The Hungry Moon

Ramsey Campbell

Druidic Rituals, Christian Loonies a small town and an ancient moon beast pretty much sum up what this book is about.

A band of evangelists come to a small english town and brainwash 95% of the population into becoming devout christians. I could see it working in the middle ages, but I find it highly unrealistic in todays society. However, it is a small English country twon which may give it a bit more plausability.

Once again we are taught the lesson that you should stay away from small towns because bad things always happen there. Be it an aliens invasion, religious nuts or scary monsters, you are more likely to come to a nasty end there.

So anyhow the evangelists turn up and fill the heads of most of the townspeople with their religious babble and convince them not to participate in their yearly "pagan devil worsiping ritual" of decorating a cave mouth with floral murals. The ritual harked back to the days when some druids called down a moonbeast to rid rid of some pesky romans and then had to somehow trap the beast to stop it killing them.

By not doing the ritual the beast was able to gain control of the head evangelist and make him go into the cave, becoming a sacrific for it. The beast then took on the evangelist's form and went about his preaching ways. Most of the townsfolk are blinded by there stupidity and faith and can see the monster that he has become. Eventually things go a little crazy and the roads are all blocked off (I think someone has been reading their Joe Donnelly)

A little slow to start with the story picks up pace as it goes along until it builds to a climactic finish. There is a very interesting wrap up chapte at the end set one year after the events when things are mostly normal again with disaster narowly avoided (as is to be expected in this type of story).

The cover dosen't feel very nice, it is basically just glossy with a small amount of raised texture on the title. The artwork is nothing spectacular really, but the skull moon is a fairly cool concept.