Sleepless

The narrative structure is going to make you grumpy. We have two POV characters, a freelance assassin whose narrative is always first person, and an in-over-his-head cop whose narratives are either first or third person. It takes a little while, but I suppose you get used to that.

We have in the book a world where a malformed protein is invading people (you find out how near the end) and causing them not to be able to sleep. After a while, this leads to what the doctors call losing your shit, and eventually death. Basic society is breaking down, hard, as we begin the story. There’s no cure that anybody is aware of, but there is a drug that can bring much-needed relief to victims. (You’re right: it lets them sleep. Ish.) Many people have sequestered themselves inside a MMORPG, the chits and currencies and treasures of which are valuable enough to enough people that “real world” crime has a piece of the action.

You know superficially how the two viewpoint characters are linked fairly early on, but the whole truth comes later, and is underwhelming. There’s no real villain of the piece. There’s no obvious solution anybody is striving towards. The cop has a wife who’s sleepless and a baby who might be, but, speaking for myself, I really didn’t care. Any more, I might add, than the viewpoint character himself did — over and over and over he has to tell himself that it’s really important that he make the world a safe place for his baby. He has to do this because he doesn’t actually feel it.

The assassin’s nonchalance-o-meter is dialed up to 9 the whole book, making it awfully difficult to give a shit about him, either. The story ends, as stories will, with some characters doomed for their flaws because they couldn’t change, and others who change and are therefore rewarded. Neither one, though, seems even a little realistic. It certainly isn’t satisfying.

I don’t recommend the book.