User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I could hardly wait for this book to come out, but I was so disappointed with it. I’m not really into horror fiction, but 14 lead to the Cthulhu ending so slowly, with such fantastic build up and mystery, that I didn’t mind when it took that unexpected twist. I loved 14, and also enjoyed The Fold. Dead Moon is a straight up zombie story, without even the benefit of likable characters to keep you interested. 14 did such a perfect job of gradually introducing you to a huge cast of fantastic characters that you really cared about. Dead Moon throws a huge cast of characters at you in the second chapter and you’re still trying to work out who’s who when they all start dying, so you don’t really care. The author doesn’t give you any time to get to know or care about the characters before they are being attacked and killed off. If you like zombie stories with lots of action and two-dimensional characters, this one’s for you. But I expected a lot more.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2019/04/25/...
I’ve really enjoyed Peter Clines’ books in the Threshold series so far (14 and The Fold) which was why I was excited when I found out that he would be releasing a third book as an audio exclusive with Audible. While all these stories appear to take place in the same world, any connections between them are immaterial to their individual plots so each one can be read as a standalone. As such, I wasn’t too surprised to discover that this new book, Dead Moon, would take place in the future on the moon, though I was a little taken aback by the very different tone, style, and overall quality.
That’s not to say Dead Moon was a bad book, but it does feel less well put together compared to Clines’ previous Threshold novels, with a more slapdash plot and characters that aren’t as developed. The premise also comes across as less unique and more commercial, like something I might come across in a B movie on the Syfy channel—as in fun, but superficial. As you can probably figure out from the book’s description, this is a zombie story on the moon. The year is 2243 and overcrowding and environmental degradation on earth has forced humankind to figure out a new way to deal with their dead. The solution? Make the moon a graveyard, where Earth’s wealthiest citizens can launch the remains of their deceased loved ones to rest in peace for eternity looking down on us from the brightest object in the night sky.
But such an enormous undertaking also requires a lot of manpower to maintain. Enter the Caretakers, men who women who live onsite in Luna City, the moon’s largest operations center, where they perform tasks such as grave digging and overseeing the cemeteries. It is lonely and isolated work, but it is also perfect for Cali Washington, who has signed on to become a Caretaker in order to start a new life and escape the troubles from her old one. Not long after she begins her position, however, a mysterious meteor crashes into onto the moon’s surface, affecting the grave sites in a terrifying way. Far away from any help and amidst dangerous dust storm conditions as well as impossible reports about the dead rising, Cali and her fellow Caretakers must band together and try to survive.
Unlike 14 or The Fold, the overall premise of Dead Moon is relatively simple, and the book is what I would call a popcorn read, with a story and characters that present themselves accordingly. There’s also plenty of action, and while these scenes and the dialogue are pretty hammy, there’s no denying the entertainment value. This is a zombie book, after all, and it’s the kind where you know right away what you’re getting into. It will mostly play out the way you expect, though there are also a few twists and surprises thrown in that those who have read the previous Threshold books will probably appreciate more.
In terms of characters, we have a diverse and interesting cast. But as with many of these pulpy space disaster stories, it wouldn’t really be advisable to get attached to any of them, since a bunch of them will not survive. Some were clearly written to be fodder for the zombies, so not surprisingly, character development is on the lighter side. Likewise, the plot has a “throwaway” quality to it, which is pretty typical with these typcs of fluffy reads. I get the feeling that Clines wasn’t overly concerned with any possible plot holes or explanations that don’t sense—like, come on, it’s moon zombies! It’s supposed to be over-the-top and a little silly, so I’ll give it a pass for being so outlandish. Like I said, these aren’t necessarily bad attributes, as long as you come into this with realistic expectations.
In other words, Dead Moon isn’t a deep book by any means, but I had a good time with it, even though I don’t think its quality is in line with the previous Threshold books (especially with The Fold, which I thought was mind-blowingly clever and engaging). For the right person at the right time though, I can see it being very enjoyable. I will give that it is thrilling and great fun—a fantastic audiobook to check out to if you want an easy and fast listen. A solid 3-3.5 stars.
Audiobook Comments: If nothing else, you should be picking up this audiobook for the awesome narration of Ray Porter. I’m a huge fan of his because his performances are always topnotch no matter what kind of material he’s given to work with. The guy brings an electrifying energy to any book because of his great voices and enthusiasm.
