Customer Reviews

Empty Cities of the Full Moon

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

 

 

I finished reading this book only because I had shelled out the [price] to buy it since it popped up on my recommendations page, and felt like I had to. Yes, this Hendrix fellow has some interesting philosophical ideas on the nature of the universe and humanity, and that's all well and good, but he still should've written a good story within which to encapsulate these ideas.

I have two big problems with this book. First, that the scientific explanations were worded with far too much incomprehensible jargon. It's cool when a science fictional world is explained to you, but when it's in a constant technical jargon that you have to be a biologist and physicist to understand, that's when it becomes uncool. I consider myself a decently intelligent guy, but I didn't understand a lot of what Hendrix was talking about, and was only able to grasp his concepts in a very general fashion. I felt like there was a lot that I may have missed because of this. Even a few of his characters would occasionally go "huh?" to a lengthy explanation from a scientist(which never prompted the scientist to simplify his/her terms), but the rest of the time the uninformed character would just join right in on the conversation sounding like an expert in that field.

The second problem I had was with the blatant neatness of the plot. Every single stationary character that any of the questing characters would run into had a) information pertaining to their quest, and b) personally knew one of the 4 or 5 people that the questers were looking for. THERE WERE NO OTHER ENCOUNTERS. No attacks by wild dogs, no emerging feudalists blocking their path. "Adventure of a lifetime"? My big pahoony! It was a pleasure cruise for most of these characters! Also, anytime anybody presented a "theory" on how the universe/humanity worked (and there were about 4 characters that were working independantly on different theories), it would be proven that they were exactly right. No variations. No almost-there-but-hey-you-forgot-this-angle! In this day and age you really have to have some sort of plot twist. This book was a linear and straightforward as they come. There was nothing to get a person really excited in the book, to feel empathy with the characters, to worry about the danger the characters were in... Oh wait! Yes, there was one part where the protagonists get captured by a militant group (the leader of which they all know personally; see above) and held prisoner, but it took them no effort to escape, and that particular antagonist did not pop up in the story again after that.

I think the (at this time) three reviews that are posted for this book are all based upon either the synopsis written on the inside of the dust jacket, or else some sort of cliff notes version. 5 stars? Please! It is only out of pity that I give this book as many as 2 stars.

If you like the computer angle go read "Neuromancer" or "Snow Crash". If you like the idea of fantasy mixed with science fiction go read "Perdido Street Station" or "Nine Princes in Amber". If you want post-apocalyptic quality, go read "Battle Circle", or even the "The Postman" (but for the love of god don't watch the movie). BY ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, DO NOT WASTE MONEY ON THIS BOOK! IF YOU DO, I CANNOT BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR PERSONAL HOPELESS SINK INTO DESPAIR AT EVER FINDING A GOOD BOOK TO READ AGAIN.

That's it.

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 the intellectual equivalent of a talk show, this might not be the right book for you. If you are sufficiently closed-minded that the term "consensus reality" has coherent meaning, ECOTFM might, like Fornash's psi-generators, give you nothing but a lightshow and a headache. If your idea of "ecstasy" is limited to that which flow out of a beer bottle, well, seek and find elsewhere. I once had a math teacher who said there are three levels of intelligence: the lowest level thinks about people, the next level thinks about things, and the highest level thinks about ideas. This is a book about ideas, and if that is what you are looking for, then you will find ECOTFM a virtual Dagda's cauldron of imaginative and challenging thought.

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

Writ large, Empty Cities of the Full Moon is a very standard, no-surprises story of people wandering around the United States following an apocalypse caused by altered prions which send most people on a course of shamanic-derived behaviors leading to their death. There are a few minor variations - the shapeshifting Werfolk who survive the pandemic, and a man from an alternate universe - but otherwise its plot doesn't really provide any excitement or stimulation.

Similarly, the characters are very one-dimensional. There are the naive young lovers; the scientist; the engineer; the mystic; the fanatic (several of those, actually), and so forth. None of them really have a "story arc" through which they clearly grow or evolve. They're acted on, they're not really the driving forces in the story.

Midway through the novel it hit me: Empty Cities does little more than demonstrate that Hendrix has carefully researched a wide variety of topics, presenting them all in great (sometimes excruciating) detail and in round-robin fashion. This leads to numerous, lengthy expository passages which, frankly, bored me and often had me skipping ahead by several sentences to see if there was any good stuff coming. As far as I could tell, there wasn't, really.

To the extent that Empty Cities tries to distinguish itself, it attempts this by trying to merge science, metaphysics and spirituality: To provide a scientific explanation for the outre behavior of the Werfolk and the mystical phenomena of the last days and the days after. I just didn't buy any of it, since it seemed like Hendrix was just handwaving as fast as he could, and his explanations were about as dull as I could possibly imagine them. Any effort to suspend my disbelief was just not "sold" at all well. I would have found the novel more plausible had it been presented as straight fantasy rather than as SF.

The novel is a letdown in other ways, too. the alternate universe angle is basically a red herring (though I found this traveller John Drinan's story - such as it was - more interesting than anyone else's). Alternating chapters occur in 2232-2233 and 2265-2266, thus robbing the collapse of civilization of any tension it might have had. Much of it occurs off-stage, anyway. The plots and plans of the purported "heavy" seem too abstract to have much emotional weight, and his downfall occurs (of course) because he deliberately puts himself in harm's way (though the convenient presence of omniscient and omnipresent forces help push things along). Plus, our heroes are constantly meeting people whom they know or have heard of, most of whom conveniently survived the pandemic; it exceeded credibility.

Empty Cities of the Full Moon is one to avoid, as it fails to be either fun or exciting, and undercuts its potential to be thought-provoking (what might have been its saving grace) by being long-winded and pedantic at every turn. Aargh.

