The Killing Moon

Written by N. K. Jemisin, The Killing Moon is a compelling page-turner: a fantasy novel with big ideas, strong narrative arcs, and good character development. It introduces us to a fantastical world, based on dreams and religion, where war and corruption are supposed to be extinct. Its main characters, however, start to discover that those are elements intrinsic to human nature, and that a society that claims itself free of them is probably hiding something sinister.

The protagonist is Ehiru, a priest of the Goddess of Dreams, Hannanja, who has the task to bestow peace – a euphemism for death – to those tainted by corruption or in desperate need of a painless release. Ehiru is known as a Gatherer; those who come in the silence of the night, in the holy city of Guajareeh, to collect the essence of their targets’ dreams and kill them in the process – although any Gatherer would flinch at the word “killing,” claiming that they are just “delivering” people to the “peace” of their goddess.

The book starts when Ehiru is performing a gathering one night and is surprised by the response of his victim, who claims the priest is not doing Hannanja’s work by “delivering him peace” but just being manipulated by his order. This disturbs Ehiru, who ends up mishandling the gathering and letting the man’s soul fade away in agony. To make matters worse, he soon discovers that he doesn’t have time even to chastise himself for his mistake, for another urgent task is expected of him: to gather the soul of a foreign ambassador living in Guajareeh, a woman called Sunandi.

The Killing Moon has three main characters. The priest Ehiru, his apprentice Nijiri, and the young female ambassador Sunandi. Ehiru is a Gatherer who eventually finds out that his righteousness – as is often the case with it – makes him an easy target for manipulation. He has always lived believing in the idea that Guajareeh is a city devoid of corruption and madness. After all, it’s the sacred duty of his order, the Hetawa, to uphold their goddess’s wish for “peace”. In Guajareeh, justice is a religious matter: it’s harsh, swift, and sacred. There is almost no attempt at reformation or redemption, only the surprise night calling and the subsequent punishment: “Omin was corrupt. There was no taming something like that,” it’s explained.

Believing that he and his order are morally right, Ehiru is shocked by the accusation that they may be tainted as well, partaking of the same evil that they fight against. How can the people tasked to uphold justice be corrupt, he asks, having not met our real-life judicial system. Of course, his initial reaction is to simply dismiss these terrible accusations as untruths, but they still do their job, making him more alert to what’s happening around him, opening his eyes, even if just a little. “Have you ever questioned your commissions before, Erihu,” someone asks him. He hadn’t… until now. It becomes a matter of time, then, for Ehiru to understand that his problem is that he never questions; he simply obeys. And, by doing so, he allows himself to become a tool for injustice. This is when he finally starts to grasp that his faith – as most things in The Killing Moon – is a double-edged sword.

His character arc, then, is one of awakening, with Ehiru physically feeling the effect of the lies he was fed all his life – for the substances he gathers from dreams can be used to cure and pacify, acting much like magic, but they also have dark properties, causing serious withdrawal problems if the Gatherer stops using them. Magic in this book has two sides to it: it can heal the mind, but also twist it; it can heal the body, but only if its essence was taken in a moment of death; it can provide satisfaction to the Gatherer, but also drive him mad, acting like a highly addictive drug. Ambivalence is the bedrock of the systems that form the city of Guajareeh, making the righteousness of their leaders feel immediately disturbing to any attentive reader.

The whole system of power in Guajareeh, for example, simply stinks of corruption. “Even the Hetawa accepts the cruelty that is necessary to gain and keep power – so long as a Prince uses it to maintain peace for thereon,” it’s said at a certain point. What Ehiru must face, then, is the hypocrisy of his religion, which demands sacrifices for “the greater good” while employing the expression as a means to hide personal gain and the preservation of privileges.

Killing, for example, is a crime in the holy city of Guajareeh, but not for everyone. Corruption is forbidden, too, but as we’ve seen, there are exceptions: some people seem to be above Hannanja and her grasp. Her sacred justice is reserved for only those who don’t hold power: the nobodies; the poor; the outcasts; the foreigners. They don’t have the luxury of the “greater good” to protect them.

