The second Ramsey Campbell novel I ever read, at least in my native tongue, was called Månhunger (The Hungry Moon, 1986). I'd bought it at a sale in the early 90s, a hardback together with another book of his; Återkomst (Incarnate, 1983)...
The Hungry Moon tells us the story of the small village of Moonwell and its citizens; when an American preacher and his followers come along and begin to convert the people from their "pagan religious ways" he unwittingly awakens the Man In The Moon. According to the old Celtic legend this creature came from the moon to bring darkness and slavery upon mankind and to feed upon their sacrifices. The only ones who may be able to stop this horror is the young school teacher Diana and some friends of hers... but will they be able to fight back this ancient monster from the Dark Side Of The Moon ...
The Hungry Moon is a tale that is several times more sinister and foreboding than graphically gory and downright shocking, as with many other works by his hand. Foremost it's a story about with the struggle between darkness and light, in many different ways, and the dangerous manic delusions that people succumb to when they are kept in isolation from rationality by the fear of darkness and ignorance.
Now, almost a couple of decades since the first time, when I read this novel again I find it quite easy to follow the few important plots (this is not always the case with Ramsey Campbell, mind you!) along the way that build up the story of this quite amazing tale of "fear of the moon". The charachters are studiously crafted, as always, and there is again this horrid picture of what kind of people the author himself considers his fellow Britons to be ...
Certainly, I consider Incarnate to be the more psychologically nightmarish of the two; however, The Hungry Moon is the more skillfully crafted and definately the most reader friendly. And why make it unduly hard on yourself and your followers? In any case, I love both books and I'm happy I was able to enjoy this feeling of primal dread once again; this time around in English, as it should be.
PS. In the afterword of my Headline Feature edition Ramsey Campbell tells us, among other things, that a few lines of a rhyme to keep the moon at bay also appears in the infamous Jess Franco's Bloody Moon: "Baja, Harry el lunático..." and the fact that he would gladly have Dario Argento to make a film out of any of his novels, preferably with a sinister score by Goblin, of course. Now ain't that totally awsome, dudes? DS.
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