Midnight Black is a poorly written dystopian novel. It is a radical college student’s twisted fantasy about police brutality and racism. It contains revisionist history about recent political events. The story is told from the point of view of a man who is imprisoned on one of Jupiter’s moons with no access to the outside world and returns to find one world government and police who are little more than assassination squads killing off undesirables. Take a pass on this one.

A Frightening Look Into a Possible Future

With today's rise of right wing populism bringing the world to the very brink of midnight on the Doomsday Clock, this is a timely and chillingly provocative novel. Though we haven't yet established off-earth penal colonies or begun mining our galaxy's moons, it's not hard to visualize this happening in our near future. We can only hope that the dystopian elements in this book remain speculation, not prescience.

Despite the weightiness of the important topics of social stratification, hunger, and homelessness IRL, I found that R.J. Eastwood and Robert J. Emery have delivered a work that's a science fiction thriller of the action-escapism variety. The main character, Billy Russell, is an antihero I could cheer for. The rest of the characters are only as fleshed-out as necessary without revealing too much about them. Not knowing their backstories or motivations frequently made me wonder whether Russell (and the world) was heading for betrayal, adding to the suspense.

The book has a fast pace and is well-written. There's violence, vigilante justice, crime, language, and sexuality depicted, but nothing unexpected or unbearable, considering the genre.

I was lucky enough to get a free advance reader's copy of Midnight Black via NetGalley and enjoyed this read immensely. I give it my wholehearted endorsement!