Moon

Having previously read books such as "The Fog", "The Rats" and "The Dark" by Herbert, I found this book to be very different from the type of storie he has written in the past. The other books focuses on gore, violence and mass-destruction, whereas Moon tended to be more syspence-and-mystery type horror. Jonathan Childes is a physic who helps the police investigate matters such as child murder. When he is called to an island to investigate strange goings on he witnesses a series of brutal murders, and shares a frightening psychic connection to the killer. Good story when kept me gripped and had a good ending.

Moon Moon is a story about knowing ones self and accepting yourself for who you are. In the end we control our destiny, we have the power within ourselves to be all we can be; we just have to learn to guide this source and not let it guide us. Jon Childes has created a new life for himself on an Island off the coast of England. His dark secrets from the past are shared only with his new girlfriend as he tries to create a safe haven for himself and forget the events from the previous year. This is not to be so, Jon has a certain power that has surfaced once again, and it brings evil, which threatens everyone Jon has become close to. James Herbert's writing is sleek and fast; his prose at times seems less than refined but in the end his command of the English language dose surface and shine through. This is a great book and I highly recommend it.

I've read all of James Herbert's books and, usually, they get a tad homogenous after a while. Enjoyable - but similar. _Moon_ is a departure from that. It does follow Herbert's favorite type of character - an ordinary man forced into an extraordinary situation - but this offering is better than most. The characters and the Jersey Island setting are particularly engaging and the antagonist is exceedingly chilling - more so than usual. This book is Herbert at his near-best.

In Moon, Herbert creates an evil shared by all of us in the darkest regions of our common soul. Most of us can't see it, so we blithely go through our lives ignorant of the peril within. But for those who can peer into that darkness, the horror is manifest, consuming, even gleeful in its glorification of utter pain and degradation. In comparison to James Herbert, Stephen King sounds like Shirley Temple.