Insomniacs Be Warned!

Black Moon is a novel by Kenneth Calhoun. This is a contemporary novel about the breakdown that can occur when a society is hit with a plague. In Calhoun's United States, people are suffering from endless bouts of insomnia. First, there is the exhaustion. Next is the forgetfulness and impaired reflexes. Then, comes the irrational behavior, hallucinations--both auditory and visual. Finally, is the full-blown descent into insanity and, in most cases, suicide. Men, women, and children roam the streets dazed, confused, and muttering to themselves. They are filthy, ever-maddening creatures who scrounge food where they can. There is hope in those who are still able to sleep at night, but those few are in mortal danger. If someone with this viral insomnia finds a person asleep, then they go into a terrible rage and attack the sleeper--in some cases killing them. There are mass suicides from highway overpasses and tall buildings. Our main protagonist, Biggs, has lost his beloved wife, Carolyn. Biggs is a sleeper, but his wife has succumbed to the insomnia that is running rampant throughout the country. In a fit of confusion and despair, Carolyn wanders from their apartment and out into the chaos. During his journey to find his beloved wife, Biggs meets all sorts of characters in various states of insomnia-induced madness. There is also Lila, a high-school student who has taken to roaming the streets and subdivisions of a desert town wearing an owl mask. She, too, can sleep, but her parents sent her away when they realized that she was not safe around them. The Marine who was taking her to a military base tried to attack her when she falls asleep in the backseat of the car. She suffers minor injuries to her face, but the Marine dies, leaving her alone to roam this new chaotic world. This story starts off strong with an interesting premise, but around the center, it seems to lose steam and the ending feels rushed and a bit contrived. I can deal with the author leaving us hanging with the crumbling state of civilization, but there are loose ends that could have been resolved before bringing this book to a close. One of the main characters seems to die "off stage" (which is very annoying). Overall this is a good book, but it is a bit hard to get through in places. Some of the descriptions of the break-down of people's psyches are pretty disturbing. If you like deeply psychological accounts of dystopian futures (and not-so-futures), then this is a good book for you.

Could You Run the Maze?

The Maze Runner is a juvenile novel by James Dashner that centers around a group of boys trapped in a garden-like prison surrounded by four hundred foot grey walls that open and close on four sides at dawn and dusk. Beyond these walls there is a maze that has to be solved before the boys can escape to the unknown. The story opens with "Thomas" inside a dark room that is moving. The top opens and there are faces peering down on him. Apparently, this happens once a month--a 'greenbean' comes out of the elevator shaft in the middle of the garden. There are no adults, no girls. The boys come to the maze with no real knowledge of who they are or where they come from. They must survive with what they have and what few supplies they receive every week. Thomas decides he has to become a Runner--one of several boys who go out each morning, run through their section of the maze, mapping it in their heads, and returning each night and sketching out what they learn. The maze is familiar to him somehow. The maze is not without dangers, however, there are these half-metallic, half-organic creatures called Grievers that inhabit the maze. Mostly, they come out at night, but if they catch you they inject you with a toxin that causes you to go through an extremely painful process that causes you to see your past and you gain some knowledge of what is going on in the world, but not everyone sees the same things. This dystopian future is a fun, quick read and is the first book in a series. Some of you may have seen previews for a movie with the same title--it is based on Dashner's series. The strong female leads of series like The Hunger Games & Divergent are wonderful, but sometimes, the boys need a strong role model, too--one that uses his brains over his brawn. I highly recommend giving this series a try. The library only has the first book of the series, but it is worth checking into.