Well, another strange one.
This time we follow the adventures of one Zaxony Delatree, Zax to his friends and enemies. After witnessing an attempted suicide, Zax develops the ability to travel the worlds (planets or parallel universes, not sure) as soon as he falls asleep. He can't really control his power, which is a problem. He meets and interacts with the inhabitants of each world he visits. He also realizes that he can take other people with him, but that it is better for the passenger to also be asleep while "traveling".
On world 1000, or thereabouts, he wakes up in an orchard and there he meets a strange girl called Minna. They go on an adventure of a lifetime. What they don’t know is that someone from Zax’s past is following them.
This is a strange novel, written in the form of Zax’s diary entries, but at times this literary form is imperfect or unbelievable. There is also a strange problem – each chapter has a title which is like a group of bullet points of what happens in that episode. I really didn’t care for that.
Another writing element that causes problems for me is the fact that action happens very fast. I don’t mean that plot is fast paced, but that everything that happens happens in a second. For example, a flying vehicle they are on experiences engines malfunction and in the next sentence they have crashed into a field. I think that the reason for this extreme economy of text is that the author wanted to visit sooooooo many worlds, that he didn’t have enough time to allow us to actually experience both the world and the plot.
Don’t get me wrong, the worlds are amazing, but do we really need a paragraph or two of Wizard of Oz world? Or of the Hipster+ChildLabour world? I think not.
The main characters are sort of strange as well. Zax is at times really smart, with instincts that enable him to survive anything that is thrown at him, but then he is also very much an idiot at times. Didn’t like that. Minna is a veritable Deus Ex Machina. Whatever Zax needs, whatever problem they encounter, she has a solution for it. I really didn’t like that. Whatever happens you know that she will come up with something that will save them. Tension disappears after a while.
The idea behind this story is good, fun even, but the end, of course, necessitates a sequel. I’d have preferred this to be a standalone.

Doors of Sleep is the type of story that is right in my wheelhouse. It has a lot of elements I love: doors to magical worlds, time travel (of a sort), faerie creatures (of a sort), AI, interesting characters, and a really neat concept. I especially enjoyed the chapter headings which give little clues as to what is about to happen, as well as the shifting points of few that take place a few times in the narrative. There's a lot to like here, and I liked all of it. Another winner from Tim Pratt. Highly recommended!

It's not terrible, it's not great, it's pretty meh. I know I sound like an asshole, but the book was totally lacking excitement, suspense, thrills. For a book that should have you a little on the edge of your seat, I just didn't care. The book was written in such a way that all of the problems Zax faced were easily solved.

Minna was a cool character, so cool in fact, she could fix basically everything. Zax gets his arm chopped off, she grows him a new one. He needs to stay awake longer, she alters his brain. Need to set a trap or two, she can do it. Get trapped on a space station, she can alter her own blood to give herself Zax's powers. There is never any real danger. 

And the villain in this whole piece? He feels like a caricature of a bad guy from Captain Underpants. 

Another reason I think I had such a hard time getting into this is because time just flits by. 6 months can be jumped in a page. Also because so much happens off page, we are told about it in massive monologues. After the second time this happened I could feel my brain starting to check out and to be honest I'm surprised I finished it. 

I was really bummed about this one. The idea was pretty cool, very Sliders, but the execution didn't work for me at all. I needed the stakes to be higher, I needed some tension and I needed to want the characters to survive.

The possible existence of a multiverse, an infinite string of worlds in which life is the same, but very much not too, in its expression, is, for many people, an entirely alluring idea.

To think that out there somewhere exist endless possibilities for life, a great many of which bear no resemblance to our own reality, is appealing in a world where everything seems perpetually, drably the same.

For Jaxony Delatree, a man condemned to travel to a new world every time he falls asleep or becomes unconscious, the multiverse is, however, a curse of sorts, each journey, as documented in Tim Pratt’s Doors of Sleep, one life-altering further step away from his home, his family and friends and any sense of reassuring permanence.

His peripatetic existence is not of his choosing either, the result of meeting a woman in his professional capacity as a social worker who is there one minute and gone, quite mysteriously, the next.

Any idea that the multiverse is a gloriously unexpected kaleidoscope of the new and the exciting and different has long ceased to hold any appeal after three years and over 1000 worlds, and while there are moments of quiet reverie and the thrill of discovery can still make its sizeable presence felt, the reality is that Jaxony aka Jax, whose companions are usually fleeting and too easily distracted or lost, often feels lost, alone and very far from home in the gorgeously-named, though poetically-authoritarian, Realm of Spheres and Harmonies.