Rating: really liked it
This was exactly what I expected: zombies on the moon!
What fun!
There's one main thing that connects this book to the others, but I'm not going to spoil it.
I will be on to the next in the series shortly.
Rating: really liked it
I was so excited for this book. I loved both 14 and The Fold. This feels like it was written by someone else. It's blatant zombie story, and a poor one at that. I was expecting something similar to the first two books and what I got was disappointment. The character building, story, and writing falls so short of the first two books it's like someone with a zombie obsession wrote fan-fiction that somehow got accidentally published with Peter's name on it. It doesn't feel connected to the setting at all.
Rating: really liked it
Space zombies, but not from a plague? This beats even the movie Dead Snow for horror originality.
A new twist in what has become a very tired genre was exactly what I needed. I'll admit to being wary, but it didn't take long for me to realize this fresh take was definitely going to satisfy.
Now I can finally crack open Threshold #4, Terminus. This is going to be good.
Rating: really liked it
Peter Clines is good for light and accessible reads, generally fun and even sometimes funny. Even if 14 was exceptionally silly, (Tesla secretly keeping world eating monsters at bay with a byzantine machine), it made for a pretty entertaining ride. The Fold surprised me. It wasn't marketed it as a sequel to 14, so I bought it on a whim and was somewhat surprised that it was a sequel of sorts, and again followed the pattern of silly but entertaining, character driven. I was going to keep this as spoiler free, but the title tips its hand. (I'll mark clearly spoilers).
Dead Moon, however, is a mess. Unlike typical Clines books, where likable characters tend to banter off each other (often aplomb with pop culture references), there's hardly anything that builds the character or even sense of mystery. Clines sprints through the get-to-know-you-phase, seemingly bored with characters and world building. There's a moon base (no history how or why) and people living on the moon! Neat... I guess. The moon is inexplicably used as a graveyard as earth crowded, and cremation is polluting.... which is absurdist considering their rocketing people to the moon and the amount of pollution that'd generate let alone the economics. Don't worry about it, Peter doesn't care so why should you? Want explore what it's like to live on the moon? Read Artemis. Want more fleshed out characters? Probably should read Artemis as it has that as well.
We meet our main character, who's already in transit to the moon on a once-in-a-lifetime experience, to live on the moon for 2 years. It's not a bad place to start, but there's little-to-no thoughts on how she feels about this other than somewhat excited. There's not much to her other than the fact she's a little too voluptuous for her cover-alls, and seems to avoid revealing much about herself, putting herself in a self-purgatory. It's divulged rather quickly she's taking up the job of gravedigger and makes a friend or two. The absurdity ramps up as much later as it turns out that only 300ish people are full time moon-residents, making the idea of even a position as a caretaker a once-ln-a-lifetime experience, and extremely exotic but instead it's treated as mundane. We skip ahead weeks, and a meteor strikes. And with less than 1/8th of the book down, start going south for our moon characters.
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Spoiler alert
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The crisis if it wasn't already given away by the graveyard and the book's title is space zombies. It's totally idiotic. Repeatedly it's mentioned that the zombies stare with "frozen eyes, and corpses being rigid implying the zombies are frozen stiff but also... able to move. Which is it Clines? Oh right, you don't care. Characters who we barely knew start dying. The sense of impeding doom is squashed by near anonymity of the people who die.
Zombies also do not fit with the with the previous two novels. For a series that features , 7 legged green cockroaches, barren desert alternate universes ravaged by telepathic world eating Cthulhus, and science masking humanity from said creatures, it sounds goofy to complain about when put in this context, but the series was previous sci-fi...ish. Undead are magical. The limp tie in seems to be trying to get readers onboard with Clines borderline obsession with zombies.
The series devolves from an eerie sci-fi to a terrible b-movie script. Why? What happened? Want mystery? Our hero's dark secret? As soldier he accidentally killed three very young boys in Afghanistan. Our heroine? She failed at being a ballerina because... I kid you not, her body type was wrong due to her being too voluptuous, wide hips and large breasts and all. She mentions she was offered modeling or possibly acting gigs (cuz she's hot, duh!) but was so heartbroken her only choice was commit herself to self-exile as a grave digger on the Moon. That's how a woman scorned would think, instead of pivoting another career in the arts like acting, she'd prefer isolation. Thus of course starts lame sexual tension between the two characters right before our heroine has to swap helmets in the void the Moon's vacuum. Yep, right before both people could die, characters are now making sexual advances. Again, Clines suuuuure knows how to write a woman.
