The Moon King by Neil Williamson was published in 2014, it’s the first novel by the author and I think it comes under the genre of fantasy, not something that I read much but I did enjoy this one.

Glassholm is a strange place to live as everything is affected by the moon’s phases. When the moon is waning the whole of society goes a bit crazy and terrible things happen as the inhabitants’ moods can become violent and argumentative. The whole place is constantly swinging between highs and lows in a bi-polar way, and the people put their faith in the Moon King, otherwise known as the Lunane who is apparently immortal and had been their saviour hundreds of years ago when he had managed to harness the moon’s power via a machine.

Although fantasy isn’t really my cup of tea there are some very likeable characters in this book which is always a must for me if I am going to enjoy a book.

Neil Williamson is a Scottish author and that is very obvious from his writing which is sprinkled with Scots words and for me has that typically Scottish knack of conjuring up an atmosphere. This one counts towards the Read Scotland 2016 Challenge.

For some reason bits of this book reminded me of the film of The Wizard of Oz – I’ve never got around to reading the book. Have you read it. It also reminded me a bit of Alasdair Grey’s Lanark, but I think The Moon King is better than Lanark.

You can read Jack’s much fuller review of The Moon King here.