Graham Masterton has never been known for his use of logic or realism in his horror plotting. Most of his horror tales are built on premises that are so “out there” that readers will often find themselves either in awe at his imagination or shaking their heads in confusion. Sometimes we do both as evidenced in The Sleepless.
Obviously, tales of the fantastic work in horror, but they have to be grounded in humanity. It’s usually the emotional depth of the characters that make these types of stories succeed; it’s not enough for authors to tell us how weird or fantastic a plot or a creature is, the author has to show us how terrifying they are through his characters thoughts and actions. You can say what you want about Masterton’s crazy plotting and bizarre creatures, but the man does know how to create human characters that we care about, and he is a master at making their fears our own. And for the most part, Masterton does just this in The Sleepless.
When starting The Sleepless, readers will wonder if they are reading a horror novel or an investigative thriller. It begins with a judge who has been appointed to the Supreme Court on his way to a ceremony with his wife, daughter and an aide. They are arriving by helicopter with a seasoned pilot doing the flying. In the air, things go terribly wrong. The pilot appears to be struggling with the controls and, before they all know it, they have crashed somewhere on the Massachusetts coastline. All of them are trapped in the wreckage and grievously wounded. When a man shows up those that are conscious believe they are rescued. Turns out he’s not there to rescue them. Minutes later the real rescuers arrive and they find beheaded and gutted bodies in the helicopter, but not the judge’s young daughter.
All of this leads to the insurance company bringing in a retired ace investigator to sort out the mess. The investigator has problems of his own as he retired because he could not get the horrific images of his last case out of his head, the crash of a jumbo jet. All of this might seem pretty straightforward to readers so far, and it is, but then Masterton kicks the “holy shit, is this really happening?” factor into high gear. We are introduced to creatures that cannot sleep and are immortal. We meet an angel who feeds off of a chemical humans produce when experiencing intense fear and torture. And then there are the sex scenes. They are about as graphic as any X rated movie you have ever seen. By the way, those sex scenes? Well not only are they descriptive, they are not for the feint of heart. They involve torture, rape, and one scene of insertion that is not only the most disgusting sex scene I have ever read, it is one of the most frightening. In addition to all this, we get lots of amputation scenes, out of body experience scenarios, interracial-handicapped-infidelity sex scenes featuring prominent money shots, and a young boy who….well, it’s a spoiler so I can’t say, but in true Masterton fashion, it comes out of nowhere.
The Sleepless isn’t as enjoyable as some of his other novels (his Harry Erskine tales are still the best) but it is entertaining, if not repulsive at times. There are many characters in The Sleepless and some of them beg for more development. This may be because there are several arcs in the novel and while they are all enjoyable and do contribute to the plot, the characters tend to come off as clichés or too wooden. There should be no complaints concerning the pace of the story as it moves along at a fast clip, almost too fast as sometimes a reader may feel as if he has missed something.
This reviewer will admit to being a huge Graham Masterton fan and even with the some of the comments made above, the book proved to be well worth reading and fans of the author should enjoy The Sleepless. For those unfamiliar with Masterton’s horror novels or are only familiar with his Manitou series of books, be warned, The Sleepless can get quite extreme in spots, enough so where some of the scenes will linger long after the novel is finished.
- Inflictions - April 11, 2015
- The Equinox - April 2, 2015
- The Nightmare Girl - March 9, 2015
- Intruder - February 12, 2015
- The Only Red Is Blood - February 12, 2015
- Insanity Tales - February 3, 2015
- Qualia Nous - January 28, 2015
- Once Upon An Apocalypse - November 25, 2014
- The Janus Demon - November 17, 2014
- Case White - November 7, 2014
