A radical solution to climate change – I review Kings of a Dead World by Jamie Mollart
Kings of a Dead World – the blurb
The Earth’s resources are dwindling. The solution is the Sleep.
Inside a hibernating city, Ben struggles with his limited waking time and the disease stealing his wife from him. Watching over the sleepers, lonely Peruzzi craves the family he never knew.
Everywhere, dissatisfaction is growing.
The city is about to wake.
No Sleep for me
The book initially hooks you by its premise – the world is dying, humans and their over consumption is killing it. The solution? Put whole countries to sleep for months on end. Whereas I liked the hook, the world building for me wasn’t as complete as I thought it should have been. Does anyone have a job? Where does the food that is in the supermarkets come from? As the book progressed perhaps the holes left were deliberate, but then again perhaps not. All I know is that I do not want to live in a world with enforced sleep. Surprising coming from a girl who loves her bed!
Ben’s life on the outside and Peruzzi’s life on the inside contrasted beautifully. The excesses of The Rite, the lack of food at the supermarket. But I found it hard to accept the fact that the public lived in the way that they did. They were left with no motivation, goals or achievements just periods of wake and sleep. And, whilst trying to not give anything away, of all the things Peruzzi stumbles upon in the big old outside!
The background of Ben’s life was really intriguing as we worked towards the beginning of the Sleep. Yet my favorite part of the book wasn’t the heartbreak of him and Rose. It wasn’t Peruzzi’s downward spiral. It was the male/male relationships the book portrayed. Ben and Hassan had such a beautiful friendship. There were the dynamics of Ben and Andreas and even Ben and Peruzzi. Mollart explored them all and the book was better for it.
Post apocalypses usually have me addicted but I didn’t realize how important world building was to my enjoyment of reading them. Kings of a Dead World is close but there’s no cigar.