I chose this story instead of better known classics like The War of the Worlds or The Time Machine, because this is the book that is quoted often by Frank Herbert in Dune. I’d never known where “The Sleeper Wakes” had come from, but I could feel the resonance, the power, in it. It came from this book.
It is not a good book. Frank Herbert must have taken on its mantle because he could feel the strength of the ideas within yearning to be better articulated – a person becomes a pawn for two governments vying for dominance in a crowded, industrial London. There is no doubt that this book laid the ground for the dystopias that followed it, and there were chill ideas that pleased me, such as “euthanasy.” But this is very much a Victorian story, with lots of fainting and gasping; I had to quickly skim the last third of it just to get through.
Okay, so it IS possible for a character to be TOO emotional.
It is not a good book. Frank Herbert must have taken on its mantle because he could feel the strength of the ideas within yearning to be better articulated – a person becomes a pawn for two governments vying for dominance in a crowded, industrial London. There is no doubt that this book laid the ground for the dystopias that followed it, and there were chill ideas that pleased me, such as “euthanasy.” But this is very much a Victorian story, with lots of fainting and gasping; I had to quickly skim the last third of it just to get through.
Okay, so it IS possible for a character to be TOO emotional.
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