Kings of a Dead World

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We’re in a world where all the resources on earth are running out and the powers that be have decided that the solution is something called “the sleep”, everyone sleeps for three months straight and then wakes for a month so essentially you’re only awake for 3 months in the entire year. I did have a couple of problems with the book. We discover that Ben, one of the two main characters, was a bomb-making terrorist in the past-set segments, which makes it difficult to identify with him. He is also in his eighties in the late-set segments, yet despite this and a poor diet, he sometimes acts physically as if he were Bruce Willis in Diehard. The bigger issue was the credibility of the scenario. The changes to the UK don't bear any resemblance to current climate change predictions. For no obvious reason, countries seem to have abandoned all efforts to produce renewable energy or mitigate climate change. The country can't support the basics of life, but is able to maintain an extremely high tech computerised system controlling citizens' sleep. Similarly, it's not possible to maintain simple technology like wind generators, but somehow this extremely advanced technology is kept going. Perhaps worst of all, in the 50 years or so between the 'our world' and 'their world' segments, all existing culture and religion has been replaced by one dreamed up from scratch - it's far too short a timescale for such a fundamental culture change. Some smal hints of a world before this change are dropped, including a Korean holocaust and mentions of the reef that used to be Liverpool.

If you enjoy reading about dark futures and enjoy films like Bladerunner and Dark City, where one person may make a difference, but that difference will only be for them, then this is a well written and compelling tale of the horrors that humanity (such a word is misplaced for most of the people in this book) puts upon itself, just by being nothing more than what it has to be.’ British Science Fiction Association

What are we fighting through if not the world think both our terrorists and the United World Congress they strive against. Being the sleeper is easy, or so we think: Sleep Donation posits that donating sleep is as painless and noble as giving blood. That’s the party line for the Sleep Corps’ champ recruiter Trish Edgewater, who convinces the parents of newborn donor Baby A that she has a surfeit of the stuff, and to not give would be to doom the nation’s insomniacs to an agonizing, brutal, unnecessary death. For Baby A, or Washington Irving’s archetypal snoozer Rip Van Winkle, or the Narrator, they get to wake up into a changed world. It’s the people watching them sleep, moving through the insomniac hours, who have to do the actual hard work of breaking and reshaping the world. There are some more discrepancies, like how is bank robbery a thing in the near future? Or how would water ever possibly submerse the Shard?

Kings of a Dead World is also quite thought-provoking. There is a passage in the book where Ben says, "The meeting of the United World Congress was to be held the following month. The leaders were to be flown in over a period of three days, and decisions were to be made that would end the shortages and over-population and the rising waters and wars and starvation. The solutions presented ranged from extreme to unimaginable, and there was a feeling, certainly amongst the people that I associated with, that this was the final solution, no one, ever expects they will see Armageddon in their lifetime. no-one expected the world wars, the middle-east wars, the Korean holocaust, the oil wars, and yet, somehow there was always an end to them, and the human race marched on." Mollart’s pacing was perfect – while I felt like I was hurtling towards the climactic ending for most of the novel, at no point did I want to slow down. There was something in that which spoke to the wider themes in the novel – there’s a fragility to the set up with ‘Sleep’ which, once tested, rapidly unravels. I think the only place the pacing came as a detriment was in some of the emotional exchanges between characters. I wanted to feel a little more for their interactions, some of which were imbued with such human feeling that I didn’t really have time to take it all in. That said, I can see why it would be that way – the chain of events wasn’t going to wait for emotion or relationships. It certainly didn’t detract from the thoroughly engaging reading experience.The conclusion off the man and his wife reminded me strongly of Amour (in general this feels like a masculine dominated book, with the women fitting neatly in wife/lover stereotypes and not really having much agency in any of the timelines). Suffice to say, I really enjoyed the book. It was insightful, intense and imaginative. Kings of a Dead World is a thought-provoking thriller of a novel that will entertain to the very end.

