Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining read
Review: I just finished THE SPEED OF DARK and found the read an enjoyable one. I genuinely liked Lou Arrendale, in part because I found refreshing his logical and no-nonsense approach to the world. You don't have to be autistic to realize how common it is to say unnecessary things, to perform unnecessary actions during the course of a normal day simply because of habit or to satisfy social custom. On the other hand, his occasional confusion about the meaning of certain phrases, facial expressions, etc. were frustrating to him, and gave me a brief glimpse into the life of a person with autism.As much as I enjoyed this book, I will say that I found many of the characters and their dilemmas one-dimensional. Had Moon chosen to tell the entire story from Lou's point of view, I would have found it easier to believe. But by telling a portion of the story through the eyes of others (in order to sharpen plot points that otherwise might have been a little vague), she was obligated to add a little more texture than she did. Yes, there are single-minded corporate go-getters in the world, but one character in particular made such poor decisions that his actions were nearly cartoonish. His complete lack of compassion toward the challenged individuals under his command seemed a little contrived without more character development on his part. I would also have preferred Moon end the book <ATTENTION: PLOT SPOILER> before Lou began treatment. This is a judgment call on the author's part, but it might have been more interesting had the story not wrapped up so nicely. All told, I definitely recommend this book to anyone who'd like a fiction read a little off the beaten path. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Weakness of writing outweighs strength of story
Review: If you want to know what this book is about, please read the reviews by Pauline Finch and David Gordon. I could not improve on their plot summaries. Moon raises many interesting questions in The Speed of Dark about the origins of autism as well as the often-found combination of poor social interactions coupled with "savant" talents. The protagonist is clearly in many ways a genius and displays tremendous insight into his condition. That having been said, I have to say this was a hard book to work my way through because of the style that Moon adopted. I realize that she was attempting through diction and tone to convey to the reader a sense of what it is like to be autistic, but her overuse of tortured declarative sentences taxed my (genius level) brain. In addition, she repeatedly described such things as Lou's use of a fan in his office to cause sparkly pinwheels and spirals to spin, yet I never got a real sense of why the display was so fascinating to him. I understand that her use of repetition was deliberate, done to evoke a sense of the sameness of Lou's life, but it was just too much to have to keep reading the same descriptions over and over again. In summary, I believe this book would have been far better had it been edited down to 200 pages or so. Moon still could have used the devices described above to communicate to readers the nature of the autistic mind, but better writing would have made the story move along more swiftly.
Rating:
Summary: Autistic Clarity
Review: Inevitably "The Speed of Dark" will evoke comparisons to Daniel's Keye's classic short story and novel "Flowers for Algernon." Yet as sensible as such comparisons may be, Moon's novel more than adequately stands on it's own strengths and clarity of vision. For it apparently derives from its author's own unique passions and concerns, and owes nothing to "Flowers for Algernon" except a basic premise - that of profound personal transformation through medical technology, and that even the most humble among us possess intrinsic worth. Set in the near future, the story is told from the point of view of an autistic man. Thanks to treatments applied early in life, Lou Arrendale is a high functioning autist. He lives on his own and holds down a job where he applies his gift - pattern recognition. He suffers the autist's usual social handicaps. The facial expressions we take for granted are a puzzle to him. He struggles to analyze and understand the idioms that come so naturally to the "normals." He is constantly losing himself in philosophical conundrums that derive from everyday speech and experience. Yet he excels at pattern recognition, a gift he uses to great effect in his work. He finds patterns everywhere, in everything, even while he wields a rapier. He belongs to a casual fencing group that meets every Wednesday night, and though he remains an alien among normal friends, fencing releases him into a realm in which pattern guides him against his opponents, for they are not aware of the predictability of their own moves. The large corporation Lou works for offers him and others like him an experimental treatment for his autism. But the decision to accept the treatment is not a simple one, for he fears losing those things that seem essential to his identity. Furthermore, he soon becomes aware larger patterns, and realizes that his superiors may not have his best interests at heart. The most striking thing about Moon's writing is her intimate grasp of the autistic condition. Lou's narrative is immediate and deeply personal, as if Moon herself has been there and done that. The story is not so much driven by plot as by the desires, hopes and fears of its protagonist. Though Lou Arrendale may evoke the science-fictional trope of the alien making his way through an alien society, still he is deeply human in spite of his flaws and he peculiar handicaps and gifts. Or perhaps because of them. I have not read everything Moon has written, but judging from what I've seen so far, this may be her strongest work yet. She has set the bar high for herself, for I feel it will prove difficult to top.