The tie-in with the other books is paper-thin, other than the small tentacle monster there's absolutely nothing to do with the other two entries in the series.
I like Clines as he's a favorite guilty pleasure of mine, I even read his incredi-dumb ex-Heros series, so clearly, my bar here isn't high. In the previous two books, he takes his time to craft likable characters, some goofy dialogue, rogue scientists and sense of foreboding mystery but when you remove all those and toss in zombies? You get Dead Moon.
It's not the worst book I've read (that isn't a compliment) but it's certainly one of the biggest letdowns I've experienced, making it a solid one-star. Hopefully this garbage doesn't kill the series and is never mentioned again. This book is trash.
Rating: really liked it
Dead Moon is the third book in the
Threshold universe by Peter Clines. Yes "universe" and not "series". While taking place in the same universe as
14 and
The Fold, this story is completely unrelated to those books with only one very loose connection.
Dead Moon definitely works well as a stand alone and won't spoil any of the surprises from the previous two books should you want to pick this one up first. With that out of the way....
The year is 2243. The Moon has become the largest graveyard in the solar system, the perfect solution to over crowding on Earth. It's also the perfect place for someone like Cali Washington to go to escape her troubles. Signed up to be a Caretaker, a lunar grave digger, Cali travels to Luna City to begin her new career. Just as she's starting to get the hang of how to use the grave digging equipment a meteor hits the Moon, causing the largest dust storm ever recorded. It's only after the dust begins to settle that everyone realizes that there's something very wrong and the dead have become restless.
It's zombies on the moon! I never expected to enjoy this book so much, with it's B-movie premise and pulpy delivery. This book is straight up a scifi/horror and it gets to the main point almost immediately. When I realized I had 10 hours to go and the action was already happening, I let go of all my preconceived notions and just enjoyed the ride. As you might expect, the body count is high and the action is violent. While character development is on the lite side, Clines still gives us people to root for as they fight for their survival. There are also some neat ideas in this book which made me think about physics on the moon. I'd love to see this translated to the big screen just to see how those effects would play out.
I listened to the audio book narrated by Ray Porter. Porter gives a stellar performance as always. I'm looking forward to the next
Threshold installment.
Rating: really liked it
This seems more like a stand-alone-zombie work than it does as part of the Threshold series. I am a huge fan of Clines, but I find I either love his books or fall somewhere in the middle (usually due to the plot). That is how I felt about Paradox Bound, whereas I loved 14, The Fold, and Dead Men Can't Complain. Having said that, I think this story would have fared better in how it was received by reviewers/listeners had it been marketed as a stand-alone and not part of Threshold. Granted, I am over half-way through at the moment and if there are any references to any part of Threshold, they've been too vague for me to catch. Also, there is little character development in comparison to say 14 & The Fold. When the characters start getting killed off (in often pointless, why did you do that, ways), I'm not terribly upset by their passing. I'm more, "Who was that again..." When characters were killed off in 14, I was in tears. That is how invested I was. Here we don't get much in terms of background or an emotional connection to the care-takers of the moon-scape cemetery, the tourists, or the management - other than perhaps annoyed by their inaction or action that results in more deaths. It wasn’t until the last couple of hours of the book that the relationship between it and the Threshold series became more evident.
Rating: really liked it
One flaw I’ve noticed in the previous two books in this series is how similar (and nearly perfect) the main dude characters are. I let it go because I still found them and the story fascinating.
Dead Moon stars Callie who has recently given up on her dream of being a ballerina. She is talented and clever, but doesn’t immediately do everything right. I loved her (and this book) from a moment early on when a dude comes on to her in an awkward and all-too-real way and I let out a loud sigh of exasperation at the same time as the character. Some male authors have a hard time writing female characters. Not Peter Clines.
Overall this book is a lot more typical horror as compared to previous books in this series. It’s not a traditional series in that all three books can standalone and could be read out of order. Recommended for fans of cosmic horror and fast-paced action.
