Gavin's Reviews > The Killing Moon

This turned out to be a bit of a bore. I had high expectations for The Killing Moon due to its non-typical fantasy setting, it was loosely based on ancient Egypt, but N.K.Jemisin's description of her fantasy world was so sparse that I only ever managed to form a vague picture of it.

I was not a great fan of Jemisin's writing in general. As well as the sparse descriptions of the settings this book was lacking in background information that would have made the world, characters, and plot easier to understand. I learned on the go, but it was hardly worth the effort.

The plot itself was mildly intriguing. The world and the magic were quite unique and the political intrigue and scheming of the various different factions was interesting. Jemisin raised a few interesting moral quandaries over the course of the story and seemed happy to let the reader make up their own mind about whether they agreed with the characters actions or not. The characters were not all that likable, they did grow on me a bit towards the end, but the were complex.

Overall I was a bit disappointed and will not be reading the sequel.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Audio Note: My enjoyment of this book was not helped by Sarah Zimmerman. She had a fluent and pleasant voice, but made no effort to differentiate between dialogue and and the rest of the story. The result was the book was read in a monotone.