When we meet Jax, who has become a consummate survivor who can find food and water anywhere, who has been given a beneficial virus by someone which acts as a universal translator for him, and who knows his ways around the stimulants and sedatives necessary to extend his presence in or hasten his departure from a particular world, he is a man beleaguered, someone who tries to find the small joys where he can but who is also rapidly running out of any sense that his is a good and charmed existence.

Then he meets Minna and later Vicki (or Vastcool Class Crystal Intellect Three Three Three), whose exact nature is best left to the reading but whose presence in Jax’s life provides the emotional anchor he has long craved and so desperately needed, and who become even more critically important when a Big Bad turns up, one of Jax’s old companions, and embarks on a comprehensively evil plan to mould the multiverse to his own hideously authoritarian design.

While the existence of a nemesis does give the narrative some extra impelling grunt, the truth of the matter is that exciting though it is, not simply because of the action it generates but the great moral quandaries it throws up, Doors of Sleep gets along quite beautifully without it too.

That’s because this vibrantly emotive novel is, at heart, an exploration of humanity, primarily the good – Jax is a kind and decent man who doesn’t fold into himself, tempting though that might be, but does what he can to help others such as free a race of fabricated beings from dependence on long-departed masters – and occasionally the bad, and how even when life seems perpetually, gloriously wondrous, that we still need a connection to other people or life soon feels empty and hollow, no matter how exotic the locale.

Told through Jax’s eloquently insightful diary entries, Doors of Sleep is a gently told story of one man finding himself very alone, and then surprisingly not, and how he discovers that worlds he now inhabits one after the sleep-inducing other, might be part of something far bigger and greater.

It is also fantastically, enthrallingly imaginative in a way that excites and delights you as you wonder how one author can come up with so many dizzyingly different possibilities for the expression of life.

Jax goes from worlds where cloud forests provide a meditative place to rest and recoup (or mourn, as needs be), where gentle giants roam and where bird-headed people live lives of quiet luxurious perfection or where bucolic paradise holds sway (though with a darker, hidden truth behind it.)

He also comes across worlds of ruin clad in colonising crystal, others subsumed beneath life-stopping ice or one where mechanical spiders have taken all life and reduced it to an extinct nothing.

These cited worlds are but a small selection of the utterly beguiling array of places that Pratt takes you to, locales rich in sustaining possibility, others lost to the predations of death and hope long extinguished.

Pratt brings these worlds alive so fully and completely, sometimes, masterfully, in just a paragraph or two, that he infuses Doors of Sleep with the feeling of a glittering, astonishing travelogue, reminding us that even though Jax is largely inured to the riotous differences he witnesses – but importantly, not completely, meaning the sense of wonder has not wholly departed him – that they are profoundly, fantastically fascinating.

And the perfect setting too for a battle between good and evil, which, it will not surprise you to learn may take different forms on different worlds but which is, very much alike in its capacity to either uplift and nourish, or enslave and destroy.

Doors of Sleep is many good and wondrous things – it is exquisitely well-written with a perfect balance between raw humanity and spine-tingling action, imaginative beyond belief, offering up worlds so uniquely not of our own that you can’t help but get lost in them (just don’t get too far from Jax; you’ll find out why) and proof that the multiverse is an amazingly diverse place to tell an enrapturing, multi-layered and emotionally resonant story.

But most of all, and this is what will grab your heart and soul very quickly, it is winningly, insightfully and relatably human, a novel which knows its way around a thrilling narrative but never forgets that even the most exciting stories need richly-expressed humanity at their core and are all the poorer for its absence.

Doors of Sleep has humanity and thoughtful musing on the human condition in bountiful abundance, and while Jax may visit world upon brilliantly or alarmingly different world, this is never lost sight of, with the need for connection and relationship always paramount, proving that no matter where you end up, you always need to feel that you matter, to yourself, and just as importantly, to others.

Do you like Dictor Who? If so, you will ,like this book. After reading the synopsis, I thougt."Ok,maybe.." But I was hooked from the beginning. Give the book a chance and you'll be glad you did. For sci fi fans and some good world building.

Every time Zax falls asleep he wakes up in a different world. This is exciting but also poses several problems. Fortunately for Zax he picks up a cohort along the way. Unfortunately for Zax someone is chasing him through these worlds in an effort to unlock the secret to his ability by any means necessary.

I really enjoyed this story. Pratt does an excellent job at beautifully illustrating so many worlds with creatures, cultures, landscapes, and dangers. This was easily my favorite part of the book. Pratt shows the reader just a glimpse of each world but my mind want an entire story on each of these worlds. This was truly an imaginative story.