Rating: 
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS I'VE EVER READ
Review: It's not often you find a story as good as this. Lou Arrendale, the protagonist, is a memorable character, and unlike anyone I've ever read about. As a high-function autist, Lou is a mixture of stunning talents and strange limitations. Both conditions are a result of his autism -- his brain processes information differently from a normal person's. The result is that he sees things that most people don't, while missing things most of us see as obvious. And Moon takes us inside him, giving us a convincing glimpse of this strange, beautiful, frightening world. There's also a great plot, which I won't discuss because I don't want to spoil it for you. Suffice to say, I never saw most of it coming, and I was delighted when it arrived. The writing is also excellent. Moon shifts style depending on which character's viewpoint she is writing from, and she's bang on with all of them. I think, to really do justice to this novel, I'd have to be as good a review as Moon is a writer, and I'm not. Just go read it. It's great.
Rating:
Summary: Good Questions; Bad Answers
Review: Moon uses the story of an autistic man to ask fundamental questions about the nature of identity and of self. During the first two thirds of the book, where the questions are being asked, I was fascinated. Unfortunately, the answers that she gives in the last third of the book are one-dimensional and trite.
The story line starts off interesting, but finishes too deus ex machina for my taste. The secondary characters are generally fairly one dimensional. It is worth reading for the questions that Moon asks of her characters and her readers. However, it is a shame that the promise of the book finishes so disappointingly.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and Introspective
Review: Most fiction writers portray people with autism as freaks and highlight the spectrum's most extreme behaviors. In *The Speed of Dark*, Elizabeth Moon accurately identifies and addresses the real issues that autists face through the point of view of an autistic man, Lou. Lou has learned to function well enough within "normal" society to hold a job and to live independently. His company recognized that people with autism often have an unusual talent for pattern-recognition and created an autist-friendly division in which Lou and other people with autism work. Problems arise when a new supervisor questions the cost-effectiveness of the program and suggests (in a most coercive way) that Lou and his coworkers undergo an experimental procedure which may "cure" them of their autism. As the parent of two children who fall on the autism spectrum, I commend Ms. Moon's grasp of the major issues and their implications. She clearly understands the limitations that sensory integration disorder (the inability to efficiently and accurately process sensory input) places on life skills, the need for routine, and the feeling of living in an alien environment while surrounded by humanity. In fact, what I found most compelling was Lou's continual analysis of his every action, his need to evaluate and reevaluate, so as to appear "normal". Each day required thousands of decisions, decisions most of us make intuitively and without thought. The most mundane activities--walking through airport security, asking a woman out, deciding where and what to eat--become trials for him. Another area she addressed well was the problem that people with autism and other disabilities face when their superiors, immediate or higher up the line, decide that those with special needs are not worth accommodating or resent them for their special status. While a person in a wheelchair may advocate effectively because s/he has adequate communicative and social skills, how do people whose disability lies in their inability to communicate effectively cope? What kinds of safeguards are required to ensure compliance with the law? Those of us with special needs children deal with this daily when schools fail to deliver promised services to our children. The problem continues in the workplace. Finally, she forced me to think about "normal" and its parameters and to reassess its desirability for my children. Is it fair to make normalcy their goal, when their paradigm differs so radically from the norm? Clearly they must learn to cope with a world which is foreign to them, but should we, as a society, hold up normal as the grail? Are they flawed individuals in need of "repair" or does their orientation have validity? This book will make you think and think hard about autism and how it impacts on both the individual and society.
Rating:
Summary: 2003 SFWA Nebula Award winner!
Review: On 17 Apr 2004, this book was awarded a Nebula for Best Novel! Others have written much better reviews, but suffice to say that the award is well deserved. I have enjoyed her other books as well -- an excellent writer all around.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling
Review: One of the rarest experiences in reading fiction is a character who's completely different and yet believable. The Speed of Dark takes you there.
I've always been interested and yet ignorant about autistic people. Reading this book is like being an autistic person. I loved it, found it fascinating, finished it thinking, Wow.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating read
Review: Set in the future (though the book never specifies when), when medical advances has made autism a thing of the past, this is the story of Lou, a highly functioning autistic man - one of the last autists in existence. When Lou is given the choice to undergo treatment to become "normal", he must decide whether to venture into the unknown, or remain his familiar, but flawed, self. Elizabeth Moon is a mother of an autistic child herself, and you can tell she knows the condition inside and out by the way she tells her story from the viewpoint of an autist. The Speed of Dark poses the question: How much would you do to become normal and accepted? How much would you sacrifice of your true self? And then Ms. Moon sets out to answer that question in the guise of Lou Arrendale, who is at once likable yet, at times, infuriating. The book is exhausting to read - I can't imagine how exhausting it must be to live with autism! And at the end of the book, we are given some answers... but also left with one final question: What, exactly, is normal?
Rating:
Summary: The challenge of change
Review: Set in the not so distant future, this novel explores the process that all of us go through when we risk self evaluation and change. What is it that makes us uniquely who we are? What is the difference between becoming more of who we are and changing the essence of our very self? Movement in one sphere of necessity means movement in another ~ what is gained, what is lost? Not only did Elizabeth Moon give an honest presentation of autism, but invited her readers to consider the role of technology and societal standards in the shaping of human relationships. Rich with imagery and opportunities for pondering that that linger long after the book is finished.
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