Every female character that was so much as glanced at by one of the male characters, first and foremost, were judged by their sexuality. More over, the women don’t seem to ever progress to the “person” stage, even when you hear scenes from their POV. They don’t have dreams, or hopes, or even really a life of their own- They’re just props to further the male characters narrative. I understand it’s supposed to be a gritty scifi horror, but when absolutely every female character is like this, and every male character treats an author’s female characters in a disrespectful manner (this ranging on a total jerkish levels ranging all the way from sleeping to multiple women in the span of a few hours, to full on sexual assault), it becomes unbelievable, and really sigh worthy.

I’m a huge fan of science fiction, who loved the technology, scifi settings, and strange, almost silent hill-esk atmosphere that was set up in Crescent. On the other hand, I’m also a teenage girl. The the normalization of disrespect, and violence against women was so casually thrown in to almost every chapter it eventually got to the point where I was visibly cringing every time a female character walked onto the scene. It’s a great concept. I’m sad to say I can’t recommend or enjoy the novel because of the unrealistic and un-rounded female characters.

I doubt that the end is satisfying for every listener, but I must
say I liked it: Evil here is like a dynamic atmosperic entity – if you move, it moves with you.

Regarding the open end, I agree with Equilibrium: I hope too that Phil Rossi finds the time to write a sequel to “Crescent” (but of course there are already some episodes of “Notes from the Vault” that are set in the same narrative universe).

All in all: well done, Phil!

Please, let there be one, two, many “Crescents”

~ Peter

I do have a couple of questions:

What was the significance of “MURHATE”?
What happened to Ina’s baby?
The crazy robots dragged people back to the “hive”, for what purpose?

thanks for a wonderful and compelling listen.

lara

You ask the timing? It’s simple. Newsletter went out about this book from scott’s page, I remember I caught it, I posted it over there and then here.

There is no conspiracy, there is no mystery, it’s logical and conclusive.

I’ve never defended a review before, but in the case of this one I had to chuckle like Mr. Ishmael over this whole “fishy” business.

Congratulations Phil on such a successful chart rush. I can’t wait to read the print version.

I listened to this via podcast and the story started off with premise then dipped into the absurd, rolled into the boring, and concluded with a whimper. So much buildup and then a Deus Ex machina saves the day. You could’ve figured it out long before and knew what was happening. It felt like the author was writing just to write and do fillers. You could easily cut out 1/4 of this book and slim it down. The horror wasn’t there, the sleazy sex was, and the suspense was nice then let down.

Overall a 6/10 for effort. I wasn’t impressed and really was hoping for it to get good and then horribly let down at the ending.

Excellent job, excellent story, excellent voice to create so many believeable characters, excellent!

~Stan~

http://freshly-ground.blogspot.com/2009/03/podcast-review-phil-rossis-crescent.html

Nice work, Mr Rossi!

Happy Holidays Crescent listeners. Thank you for a year of fine support.