Rating: really liked it
I'm going to jump straight into the selling point of Dead Moon: zombies on the moon! Well, that and the fact that it was written by Peter Clines and narrated by Ray Porter. The only other Peter Clines books I've read are 14 and Ex-Heroes, but I loved them - especially 14.
Dead Moon is part of the same series as 14, but the Threshold series is comprised of stand alone books. They can absolutely be read independent of each other. (Some day I need to go back and read book 2!)
I don't have a lot to say about Dead Moon because it was mostly just fun action. There wasn't a lot of character development or anyone to really get attached to, but I still enjoyed the ride. The moon setting and all it entailed was the heart of what made this a unique zombie story, but I was happy to see another layer to the monster madness added in as well.
Dead Moon was a fun read that didn't require much effort on my part as the reader. It was just the right book when I needed it.
Review copy provided by publisher
Rating: really liked it
Well that was fun. What’s not to love about a book about living and working on the Moon? Or about tourism on the moon? It’s been my dream to travel in space to the moon, or to Mars, so that I can experience the effect of no or low gravity. But then... Peter Clines writes a book about Zombies... On the moon. So, ummmm, let’s rethink my dream of going to the moon.
I actually love a good zombie story and this was a good unique premise about the moon’s locals trying to fight zombies while staying alive in a hostile environment. Clines gives us a lot to think about. I especially love his scene where Cali saves Jake from that hostile environment. In fact, as usual, Clines gives us characters we can root for in Cali, Jake, and even Tessa.
I really enjoyed this book! The outstanding performance of Ray Porter as narrator gave me Porter withdrawals! I could have listened to my favorite narrator forever! In fact, nothing else is doing it for me, so I may have to go relisten to one of the first 2 Threshold books to get through this audiobook Hangover.
Rating: really liked it
I really enjoyed this first two books by Peter Clines (14 and The Fold), but this one steps it up a notch it terms of edge of the seat action. The other two had a very Stephen King feel in that they started off as perfectly normal, then ever increasing amounts of weirdness crept in. This one gets to the weird stuff very quickly and is faced paced until the end.
If you can imagine a mashup of Andy Weirs 'Artemis', Max Brooks 'World War Z' and a bit of Cthulhu then that's what this book is like. Very entertaining if your into that sort of thing.
Rating: really liked it
Mini-Review on 1/28/20:
Rating Raised from 4 to 4.5 Stars + Added to Favorites
4.5 Stars for Narration by Ray Porter
4.5 Stars for Characters
4 Stars for Plot Progression (After all the lumpy ones I've read, it's nice to read one that isn't.)
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how authors weave details into the story and how much I appreciate & admire the ones that make relevant impact to the story in multiple points. Especially in a series. I have a lot of give in my rating when I note how well details are used to in plot, setting, characters and continue to be a part of the story vs a little backdrop.
A new book for this series is coming out soon and I started to think about how the details from the different books would connect in Threshold. It's not like other series where you follow a main cast. This is more like a main idea that is explored in different places & time.
- I liked how there is a mix of characters. You have those who are standard 2D and others with more layers. The way Clines showed that people are not just the job they do now but are a mix of all of their experiences.
- Cool descriptions of movement in space and how a dancer may perceive doing those moves.
- Varied emotions. While the majority of the setting is tense, there are moments of humor, anger, sorrow, etc.
- I appreciate the sneaky terror of unseen fingers clawing from behind. =D
04/06/2019 Notes:
This series is interesting because each book is quite different from the other. My fav is still the first one. =)
Rating: really liked it
[ I get that the moon is now a tourist attraction but they only
Rating: really liked it
Wow. Zombies on the moon? Yep, they're already dead so it essentially makes no difference! The way Clines justifies their existence is the real draw here. The characters are engaging and you're rooting for them in every situation. In one instance, I was certain a key character would die as Clines described the absolute limits of the human body in space! I was up until 3AM because I couldn't stop listening - I couldn't go to sleep because I was so caught up in the suspense.
So generally speaking, this book was amazing. What made it more amazing was the narration by Ray Porter. Seriously this guy can do no wrong! Whenever I see that he's narrating a book that I might be interested in, I grab it. He is such a talented narrator and I am never disappointed.
This is the third book in the Threshold series and I cannot wait for the fourth, which apparently is going to pull the three books together. Each one has been spectacular and Peter Clines has quickly become one of my favorite sci-fi authors.
