Orman writes all the
characters extremely well. Benny is a
standout due to some character development that really creeps up on you
throughout the novel. Benny while loving
the travelling with the Doctor, is starting to feel how long it’s been since
the events of Love and War. She is starting to become tired with the
travelling and a lot of the constant danger, yet is almost addicted to the rush
she feels. It’s a very good idea to
approach Benny from this direction especially when she is about to leave the
series in two novels time. Chris also
fares very well in this story even if he is hypnotized through the most of
it. Roz actually gets to show her sensitive
side again as she feels very sorry for Chris who is in an awful situation and
is substituting Benny for Chris when they are separated. The Doctor fares very well as well even if he
is used mainly for a little comedic relief in interludes.
The twist is revealed
that the virus was engineered by the Dione-Kisumu Company and their Artificial
Intelligence GRUMPY. The story then
attempts to become an espionage story with the Doctor being held captive, Chris
going crazy and Roz and Benny going back in time to find a cure and bring in
FLORENCE as a way to combat GRUMPY. This
is a simplified version of the plot as SLEEPY
is a novel that is convoluted with the characters, especially because a lot of
them are human and only named as colors.
The biggest twist is that this story is a spiritual successor to Transit, an early New Adventure which I
don’t like. I feel that this is
crowbarred in because Orman and Transit author
Ben Aaronovitch are good friends and Aaronovitch wasn’t ready for his Transit sequel. Even with Orman’s brilliant writing this
still feels forced to the tenth degree, if force could be measured in degrees. This is also supposed to be connected to an
arc which was supposed to begin in Warchild,
even if they just have some of the same themes.
To summarize, SLEEPY is Kate Orman’s weakest novel in
the purest sense of the world. She
starts off extremely strong but steadily weakens her prose. It is still an extremely easy novel to read
as Orman is a great writer, but the plot is nothing to ride home about and the
supporting characters are pretty much the same with little
characterization. Everything balances
out with a lot of elements being very poor in the novel while there are still a
lot of good things in the novel for enjoyment.
50/100
No comments:
Post a Comment