Dawn Yapps about books
Today's book: When the Sleeper Wakes
This was the next in my HG Wells adventure, and it was a VERY big departure from the previous two books, but it was not necessarily a bad thing. It took me like, a month to read lol, the other two took me like a week or two.
Wells actually rushed through the ending of Sleeper because he was about to go on holiday and intended to go back and redo it later, but he couldn't get around to it for about a decade and felt he was no longer in the proper mindset to rewrite it. So he just did some revisions and rereleased it under "The Sleeper Awakes," which goes with all his other sci-fi stories beginning with "the." The copy I read was the unrevised story so that's what I'll be rambling about.
The gist is this guy Graham takes some stuff that keeps him from sleeping, so he's kept up for a whole week before falling into suspended animation for a little over 200 years. In those couple centuries, Graham was basically used as an offshore account, and these guys used him to get so insanely rich that by 2102 they bought half the world. There are still elections and local government but they're like, vestigial and basically for show. They've also constructed the populace to like, view Graham with holy reverence. This guy Ostrog tried to gain more power on the council, but was kicked off and basically formed a resistance for the people with full intent to continue oppressing the people.
Graham ends up waking up, I think because the drugs finally wore off but some sources say Ostrog woke him up but I never got a hint of that in my read. Ostrog uses him to unite and motivate the people and stages a successful coup of the council, Graham gets lost in the confusion but ends up back with Ostrog after pestering an old man with basic questions about the world.
Graham is basically King even though Ostrog is the one actually running things, and becomes obsessed with flying. It's very interesting seeing Well's idea of a flying machine, called "aeropiles," they're these metal ribcages with insect wings basically, they're the smaller and more limber cousins of "aeroplanes."
The underclass is still very unhappy as the guy who promised improvements is doing the exact same thing, and Graham forbids Ostrog from bringing in this private African militia called the Black Police to suppress the people after hearing how vicious they were to Paris. Graham goes out into the general public in disguise with an advisor to get a general feel for how the people live. During this time Ostrogs niece leaks that the Black Police are on their way and chaos ensues. Graham stages ANOTHER coup against Ostrog with the people's help and it's a full-on war between Ostrog and the people.
The people take London from Ostrog's currently present forces but the Black Police are still on their way, maybe hundreds of them in areoplanes. The pilots (called aeronauts) were all owned by Ostrog so the people have no one to pilot the one lone areopile, except for Graham. Graham pilots the aeropile and takes out a couple of the sluggish planes, leaving the people the opportunity to prepare against the rest of them. Graham spots the aeropile that is carrying Ostrog and tries to knock it out of the air but misses and ends up plummeting to the ground to his death.
Ok JEEZ time to talk about my actual thoughts. This book feels so much like a prototype Dune. The bug-like flying machines, the themes of a religion built by the upper class to control the people, the protagonist being a sort of messiah. It's cool seeing Well's idea of the future, his like shockingly accurate and WILD misses. I wouldn't be surprised if Frank Herbert used this book as inspiration, cause like "the sleeper has awoken" is a famous line from Dune.
Graham has a nice character arc, he's constantly being toted around as he is too precious a symbol and the last thing he does is FINALLY be active in the conflict, and is the final piece needed to enact real change. His fascination with flying was great, like yeah this guy really is out of time but that's still so relatable. I wish there was more at play with the fact that he was yknow, a scientist, perfect excuse for Wells to try and go into some detail.
I also wish we got some other characters' perspectives to get a glimpse of everyday life in 2102 London, instead of being trapped in rooms with Graham during the early chapters, but it also works to keep the mystery of what's happening going.
I'm not one for dystopian fiction, and this is a lot more Fahrenheit 451 than I was expecting, but still a fun read. May update this review with more thoughts sense this is 75% recap we'll see.