took me a long time to finish this book just because it never made me eager to turn pages.
My complete list of book reviews.