Throne of the Crescent Moon
By Saladin Ahmed
Hardcover
Pages: 288 pages
Publisher: DAW
Release Date: 02/07/11
ISBN: 0385343841
Some readers might first discover Throne of the Crescent Moon through a review such as this one, others might be captured by the cover, yet others might hear about it through word of mouth. These are all common ways for a novel to find new readers, to catch the eye of potential fans. Throne of the Crescent Moon, however, has another aspect that might attract readers browsing at their favourite bookstore: the name of the author stretched large across the cover. Saladin Ahmed. In a genre dominated by Georges and Patricks, Robins and Brandons, Ahmed’s starkly Muslim name is an anomaly, a curiousity that promises to be something different, something exciting. Of course, a name is just a name, and the story between the covers of Ahmed’s debut could be a trite rehash of the typical kitchen-boy-saves-the-world novel that we’re all sick of, his ethnic background and religious heritage could have no impact on his novel, leaving readers with a story as prototypical as the cartoony cover art—but just cracking open the novel and reading the first page makes true on those promises. This is something different, something with balls, something worth getting excited about.
Throne of the Crescent Moon is the debut novel from acclaimed short fiction author Saladin Ahmed and follows one of the larger adventures of Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, the last real ghul hunter in the great city of Dhamsawaat who was first introduced to readers in Ahmed’s short fiction, including the wonderful Where Virtue Lives. Throne of the Crescent Moon is a Sword & Sorcery novel planted firmly in the tradition of the works of Leiber and Howard, and throws readers in alongside a cast of damaged, but eminently likeable heroes of sometimes questionable moral character (but always, in the end, with their hearts in the right place) and serves up more action, atmosphere and memorable scenes than many novels three times its length.
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