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A review by thisotherbookaccount
Cold Moon Over Babylon by Michael McDowell
2.0
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This book piqued my interest because of the arresting cover artwork by Mike Mignola, one of my favourite comic book artists of all time. Unfortunately, it is a major disappointment and I do not recommend it.
Cold Moon Over Babylon is a conventional, run-of-the-mill horror story that offers nothing new to the genre. In fact, it reads like an episode of a poorly made horror anthology television show from the 1990s, complete with a paper-thin villain doing evil things for evil reasons because he is the designated evil man. The scares are banal, predictable and nothing you haven’t already seen or read a hundred times before. It’s that same boring, overused premise of a murder victim coming back to haunt her murderer. And if you already have an inkling of where the story goes — your instincts are exactly correct. Cold Moon Over Babylon does not deviate from this well-trodden path and follows every sign post from beginning to the end.
Since I do not recommend this book, here are some spoilers. You find out fairly early who the murderer is, and the victim, Margaret, returns to haunt the murderer about halfway through the book. Instead of stopping him from committing more heinous acts, however, ghost-Margaret is unable to prevent the deaths of her brother and grandmother at the hands of the same murderer — what’s the point of coming back to life as a ghost if you can’t, I don’t know, do something?
Speaking of Margaret, McDowell’s treatment of her is reprehensible. There’s zero character development for her, which means that she’s simply there to be raped and murdered. I don’t even think she has a single line of dialogue with her family members. I mean, sure, this was written back in the 1980s, but it does not age well at all. Also, since the story is largely told through the POV of the murderer, there’s nothing at stake. In fact, most of the time, you kind of want the ghosts to win.
I have run out of adjectives to describe how boring this book is, but yes. Not recommended.
This book piqued my interest because of the arresting cover artwork by Mike Mignola, one of my favourite comic book artists of all time. Unfortunately, it is a major disappointment and I do not recommend it.
Cold Moon Over Babylon is a conventional, run-of-the-mill horror story that offers nothing new to the genre. In fact, it reads like an episode of a poorly made horror anthology television show from the 1990s, complete with a paper-thin villain doing evil things for evil reasons because he is the designated evil man. The scares are banal, predictable and nothing you haven’t already seen or read a hundred times before. It’s that same boring, overused premise of a murder victim coming back to haunt her murderer. And if you already have an inkling of where the story goes — your instincts are exactly correct. Cold Moon Over Babylon does not deviate from this well-trodden path and follows every sign post from beginning to the end.
Since I do not recommend this book, here are some spoilers. You find out fairly early who the murderer is, and the victim, Margaret, returns to haunt the murderer about halfway through the book. Instead of stopping him from committing more heinous acts, however, ghost-Margaret is unable to prevent the deaths of her brother and grandmother at the hands of the same murderer — what’s the point of coming back to life as a ghost if you can’t, I don’t know, do something?
Speaking of Margaret, McDowell’s treatment of her is reprehensible. There’s zero character development for her, which means that she’s simply there to be raped and murdered. I don’t even think she has a single line of dialogue with her family members. I mean, sure, this was written back in the 1980s, but it does not age well at all. Also, since the story is largely told through the POV of the murderer, there’s nothing at stake. In fact, most of the time, you kind of want the ghosts to win.
I have run out of adjectives to describe how boring this book is, but yes. Not recommended.