The story gets intensely wrapped up in its explanation of the universe, much to the detriment of what is really interesting. At times I was reminded of reading Frank Herbert's "Destination Void" where long passages are devoted to jargon filled essays. The problem in this type of work is that the characters are flattened to two dimensions under the weighty arguments, and the plot becomes nothing more than functional.

The way that Hendirx jumps back and forth over a period of 30 years doesn't help. It puts quite a demand of concentration on the reader (not necessarily a bad thing).

I can't blame him for trying; anyone who loves science and the truly exciting things happening currently in biology and cosmology will appreciate this book. In spite of the recent (2001) copyright he seems to be a few years out of date with regard to the latest of string theory, but that doesn't matter.

Any library of current SF should have this book.

The fact of ECotFM's insidious length is beyond understanding. Trim 300 pages in the beginning and another five at the end, and you would have a jarring, glorious novella residing somewhere between "Neuromancer", "War of the Worlds", and "Darwin's Radio", a fantastic, harrowing look at a world gone mad as millions of years of ancestral memories boil over and wash civilization away, while mankind itself is caught in the Shiva's Dance of a thousand universes being continually reborn from the singularity that links spirit, matter, and energy - Nirvana. At 448 pages, Hendrix's novel is a lethargic read.

Those abominable three hundred pages ruin the book. For starters, they are taken straight out of Tad Williams' "Otherland" quartet: there's a journey by river through dangerous lands, and a problem with sleeping people, and the South African Republic is used as the scene of action in several chapters, and Leira Losaba is a carbon copy of Calliope Skouros, and a powerful individual is pulling strings from atop a gigantic skyscraper (Jongleur's Tower, anyone?), and one of his allies is an inscrutable Asian mastermind, and... and... it is meaningless to continue.

There's no sense of exoticism. Hendrix almost intentionally makes every character and event appear ordinary. His tone is casual, without wit or fancy. There's no desire to continue reading, because we've read all of it already, or at least it seems so. The characters are particularly inane and lack personality: they are all knowledgeable, curious, calm types that can be easily sorted into Lecturers (Fornash, Tomoko, Cameron) and Listeners (Trillia, Ricardo, John). They hold prolonged, mundane conversations that a better writer would mention only in passing, if at all.

Of course, it can be argued that the appeal of "hard SF" lies in the science. Perhaps. In other books. Although it is possible to understand most of the microbiology, the rest (parallel universe processing, which Hendrix reveals in the intro to be his own invention) is so completely tangled, absurd, and off the wall, that I failed to understand most of what was being said in any but the most rudimentary manner, and couldn't for a second believe even that. Perhaps this is because Hendrix does not sufficiently integrate his science into the story; most of it remains in lecture form, instead of manifesting itself practically (we are told of a "shamanic complex" for ages until we actually see it happening).

The first things to fall by the wayside are the language and the atmosphere. Hendrix's language, initially grizzled and masculine, quickly hits the literary equivalent of a brick wall and then sputters on feebly, mucking about from technicality to technicality, only to occasionally explode into completely inappropriate floweriness ("the New York City hardscape spread fungally away, over the flat world trapped between sea and sky"). The atmosphere is equally mismatched: the book tells of almost total ruination and desolation, yet maintains a paradisiac tone throughout. The Wer bands live in plenitude and don't seem to suffer from diseases, and the downfall of the human race seems to have made the nuked cities into giant gardens.

The last few chapters, which provide a direct account of the global madness running in parallel with our adventures reaching the end of their journey (the story inhabits two time periods - After and During the plague, both written in present tense), are the best in the book, though the unnecessarily uplifting and long-winded ending is an impasse at best.

There are better books out there.

A lot of people have chimed in with their reviews of Empty Cities of the Full Moon on Amazon, so why add another? Simply to say that I find both the applause and the grumbles well founded. Empty Cities is an interesting post-apocolyptic tale, blurring hard sci-fi biotech with cyberpunk with the Greg Baxter-esque speculations about the fate of the universe, interspersed with interesting, if often fairly fantastic, speculations on intercultural shamanism and religious consciounsess. The plot and characters are not the most amazing, but compelling enough to keep you engaged, and better than most sci-fi pulp. It is worth the time, and maybe even worth the money, for all of this.

Where Empty Cities fails, though, is in the writing. The prose of Empty Cities reads like a bad mix of sentimental pulp and graduate school academic writing. It's a shame. I think if Hendrix had been able to find anything resembling a real voice in the book, it might have sparkled enough for me to put it on my shelf with pride. It's a wonderful title and a compelling cover, after all. But I'm afraid I will probably end up selling it to a used book buyer, if they will take it. Who knows? I have about 45 pages to go before it ends--maybe it will redeem itself. But I do not have my hopes up.

This story drifts along at a leisurely pace, never quite getting exciting, never quite getting mysterious. If it pleases you to be able to relax with a book where you never wonder what is going to happen next, I highly recommend this book. Actually, I would also recommend this book to anyone who is used to reading good science fiction / near future apocalypse type material. This book will remind you how good other books were and can be.

If this is the kind of story you're interested in, but you want more exciting writing pick up William Gibson or better yet almost anything by Neal Stephenson.

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.

This book was the most pretentious thing I've ever read. There were made up words on literally every page of this monstrosity, believe me, I tried to look them up in a dictionary.

The shamanistic thing is completely nonsensical and self indulgent. The character of the "evil mastermind" is incoherent. The dialogue doesn't move the story forward and is so juvenile it makes you cringe repeatedly.

I would tell you not to read this book but now that I think of it, it was so bad it was good!