Empty Cities of the Full Moon

After a biological armageddon civilization remains in the Bahamas where the only normal humans live. In the rest of the world most humans are gone except for a remnant of the changed. Complex and character driven, the mystery of how this all happened is intertwined with a scenic trip up the East coast of post-apocalypse America. Many of the characters in Hendrix books show up in others as an alternate world take on the same events. This makes it more interesting and ties different books loosely together.

Complex and deeply woven is the plot of Howard V. Hendrix's speculative fiction novel, Empty Cities Of The Full Moon. which revolves around a bio-engineered virus which changes society and its survivors. Biology, religion and fantasy and horror blend in a complex story of changes which affect the meaning of 'human being'.

Magick, visions, dreamstates and shapeshifting -- they are old powers, suppressed and buried within the deepest recesses of the human unconscious by the social conventions of modern society. What would happen if those powers were unleashed en masse in a society where technological advances have all but obliterated conscious individuality?In Hendrix's best book to date, Empty Cities of the Full Moon (ECOTFM) presents just such a scenario. By accident -- or maybe on purpose? -- a medical miracle escapes from controlled trials and infects nearly all of humanity, bringing forth the ancient powers once ruled by the Moon, and now thought of as merely lunatic. Wiping out most of humanity in its initial phase, the Plague leaves in its wake the Oldfolk desperately clinging to their technology, the Merefolk created by the technology of the Oldfolk as their servants, and the Werfolk who have learned to harness the old ways of the shaman. While nominally science fiction, the ideas in ECOTFM fall in the fractal zone in which physics meets metaphysics. Here strange science, old shamanic beliefs, and the tension between individual and culture intermingle in the apocalyptic downfall of urbanized culture. ECOTFM explores the weird dimension in which science and religion become a unified discipline, and reminds us that no matter how bizarre either may be, there is nothing in knowledge that was not in the imagination first. This is therefore a book that will not only appeal to the more esoteric sci-fi fans, but also those interested in the philosophy of consciousness and the Old Ways as well. While there is some continuity with Hendrix's Tetragrammaton Trilogy, including a brief appearance by my favorite arch-villain, Dr. Ka Vang, all of this material is explained fully in the text, making ECOTFM an experience unto itself. Of course the most important question raised by ECOTFM is the one whose answer is left to the reader: did the Plague destroy humanity, as many of its survivors think, or did it really save humanity from the end that has befallen every civilization in its history? If you think modern technological, industrial and urbanized society will last forever, then you are thinking in the same way as the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Aztecs, and even Hitler's "thousand year Reich" -- tragically, for all of them were wrong. What is to come when the present becomes the past; what, if anything, of the present will survive into the future, other than the ruins of what we now think is indestructible? As Santayana once said, those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it, and those who do not think about their future become the victims of that future. Perhaps the key to our survival is to be found in the distant past, in what the character Mark Fornash suggests are the origins of consciousness itself. These are the kinds of issues raised by ECOTFM. If you are looking for the literary equivalent of a video game or th

In 2032, mankind learns the real meaning behind the saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Medical researchers seeking a biological solution to mental illness engineered a special virus. However, instead of being a panacea, the virus destroys 99% plus of the earth's population. Major cities like New York are annihilated as urban history is over. Most of those few who manage to survive the worst disaster in humanity's existence are not the same. They have been changed into wer-people worshipping the full moon. Thirty-three years later, a small group clinging to the technology of the past decides to learn what specifically caused the disaster three decades ago. They travel the eastern ghost towns of what was once BosWash and beyond. As they trek along America's Atlantic Coast, no one knows exactly what they will find, only that the quest has begun. EMPTY CITIES OF THE FULL MOON is a fantasy tale that employs scientific elements like a science fiction tale would use to trigger the catalyst that is the key to the tale. The story line predominately concentrates on two arcs (2032-2033 and 2065-2066), but also floats back to 1999 and 1966. The plot is not linear as the action shifts between decades, adding geometric degrees of complexity to an elaborate story. Though this is this reviewer's first taste of a Howard V. Hendrix novel, it is not going to be the last as this book is reminiscent of the sterling Hiero's Journey and The Unforsaken Hiero, but much more complicated.Harriet Klausner