Death Moon

by Alex S Johnson

Review by James R.Cain

Alex S Johnson is a heavy metal journalist.  Death Moon is his first Black Flame novel.

The novel, as fans of the Friday the Thirteenth genre would know, continues on from where the 'Jason X' movie left off.  In that, Jason Vorhees, after being cryogenically frozen, was rebuilt in the 25th century by the military with state-of-the-art technology.  As expected, Jason gets loose and chop, chop, chop, the rest is history.

Now, being a fan of Jason X, I was quite exciting picking up this novel.  Johnson provides some interesting characters and situations to begin with, but as the book progressed I was disappointed in Johnson's delivery.  In many places, I found the story-telling to be jumpy,  and in other places, Johnson seems to be sending up the genre - unsuccessfully in my opinion.  Rather than being clever, Johnson comes across at these times as if he's mocking the genre, and this detracts from the book.  Sure, there's plenty of slasher action, but there's little more.  What I'd hoped would be a first class addition to the genre, ended up being sub-standard. 

Sure, this is only my opinion, and I'll acknowledge that.  Maybe this book just wasn't for me?  That could be true.  Either way, I'd only recommend this novel to the die-hards.

Publisher: Black Flame

ISBN: 1-84416-273-7 - Paperback (414 pages)