Pratt breathes life into his characters. I found myself easily cheering for Zax and Minna. He also makes the antagonist seem quite human-like with his goals and ambitions. It would be easy to have paper thin characters in a story that focuses more on the environment than anything else but that simply isn't the case here.

I can't say I've ever read another book like this one and I'm excited because the ending sets up a potential sequel perfectly. My fingers are definitely crossed that this happens.

There are times I wish I could to other universes just to run from this one. I think most people feels this way sometimes.

Zax is someone who actually can. He didn't choose this but he has no choice. Every time he falls asleep he travels to another universe. He can prolong his stay with stimulants but eventually he falls asleep. But he can take people and stuff with him if he hold the person in his arms. The person he holds must be unconscious because if not, it has consequences, the person goes mad. Why? Sorry, you have to read Doors of Sleep to get an answer.
Zax believes he is the only one with this ability, or curse depending on who you ask. There is someone else out there, someone after Jax, someone who wants Zax blood because it is his blood that enables him to travel between worlds.

I liked Zax almost immediately. He is a little naive but he kind-hearted and honest, a really good person. He sees the best in people even if the person in question is one of the most narcissistic and evil person in the whole multiverse.
Meet the Lector. He is the smartest man in the multiverse, really. He is ambitious, incredibly clever and feels no remorse. He says he is sorry from time to time but those seem empty worlds because he is just too selfish.
Minna is the other main character, a positive one. She is fierce, loyal and kind, a real good friend to Zax.

The world-building is absolutely amazing. Jax races through hundreds of world and sometimes we only get glimpses of them. I loved these other universes, these other worlds, some are wonderful, some are horrific. I wish Pratt showed us Zax's homeworld.

I will read the next book in the series and I highly recommend this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for my copy.

I freely admit to having a bit of a mixed experience with this author in the past - I really like the Marla Mason books but bounced quite hard off the previous sci fi novel of his that I tried, so this was always going to be a bit of a gamble...

The basic premise of Doors of Sleep is that our protagonist has discovered that when he falls asleep, he moves to a different universe - by the time we meet Zax, he has already travelled to hundreds of different universes, gaining and losing companions along the way. He can only take someone with him, he's found, if they're asleep too as being awake does bad things for the brain of the person travelling with him. One of his companions, one he's left behind a while ago called the Lector, was left because he developed designs on Zax's abilities and wanted to use them for his own ends.

Naturally, we later discover that the Lector has managed to find a way to do so regardless of this separation and spends a chunk of the book chasing Zax and his current companions through various universes again. There's also some exposition about how they separated in the first place, which makes the plot drag a bit. To be perfectly honest, partway through the book and before the Lector was (re)introduced as an antagonist, I was left thinking 'what exactly is the point of this book?' and wondering where the author was going with it.

This was yet another one of those books where I probably wouldn't have carried on with it past a certain point if I hadn't needed to review it. As we get towards the end, things are tied up in a fairly neat package and even one of the bad things discussed earlier turns out to have apparently not been bad after all? Frankly, I'd have been interested more in the early days than this - looking back, Zax describes his experiences when first travelling, unable to understand or communicate before a very convenient language virus made that simpler. The decision to start in media res instead just didn't work as well for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Zax Delatree is a lot of fun to read and adventure with. You sold for sure forget the year and have a movie playing within your imagination in this one. Don’t skip it.

Disclaimer: I would like to thank the publisher, Angry Robot, for kindly providing a review copy of this book.

"Doors of Sleep: Journals of Zaxony Delatree" by Hugo award winning author Tim Pratt is an adventurous tale of what might happen if an ordinary person suddenly develops the ability (or perhaps the handicap?) of mysteriously shifting into an alternate reality each time they fall asleep. In some ways the concept is similar to TV shows such as Sliders or before that Otherworld. Whatever the mechanism, in each episode or chapter, the characters find themselves in a scenario that may be familiar, totally alien, relaxing, deadly, interesting, boring, etc. In each of these works, the characters struggle to survive, even flourish, understand and hopefully control their situation, and hopefully even do some good.

Early in the novel "Doors of Sleep" both Zax, the main character, and perhaps the reader become a bit ungrounded as everything changes rather frequently. However, fortunately for both Zax and the reader, an overall story arc presents itself with sufficient reoccurring characters and goals that make this novel hard to put down. Additionally, Pratt's first person journal style writing pulls the reader into the world and life of the characters, even if they happen to spin around wildly.

This was definitely an enjoyable book to read. Readers that enjoy SF with multiple new worlds, ongoing challenges, characters that develop, and a cool mixture of both high tech and biotech will surely enjoy this book.

An interesting concept for sure but the concept is more interesting than the story itself.

