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42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
an apocalyptic horror, January 28, 2008
This review is from: Moonlight (Paperback)
The electricity goes out. Battery-powered devices freeze up. Cars stop dead on the streets. Oh, and most everybody in town is now a member of the living dead, shuffling around the streets and muttering "no more room."
It's kinda like a combo between Stephen King's "Cell" and S. M. Stirling's "Dies the Fire". But different, in that Keith Knapp's "Moonlight" gives us a peek inside the zombies' minds, and he even lets us know why the world is in such a horrible state.
Set in Chicago suburb of Westmont, "Moonlight" is an apocalyptic horror story that shows us what happens when hell runs out of space. Knapp narrates his tale from the perspectives of the zombies, those about to become zombies, and the four "innocents" who must work together to fight the evil monster, the Man in the Dark Coat.
Knapp does a nice job building and portraying his main characters: Jennifer the mayor, John the writer, Heather the cop, Richard the psychiatrist, his wife Lindsay the painter, and Gloria the pregnant receptionist (and surprise: not all of them are innocents). Knapp builds the suspense and the gruesomeness, and ends up with an old fashioned good-vs-evil showdown.
A solid debut by Knapp!
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32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
debut novel worth your time, December 15, 2007
First off I'm a completely biased reviewer because I actually edited this book. That being said, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that reading and editing this book was no hardship at all even though it is definitely not within the genre I typically read.
The book description is self explanatory, no need for me to elaborate on that so instead I'm going to focus on the high and lows of this book. If the subject matter intrigues you and if the highs outweigh the minor lows for you then I would definitely recommend you pick up a copy of this book.
The first few chapters contain quite a bit of character introduction but it is definitely worth it in the end because the characters are one of this novel's greatest strengths. Knapp amasses a large cast of characters that are multi-dimensional and fleshed out (sometimes literally!).
I was drawn in by the fact that the supernatural element was genuinely intriguing, well thought out, and had fascinating good versus evil elements that didn't fall into tired cliches.
Knapp is a new author, this being his first published book, and so expect him to occasionally fall into the new writers' trap of trying to build suspense with words instead of situations. Nevertheless those few instances only happen after a chunk of excellent writing so you barely notice it. I'm looking forward to his future books that will undoubtedly rise above that.
This novel is a supernatural horror story which means that there is quite a bit of violence which is why I couldn't bring myself to give it five stars. The majority of the violence and language in Moonlight are obviously not there for shock value, but instead an integral part of the tale. Still, I'm not a fan of graphic violence and language.
My opinion? His intriguing story and characters far outweigh the handful of minor slip-ups by a new author.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Quite a page-turner!, January 31, 2010
For only 99 cents, you can't go wrong with this zombie tale. Knapp presents a world where the people start to become zombies before they are even dead, which certainly breaks some zombie traditions, and there is a pretty distinct difference between good and evil, where the "mostly-innocent" have to fight a little harder to stay on the good side. He presents us with some interesting ideas, although, it is mostly your typical zombie story.
The interesting question that is proposed: what would we do if all things electronic/electrical stopped working? I do wish Knapp would have gone into the implications of that a bit more, but the focus of this story seems to be more action-oriented, with the philosophical questions left for the reader to ponder on their own time. There is a lot of bad language if that sort of thing bothers you, but hell, who wouldn't be cussing if nothing worked anymore and dead people were after you?
Overall, it's an interesting take on your typical zombie story, complete with lots of gore, surprising character twists, and an ending that may seem a little trite, but is adequate. The build-up to the zombie action is probably the best part.
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