Dreaming, Not Sleeping

(Originally published at Red Adept Reviews.)

Overall: 3 stars

Plot/Storyline: 3 stars

The story description above is pretty much the story. Very simple. Dreaming, Not Sleeping was about a woman who cannot wait to go to bed because of a night visitor. A demon? An incubus? While the story deals with sexual longing, I think it's also the story about losing someone you love and being powerless to stop it, as well as falling out of love with one person and in love or lust with someone, er, something else. There is clearly a horror element here, a Hell Raiser vibe.

This is definitely a short story, but even taking that into account, the story seems ... insubstantial. I believe the story was meant to succeed by calling up dream logic, a dream landscape, but because there was nothing else – no contrast or context - something vital seemed missing to anchor it all.

Characters: 2 1/2 stars

There's not a lot of characters. The only two characters, if you don't count the night visitor, are the husband and wife, and then story shifts between the two points of view. We get no hint of their daily lives as the story only concerns her desire to go to sleep and his increasing sense of loss and powerlessness.

The husband seems completely paralyzed. He sees his wife pulling away from him, and he sees something icky in the room, and yet his response is to ask his wife what happened and accept her saying that she doesn't recall. Other than that, he seems to stand by - sleep by? - and presumably hope it all sorts out.

I can't say I bought that. I'm not sure I know anyone, even the most passive person, who would really not say or do more than this character under the circumstances. I don't quibble with the husband feeling in over his head, or where the story ended up, but I don't believe the nearly complete inertia. I do suppose that inertia in a story about sleep has a certain poetry though.

Writing Style: 3 3/4 stars

The language in the story was nicely done. There's something about dreamscapes that brings out the baroque in writers and I love reading stories that capture that feeling. Dreaming, Not Sleeping because of the use of language felt sensual when needed and horrifying when needed. I believe horror is definitely a good match for the author's skills, I just wish that the depth of the story had matched her talent with words and her ability to set a mood.