Sleepless

A Novel

By: Charlie Huston

Narrated by: Ray Porter, Mark Bramhall

Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

The world is in the grip of an epidemic of sleeplessness, and one man will risk everything to find out what caused it. In his signature style of fast-paced action, outrageous violence, and graphically described scenes, we are tossed into a dramatic turbulence unlike anything you've ever read or heard.

Every day, more and more people have been found to have contracted the illness - they simply cannot sleep. The illness arrives slowly, usually revealing itself in a stiff neck. Then it blooms, keeping one from sleeping altogether, eating away at one's mind, birthing panic and confusion until, finally, one enters into the last few months before death, known as the suffering. Similarly, the disease took hold of the globe slowly and now has infected one in every ten people.

In Los Angeles, a straight arrow cop named Parker T. Haas is posing as a drug dealer, working undercover to prevent the black market trade of a drug known as Dreamer, a drug known to be the only thing that offers relief to people who are sleepless. He only knows so much about the drug itself: It is manufactured by pharmaceutical giant Afronzo-New Day; it is in small supply; it is in impossibly high demand. But in his darker moments, he admits to himself that his interest in the drug goes beyond the professional. His wife, Rose, has been sleepless for months, and they haven't yet found the courage to find out if their infant daughter is also sick. With Rose unwell and behaving erratically, Park's long hours are weighing on him, but he feels like he's on the cusp of learning something crucial. He feels like he's a few steps away from making the world a better place. So he presses on.

©2010 Charlie Huston (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Just couldn't stay with it....

This could have been a great book... interesting plot, characters, etc, however it fell short. Too much time was spent describing the environment and not enough time spent on full character development. It was like looking into a beautiful aquarium full of interesting fish, etc, but can't make out/enjoy the details, because the glass is so dirty you can't quite see in.

I only made it through chapter 17... It was just too dull/bland. It needed more substance and a lot more action/intrigue... as I said, it could have been a great book.

I could tell this writer has a way with words. I have not read any others of his work... maybe this was just an off case.

I didn't have any problems with the narration. It was a dull book and the authors read it as such.

Solid 3 stars.

Great Read

Great listen - compelling characters, well read, both narrators were excellent. If you like noir-ish fiction and a reasonably plausible near-future scenario, buy this. Well drawn characters, even the evil mercenary. I listened to this Audiobook even when I had written materials at hand. In tone and prose, it reminded of "The Road".

Stunning

I think people who were bored by this book may have been expecting another fast moving vampire/detective novel. Instead what you get is a stunning story akin to On The Beach. I have now listened to or read all of Charlie Huston’s works and feel that this is far and away his best. I can’t recommend the story highly enough and would encourage others to evaluate it on its own merits rather than what they expected it to be. With regards to the two narrators, I don’t understand why they chose to present the story in this manor; however, I did not find it distracting enough to take away a star. In short, this book is f…. awesome.

Not typical, but very very good

I love Charlie Huston's Hank Thompson trilogy (Caught Stealing, etc)- he does full-energy noir better than any modern author since James Crumley. This is a very different book and also wonderful. The narrators did an excellent job of portraying the different first-person voices and the story itself is compelling and terrifying. The first chapter or so is a bit tough to key in to, since you are dropped right in the middle of the story with characters that are not yet introduced, let alone developed. Give it a chance, it's a great listen.

Very good

I loved the two narrators. Porter and Bramhall were terrific. It helped to keep the characters straight. I am not a gamer so I cannot attest to the accuracy but thoroughly enjoyed that aspect of the story. I thought it was a real page turner.

Awesome book!

One of my favorite books of all time. listened to it twice! great performance, wonderful story and good writing. I would highly recommend this book!

Literate, poignant, insightful, scary.

Sleepless is, in a word, brilliant. Having lived through the sleep-deprivation of a colicky infant, I can attest to the scary accuracy of Mr. Huston's vision of the rest-challenged. The alternate timeline is believable, the characters have spectacular depth, and the whole thing, plot and characters, were engaging enough that I found myself listening way, way past my bedtime. Heck, I even cried, and more than once. There was plenty of action without it turning into just-another-wannabe-Hollywood-blockbuster like so many other detective stories these days. And I have to agree with another reviewer who commented that the book was so chock-full of ideas that it could have been a whole series!

I'm a huge fan of Ray Porter, having listened to his readings of numerous titles across several genres. I've never been let down. This was my first Mark Bramhall experience and I'll definitely be returning. His performance of Mr. Huston's quick, vivid dialog is probably the best I've heard in any audio book ever. Now, I do have an itsy-bitsy tiny gripe regarding Mr. Bramhall's reading, and that is the accent used for the Lady of the Thousand Storks. It wasn't a great fit for me, but one can't deduct 1/10th of a star, so it still gets five for performance.

Overall, I was blown away by Sleepless. Now, I know it takes all kinds to make a world, but I don't see how anyone could be bored by this gem. Keep them coming, Mr. Huston. Keep them coming.

The Zombie apocalypse never had a better bard

Compelling characters grapple with a species ending plague in a parallel Los Angeles of 2010. Huston is a master of describing grim landscape and desperate society. The inner lives of the characters feels real. The voice performance rendered much of the dialogue in overly harsh tones, but main narration was melodious enough to lift Huston's eligaic conclusion.

Fantastic - Great to see Huston stretching himself

I was a bit worried when I read some of the negative reviews. Wow, those people were just wrong.

Huston sets up a sort of love child between Perfect Dark and Hannibal in this book. The styles and words and descriptions and patters all work together to set the moods. The meticulous perfection of a hired killer and the exhausted over-think of a philosopher-cop cum overstressed husband and father in a city that is disintegrating into chaos around them all.

Ignore the swapping between the two narrators. It's not quite tied solely to the point of view of the speaker -- I think it's more about the state of pace and style in each part, but even then I'm not really sure. Just go with it and let the voices do the job of setting pace. It works.

Just not my style,

I enjoy Ray Porter's narration of any book which is one of the reasons I choose to listen to "Sleepless". However, Ray Porter is not the main narrator. The main narrator is Mark Bramhall who did a fabulous job, but not what I expected. Plus, the story is feasible and sad. If I want to be sad, I turn on the news; when I want to be entertained, I turn to a book. Just my style.