Blue Noon (Midnighters book 3) – Scott Westerfeld
Penguin Atom, 2006
344 pages
RRP: AU$19.99
ISBN: 1-906233-84-8

Reviewed by Andrew Williams

This is the third book in the Midnighters series, starting with The Secret Hour, and Touching Darkness - urban fantasy with young-adult protagonists. In addition to the usual high school and family woes, they all have to deal with the ‘blue time’. In the town of Bixby, if you were born on the exact stroke of midnight, you have an extra hour each day – while the rest of the world is frozen in time.

The ‘midnighters’ share this extra, frozen hour with ‘darklings’, human’s oldest enemies, and the basis behind every monster legend and nightmare. Banished millenia ago to this one secret hour a day, the darklings are plotting revenge – and only the midnighters have a chance to stop them. Each has a special power – and the fact that one ‘superpower’ is ‘extraordinary ability at maths’ is a nice touch.

In this conclusion to the series, the ‘blue time’ starts breaking the rules, coming in the middle of the day, instead of midnight. There’s also a rip in reality, sucking ordinary, helpless people into the world of the darklings, where no technology works, not even fire. The problem is, this rip is getting bigger – and if it tears, it means the end of the world.

I didn’t find this book quite as appealing as the first two, because there’s so much action in the plot, there’s less room for day to day lives and character development. That said, it makes a great conclusion to the trilogy, but still leaves an opening for further books. I’ve enjoyed the entire series, and I strongly recommend it. While I assume it’s aimed at young adults, it’s a great read for adults too, and the young adult target means that the story is distilled down, not padded out to standard ‘fantasy trilogy brick’ length.