SLEEPY by: Kate Orman: BECAUSE CAPITAL LETTERS ARE SOPHISTICATED

SLEEPY described in one word is weird.  It is Kate Orman’s third novel for the Virgin New Adventures and by far her worst.  This doesn’t mean that it is necessarily a bad novel, but it is very much a different type of novel when compared to her other pieces of work.  The Left-Handed Hummingbird and Set Piece were both character dramas where the plot was a reason for us to explore the characters.  SLEEPY is Orman’s attempt at writing a story that is completely focused on keeping the plot in the forefront and the characters almost in the background.  This works really well in the first third of the novel where there is a great balance between plot and characters.  Orman opens the novel with her brilliant prose grabbing you in with the Doctor going into surgery, accusing Chris and Roz of malicious intent and Benny trying to calm him down.  It’s a sequence that sneakily lets you know what the Doctor and company are doing here and what has lead them to this planet and this point.  Just reading this is a great example as to how good Orman is at writing prose for really anything and this sense actually stays through the entire plot of the novel.  It turns out the Doctor, Benny, Chris and Roz are on a colony planet where a virus has erupted to make people have psychic powers which they are trying to stop.  The first third of the novel is about their desire to help the people and the work they are doing, and it is the highlight of the novel.

 

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