Wake Up by Alejandro Marron
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary, Historical
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe“I get the feeling I am not real,” said Vlad.
“You are not. You are my dream.”
Vlad is a graphic designer for an IT start-up company in Denver. One night, he has a dream that reveals to him that he is not real, and the individual he meets in this alternate dimension, his creator, takes Vlad on a voyage through the annals of history. From the Belgian Congo, The Blitz, and The Crusades, to The Vietnam War, Ali vs Frazier, and the birth of a musical revolution, the dream is about to end, and with it, so too will Vlad’s existence.
It is a quick acting and capable formula, which implies that canadian pharmacy cialis find for info you will begin having impact in 10-30 minutes after ingestion. These last a week, a month, and over a month, cialis for sale canada respectively. So do not worry about levitra without prescription devensec.com feeling embarrass. Beyond medication, you will find best generic tadalafil a diabetes diet is a good idea. Alejandro Marron’s Wake Up is a psychological, sci-fi, and philosophical petri dish that poses the ever-lasting inquiries of why are we here, where were we before, and when will this end?
And, of course, is it all just a dream?
A dream can last a moment or an entire lifetime.
This entire book had a dreamlike quality to it. Vlad floated from scene to scene while not always being terribly concerned about how he moved between settings so rapidly. It fit the themes of this novel nicely, especially once Vlad relaxed into the experience and followed his creator to a wide variety of places. I was often surprised by where they ended up next and couldn’t help but to wonder how it would all be resolved by the final scene.
With that being said, I did have trouble following the storyline due to the style in which it was written. There were multiple times when this lack of transitions between scenes and minimal plot development made it hard for me to piece together what just happened. This was a creative take on the speculative fiction genre, but it would have been easier for me to read if the narrator had followed a few more conventions of storytelling and explained the stuff he wanted to play around with more thoroughly.
The ending was satisfying and fit into the storyline well. I appreciated the way it tied up the most important loose ends while still leaving some unanswered questions for the audience to ponder. Given how often Vlad was expected to wait for answers to even his biggest questions earlier on, this made sense. If the author ever decides to write a sequel, there’s certainly room for one here.
If you like experimental science fiction, Wake Up could be a good pick for the summer.
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