The Eye of The Moon by Anonymous

The Eye of the Moon by Anonymous is the follow up to The Book with No Name, presumably written by the same author. I read the first novel a couple of years ago and thought it was a fun, easy read that contained some entertaining elements. Based on that, I decided to give the sequel a try.

The story is once again set in the fictional sleazy American border town of Santa Mondega and follows various low lives as they try to get their hands on a magical crystal, the mysteriously monickered The Eye of the Moon. This gem has many powers and will grant the wearer a raft of supernatural abilities.

There is a near endless list of characters who want the stone for their own nefarious schemes. In the mix we have vampires, werewolves, ancient Egyptian mummies, monks, bikers, bartenders, serial rapists, mental patients and the worlds most successful murderer – The Bourbon Kid.

This is my main problem with the novel. There was such an enormous cast of characters that I felt the overall story suffered. With such a large dramatis personae, I had difficulty determining who I should be routing for. I wanted a standout character I could cheer on. In the first novel, though he is a distinct anti-hero, the Bourbon Kid held my attention and was fun to read, but apart from the prologue, I had to wait nearly 200 pages before he returned in this novel. Disappointingly, the vast majority of characters are given very little time to shine. It seemed as though there were new characters appearing every chapter. For reference, there are sixty-eight chapters so you can imagine how many people are involved.

My impression was that the author was attempting the impossible task of trying to please all of the people, all of the time. Cramming eight hundred pages worth of action into four hundred makes things feel overly busy. The action was fight after fight but occasionally there would be a glimpse of something great, which I desperately wished had been built on, as a break from repetition.

Personally I feel the book would have worked better with either less characters or being significantly longer.

In fairness, the novel was not a total loss. There were some redeeming qualities. The prologue explores the origins of The Bourbon Kid and gives valuable insight into why he is the way he is. There are also a couple of darkly comic situations that made me smile and some throw away lines that are pretty funny.

Overall I find myself pretty apathetic about the experience. When I choose to read a novel it tends to be because it has sparked my interest in some way. The Eye of the Moon felt like a repeat of The Book with No Name rather than a sequel.

I didn’t hate the novel, but when I got to the final page and found the suggestion that there may be another sequel on the horizon, I realised that I didn’t really want to read anymore.