Customer Reviews

Cold Moon over Babylon

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Michael McDowell had a truly great way of creating the creepiest tales in the simplest prose. Amidst all the genteel southern hospitality and bubbling personalities lies a dark undercurrent of murder, and revenge from beyond the grave. Nathan Redfield picked the wrong family to bully when he started in on the Larkins, a quiet and unobtrusive small family trying to eek out a living with a tiny blueberry crop.
Nathan is an abusive controller over everyone he meets, especially his brother Ben, but he hides it behind his slick southern veneer of politeness. When he targets the Larkin farm, attempting to take it at whatever cost, he finally meets his match without ever realizing it.
McDowell so skillfully takes the reader into this hot, humid, languid town that you actually feel you are there, and that you are part of this small town and know these peoples habits as well as they do. Superbly written and completely creepy, with frequent doses of terror and gore mixed with good ol' southern hospitality, you will find this book one of those "can't put it down" reads that leave you wishing for more.

The last reviewer asked what happen to Michael McDowell.

His health betrayed him and after the screenplay for Thinner, he taught screenwriting at Boston University for a year before his body wouldn't allow him to continue even with that.

He died recently, in 1999, I believe. He was a good guy and a fine writer.

I first read McDowell back in the day, when The Amulet first came out. I was young then, and uneducated, and while I found his books entertaining (I went on to read this book, The Elementals, and the Blackwater series), I didn't appreciate his craftsmanship. I broken my horror teeth on lesser, pulpy writers.

Cold Moon Over Babylon is popular commercial fiction, yes, but it is also very literate, and even literary. McDowell is clearly familiar not just with the tropes of the genre (written and cinematic) but with mythology as well. His prose is precise, varied, dignified. His descriptions are evocative in their careful use of nouns and verbs rather than on hysterically piled-on modifiers. His prose is a pleasure to read in a way that far too many hack writers' is not.

[STOP READING AT THE END OF THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ SPOILER MATERIAL.]

This narrative follows a pretty standard movie type of plot, and much of the action and images in it would lend themselves particularly to cinematic storytelling. (Horror movies, for instance, would suggest that there is no more comfortable dwelling for a black snake then the mouth of a corpse.)

Dispatching the protagonists midway through the novel, while an interesting experiment, took much of the suspense out of the novel for me. Nathan is a murderous swine; we know this well before it's explicitly revealed (and we're meant to). We know, too, that he is going meet his doom one way or another (and he does, in a fairly predictable, B-movie manner). On the way, our loathing of Nathan builds not so much as a result of his murders--standard bad-guy stuff--but because of his smarmy, manipulative treatment of characters we sympathize with. When they are gone, there remains no empathetic character to anchor us in the narrative. McDowell instead tries to propel us with hallucinatory manifestations, and the ghosts' pursuit of Nathan, but these become predictable and tedious.

I like McDowell. I recently re-read the Blackwater series; it's entertaining and well-written. Cold Moon is similarly entertaining. It's a shame McDowell died prematurely, and arguably a shame, too, that he didn't concentrate his literary efforts on the horror genre, perfecting it. I suppose that when you churn out books at the rate McDowell did (between '79 and '83 alone he pumped out *fifteen* books!)excellence is impossible. He was talented, disciplined...prolific.

I've been reading horror before Stephen King was around and it seems to me that suspense, gore and shock can be well done with levels of quality and style but the most difficult thing may be the ability to evoke a creepy, nightmarish atmosphere. Find this book if you like the feeling of being lost in a claustraphobic, dreamlike state.

I picked this book up many years ago. The title of the book and it's provocative cover enchanted me. I knew nothing of the author. I read it and found myself spellbound. I don't ever recall reading a more interesting and fascinating book. You simple fall in love with the author for giving so much of himself to create such a wonderful work of art. For many years I tried to think of the title to no avail. I wanted to read it again. I didn't know at the time that it would be on a very short list of books that really grabbed me. I am pleased to know that so many others enjoyed it as much as I did. I stumbled onto it again, just like I did the first time. It must be providence. Need I say more.

Cold moon over babylon is one of the best ghost stories ive ever read. Its a little slow starting off but more than makes up for it throughout the rest of the book. A very well written treat for anyone who enjoys ghost stories. These vengeful ghosts will keep you in suspense and having you looking all around and jumping at every strange sound you hear while reading it. It certainly did me.

I first read this book when I was 17 and it scared the heck out of me. My cousin loaned it to me and we were recently talking and I told her only one book ever scared me. She immediately named this book. It has been 27 years since we read this book. I have been looking for a copy of it for years. We never could forget this one. Other horror books pale in comparison.

This book is bar-none, the scariest horror story I have ever read. I had nightmares for weeks after reading it. The image of the dead girl waiting at the bottom of the swimming pool until her killer came home. Or of her chasing his car while in the tree tops at 70 mph. Only a few of Stephen Kings books( IT, Pet Cemetery, The Stand) come close to being as terrifying. Read, and be marred for life.

I first read this book when I was a kid and remember how it scared me!! It was so profound that I even remembered the family name (Larkin) of the main characters!! I've been looking for this book for a LONG LONG time, and was so happy to have stumbled across it in my local used book store!! I'm in the process of reading it (again) and already, and those old feelings of "being scared" are coming back as I read!!

I was probably 12 or 13 when I first read this, and although it's most likely lost up in the attic, it's still one of the best novels I've ever read (and re-read). McDowell's mastery at establishing a realistic, spine-tingling setting lifted this up above garden-variety horror novels. Overall, this is a superbly-written, creepy story of murder and supernatural retribution, and I wish its talented author would write some more material like it. Good luck finding a copy!