Peruzzi is one of the kings of this dead world. Raised from birth to be a janitor, he leads a privileged if lonely life, monitoring his patch of the city, maintaining his sleepers and trading to earn the creds they will use to buy supplies when they wake. The Earth’s limited resources are dwindling. The solution is The Sleep: periods of hibernation imposed on those who remain with only a Janitor to watch over the sleepers. year old Ben is one of those sleepers. His wife Rose has dementia and his struggle to make the most of their short time together is deeply affecting. But when they were younger, Ben and Rose were activists in an organisation called the NSF - fighting the authorities for people's right to control their own lives. And so the story unfurls from three points of view: Peruzzi, Ben and Ben's account of his life before the Sleep in the NSF. Despite that I did really enjoy the book and would probably read the sequel if there is one to find out what happens next in this world and where it all goes from there. It is hard to talk about the book without giving spoilers so I will just say, definitely give this book a go and see what you think and then come talk to me about it! Less effective are the Asleep sections which focus on Peruzzi, the city’s Janitor. You can see why they’re there — to give us an insight into the wider organisation of the city than we could get merely from Ben’s POV. But they are less involving perhaps because Peruzzi and his fellow Janitors are isolated, solitary figures, hard to empathise with, even before we start to see their truly amoral, even murderous, sides emerge. And their Paganistic worship of Bacchus gives these sections an almost 70s Logan’s Run-esque vibe.Climate change is rendering the world uninhabitable and there are too many people for the space that’s left. The world needs to do something and world leaders are taking matters into their own hands. Their solution? Sleep. With a capital S. In the waking time between, Ben steals moments with Rose, who is slipping through his fingers as each Awake moment passes. Peruzzi watches over them all, tasked as the sentient watchman of the Sleepers, but his ivory tower is shrinking. The city is waking up and reality is crumbling. Ben is desperate to confess his past before it’s too late. What is left when the world we thought we knew falls apart around us? I enjoyed the expert world-building and the rich complex characters. this is a really great read, exploring a haunting vision of the near-future. Kings of a Dead World kept me gripped from beginning to end. ‘ Temi Oh, Winner of the Alex Award But what about a Sleep with no dreams? “I wanted there to be a difference between forced Sleep and actual sleep,” Mollart says. “It shouldn’t be a thing where you get to restore your body and your mind. It’s like they’re turned off, literally turned off.” I have read a lot of ‘cli-fi’ style books, and what strikes me having read this novel is how often books in this genre focus on the powerlessness of the human race against the inevitable climate onslaught we all face. Narratives focus on the post-apocalyptic ‘after’ and how humans that are left begin to rebuild. But this comes only after humans are ‘done to’. In this novel, world leaders have to choose to ‘do to’ the human race. They realise they need to take decisive actions. What Mollart shows us is something that feels close and uncomfortable – the reality is that world powers will have the power to decide what action to take and this novel explores what that action might look like. It places humans in the driving seat and it’s not pretty. The Tyler/Narrator dynamic plays out in the relationship between fellow Janitors Peruzzi and Slattery: colleagues, quasi-friends, and partners in crime. While their decadent lifestyles spoil them with at-home gyms and Brave New World-inspired raves every three months, Slattery tempts Peruzzi into seeking out greater highs than pills and sex. Their explorations into the Sleeping world at first tap into a Fight Club-esque awakening of the blood, only to tip into Project Mayhem levels of voyeurism and violation in pursuit of confirmation that what they do actually matters.

In the Narrator’s case, Mollart says, “[he] can’t break out of the cycle that he’s in without inventing someone to tell him how to do it, which is just such a modern male thing. We’re rubbish about talking about our feelings; we’re rubbish about facing responsibility for ourselves.” Toxic masculinity is a recurring theme in Mollart’s work, from his prior novel The Zoo to his next project: “We’re the shit half of the species, and I just think male friendships are really interesting. Most blokes have one real strong relationship, often from your childhood, and you become really mirrors of each other. That’s kind of what the Tyler Durden/Narrator [dynamic] is like. Blokes egg each other on, [and] it’s difficult for men to show affection to other men, it’s just sad. As long as that continues, we won’t break the cycle of nonsense of male violence and the patriarchy that we’ve got unfortunately still.” This book is one I’ve thought about for some time since putting it down. It is powerful and uncomfortable and real. And you should go read it, because it is out now!With its frightening future Britain and original dystopian ideas, Kings of a Dead World feels both visionary and vital. Its literary merits also make it an easy recommendation for fans of the likes of Ben Smith’s Doggerland, Jim Crace’s The Pesthouse and J.G. Ballard.’ Infinite Speculation In the sleeping city, elderly Ben struggles with his limited waking time and the disease that is stealing his wife from him. Outside, lonely Janitor Peruzzi craves the family he never knew. Around them both, dissatisfaction is growing. The city is about to wake. The book alternates between three threads, one featuring a sleeping man who takes care for an elderly woman, one janitor whose immersion in drugs induced parties and AI supported commodity trading is upended by excursions into the city he monitors, and a storyline involving climate activists turned full on terrorists amidst the climate change induced demise of society. All these threads come together in a rather Marvel movie kind of obvious manner, with family being the linking pin. Author Jamie Mollart laughs while admitting this, but the idea for Kings of a Dead World, his new dystopian novel about a world put to sleep to conserve resources, came to him in a dream. And why shouldn’t it have? “Sleep on it” is the common advice for a human being pondering a big choice or change, with the promise that a good night’s sleep will allow them better perspective to write a novel, make a life-shifting decision… maybe even save the world?