'The Killing Moon' - N K Jemisin

[bookgazing]

The first time the reader meets Gatherer Ehiru, one of the main characters in N K Jemisin's 'The Killing Moon', he is fulfilling a commission from an elderly man's son to bring his father to peace; essentially undertaking a contract for euthanasia. As a result of this process, Ehiru collects a substance called dreamblood. Ehiru is just one of four Gatherers, important holy figures in a religious order that worships the moon goddess Hananja. They all collect dreamblood in the same way, by releasing people¹ who are sick, or old, or who have been found to be somehow corrupt.

Later in the novel the reader learns that the Gatherers must take on dreamblood to survive. They sleep in the day, as they spend nights gathering dreamblood. Collecting dreamblood fills Ehiru with 'langour', a delicious and deadly word which partly brings to mind a satiated, well fed animal. I can't tell you just how much joy it gives me to say that taking all this into account I'd say, it's a pretty short hop, skip and a jump from Gatherers to 'space vampires'. Space. Vampires. How fricking delightful!

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