The story of Zaxony Delatree and his journals explaining his extraordinary life of travel to many many worlds. Existing in a multiverse, when Zax falls asleep he wakes up in another world in an alternative universe. Along the way he meets up with various characters, bringing some with him. They also have to be asleep and hanging on to him to travel with him.

One of these characters has ulterior motives though. He is after Zaxs blood to travel on his own too, with much more sinister intentions.
After being held captive by him and blood taken Zax manages to escape but while he travels randomly through the multiverse he has this character on his tale trying to catch up with him, take his blood and perhaps take his life.

This sounded really interesting on paper but sounds better than it works. The fact that Zax travels to a new world every times he sleeps means he never spends long in one place. He visits dozens and dozens of places in this book, some get a couple of pages, some get a paragraph and they end up becoming a bit of a blur, having little or no novelty and I found myself soon losing interest in the descriptions of them as they had little relevance.

It’s basically a chase movie set in a multiverse, a good vs evil battle with an overly cheesy ending. I’m sure there is plenty of philosophical questions and social commentary in here but the format didn’t grab my attention enough to care.

There are some interesting ideas in here but ultimately I think the book was somewhat doomed from the beginning due to the format.


Many thanks to Netgalley and Angry Robit for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Some time ago, I read quite a bad book with a main character named something similar to Zax, which is what this book's main character is called by his friends. Not only that, but the author's first name was not too dissimilar to Zaxony. And the premise was that whenever the protagonist fell asleep, he shifted into another universe.

So I wondered, when I picked this one up (having been fortunate enough to be invited to review it by the publisher, via Netgalley), whether it was prompted by the author reading that same book I read and, in frustration, deciding to write a better one.

Nothing else about the books is remotely similar, so it may be complete coincidence. But the most important difference is that this is really good.

I've talked in other reviews about how there are two versions of Tim Pratt. The "dark" Pratt writes gruelling stories about nasty people having a bad time, often because of what they do to each other; the "bright" Pratt writes hopeful stories about good people overcoming the evil of others, often by generosity and self-sacrifice. This book, happily, is by the "bright" Pratt.

The main character, Zax, is an early-career harmonizer, a kind of social worker who helps individuals and groups find ways to get along. Through mysterious events (they get a bit less mysterious in the course of the book, but are never fully explained), he begins to shift universes every time he goes to sleep. He's able to take someone with him if they're both asleep and in close contact, and, in a probable salute to Doctor Who, he has a series of companions, some of whom leave him when they get to a place they want to stay. One of them, however, the Lector (the chief administrator of a university and a talented scientist) betrays him and tries to take the secret of his universe-shifting by violence.

The story opens some time after his experience with the Lector, which is later told in flashback. He's travelling from universe to universe, and they're diverse and sometimes dangerous and sometimes extremely beautiful. The societies he encounters range from utopian to dystopian, and some are both depending who you are. He soon rescues a new companion, Minna, who's talented with genetic manipulation - just how talented he doesn't realize until later - and an indentured servant of remote and cruel overlords.

And then the Lector catches up with him, and reveals his plan to create a multi-universal empire, and Zax, Minna, and an AI they've picked up along the way called Vicki must find a way to thwart him.

The story puts Zax's training and ideals as a harmonizer directly into conflict with the Lector's as a conqueror and organizer, raising important questions about self-determination, civilization, and what is good. It's well handled, for the most part, and thought-provoking, and doesn't come to set conclusions about political structure, though it does have some things to say about attitudes and general approaches to relations between people and groups.

There are one or two moments when satire is applied with too heavy a hand, as when Zax visits a world where everyone has retreated to (literal) bubbles in which they can be with only the people who "share their exact values and biases", this being a ploy to end a civil war. The bubble he arrives in contains people who drink craft beer, ride electric scooters, have elaborate facial hair, believe in respect and kindness... and spend a lot of time using small electronic devices made in another bubble where people believe in child labour. I thought that was a bit on the nose. But that's an aberration in a story that's usually a lot smoother and more subtle, and the varied worlds are imaginative and interesting, reminding me irresistibly of Roger Zelazny's Amber and Corwin's trips through Shadow. It could, in fact, have easily become a series of vignettes, which would probably still have been entertaining, but the overarching story with the Lector as antagonist adds tension and weight.

I did also question the moment when a beautiful woman who Zax had met, spent a couple of days having sex with, and then lost was described as his "true love," though, to be fair, it wasn't Zax who used that phrase.

The ending suggests that we might be in for a series, and if so, I'm very happy and will follow the series eagerly. This book has no trouble making it to my Best of 2020 list.