In The Killing Moon, peace is portrayed as a fluid, dangerous concept. It is the most important element the main characters must preserve, but what exactly that entails is kept in the shadows for a purpose. The problem with “the greater good”, after all, is that, quoting The Handmaid’s Tale, “better never means better for everyone.”

Ehiru’s apprentice, Nijiri, has a different emotional journey to go through, however. He’s a young man who looks up to Ehiru as a role model and, being very young, is still full of energetic arrogance. He’s naive enough to say something as dumb as “every account that I have read of war speaks of its terrible destruction and suffering. No one would start such a thing deliberately” with the same astounding amount of certainty that AIs currently throw their bullshit at us.

Nijiri has lived in a protected world, knowing war only by historical accounts – where it remains an abstract, filtered concept –, and so he doesn’t even begin to understand its causes, failing to grasp the greedy nature of men’s hearts. His arc, then, is all about the inevitable harsh lessons that life has in store for him – and how, with experience and maturity, one can’t help but become bitter. And his forbidden love for his mentor also complicates things, giving them both tragic undertones.

The final main character is the female ambassador, Sunandi, who may be young, much like Nijri, but is still a clever, capable woman who can people well and conduct conversations so that they always end in her favor. She’s still young, though, and so prone to misjudge danger, not realizing how imminent the threat to her life is. Character development here is seen in her actions: she’s strong not because she says so, but because we can see how she remains calm even when facing her assassins – sorry, pacifiers – and manages to stand up to them as an equal.

Sunandi fights a moral battle with Ehiru and Nijiri, marking their cultural differences. The narrative asks the question “Is morality a universal thing?” as Ehiru and Nijiri both believe they are doing good when they send their targets to their goddess’s embrace,  while Sunandi believes that’s just cold-blooded murder. She calls them “well-meaning scavengers,” who “sound like a vulture.” She simply can’t allow herself to trust them in any shape or form, warning a friend about Ehiru: “You can’t believe anything he says! Even he doesn’t realize how evil he is.” However, it doesn’t take long for her to begin to see that there is a positive side to the Gatherers’ work as well, for things are rarely as black and white as one thinks.

That leaves us with their main antagonist, who can be scary precisely in a way that resembles the Gatherers: they appear calm and easygoing while being ruthless and cold. They usually speak “casually,” in a “gentle voice,” always boasting a smile that can be either warm or sharp: they often dispense formality to bring their victim closer to them, luring them with the truth and a generous dose of pity and understanding. They can keep their voice “gentle, soothing” just as they are sending a man to a horrible, agonizing death. They even have a noble goal: they seek power, yes, but only to bring “peace and prosperity to all.” Evil here is not presented as madness, then. It’s not stupidity, it’s not simple malice. It’s cold intent related to our good old friend, the greater good.

The Killing Moon is a book that revels in the ambivalence of its systems and organizations. Guajareeh is considered peaceful, but it’s described as a city where “politics was half religion and half riddle,” a place with little privacy and security, “where only custom and curtains kept a bedroom secure.” Its society reveres women, having a goddess, but that doesn’t stop strict gender roles from constricting their actions. Gatherers are men, for example, while women are still associated with seduction and caring for the household. In Guajareeh, there can be a Prince, but never a Princess.

The novel only falters when it comes to developing one of its main themes, as the whole bit about dreams is wasted to the point of being easily replaceable with anything else. A city where everyone remembers their own dreams, for example, it’s a city where the subconscious is no longer hidden and protected, but the narrative never touches the consequences of this. In other words, delving fully into the idea of dreams, with all that they entail, would have enriched the book’s story.

Finally, it’s also worth highlighting that this is a fantasy novel that escapes from the hundreds of European-centered fantasy worlds, taking its influences from Egypt instead, and presenting characters whose misfortunes happen because the color of their skin isn’t dark enough.

The Killing Moon explores religion, cultural differences, and the fundamental problem of righteousness in a memorable and innovative, if underutilized, setting. In short, it’s a fantastic fantasy novel, boasting an action-packed story that never forgets to focus on its characters’ personal struggles and journeys.

November 26, 2025.