The Dreams of the Eternal City

Promising debut with a fascinating premise. The story itself does get off to a roaring start, and while I admittedly, found some parts of the book plodding in places, there was more than enough going on to keep my attention throughout. Definitely an author to keep an eye on.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked the premise of this book. I could tell the author wrote short stories because this was an imaginative idea that often is not found in longer pieces. Elements of 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 all were present here. The chief concerns I had with the text is that, in making this a full-length piece, I felt the dialogue was a bit too pedestrian. It felt like the author recorded too many casual conversations in full rather than in brief. Also the ending was too abrupt for me. Then again, if he is writing a sequel, then I am totally on board.

Thank you Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is an interesting futuristic novel. Ethan is tasks with investigation people who break the sleep code. In this time period people are required to only sleep a number of hours a day and work longer hours. The author, through Ethan's point of view, shows us what a sleep deprived world looks like. The world building is good but the pace is slow. I had to read through about 50%of the book to get into the action. Other than that it's a good novel.

I took a chance on reading a single-idea dystopian novel just in case the author managed to make it work. While this one might've had enough of an idea to carry itself on, it reads too much like a first novel to really work for me. The author knew to have an attention-grabbing Chapter 1, which he does, but after that it trailed off into trivialities and got tiring fast. I don't need five pages of walking to work, for example. Hopefully there were some lessons learned in writing this one that will be applied to the next book he decides to write.

Thank you Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this book, I really did. But at some points I really wish it had that extra oomf that would leave me thinking about it more after I finished. I felt like I was just waiting and waiting, for Ethan to do something. The book was interesting and I really liked the idea. The mystery and paranoia was good but I wish it had extra oomf.

The ending of the book wasn't what I really expected. It kinda, just sort of ended. I kind of expected more at the end.

Overall I did like this book and the writing style. I will be looking forward to other books by this author!

I was excited about this title from NetGalley. It had an interesting dystopian premise, offered a debut novel from a new author, and intrigued me immensely. Unfortunately, the execution of this novel was not fantastic.

The story of a society in which sleep is regulated should be full of information about sleep and why it's important. Or maybe about how an over-reaching government can end up harming its citizens in unexpected ways. Or about an uprising of the people to shut down such an institution. This book didn't really address any of those topics, at least not deeply enough.

Mark Reece has published many short stories, but this is his first novel. While I may struggle with reading short fiction, I tend to enjoy longer fiction from short story writers. Maybe it is the part of me that enjoys Hemingway. There is a lot to be said about concise writing, even in fiction that can tell a wonderful story. Unfortunately, I did not get that from this novel.

While the opening pages presented a big, exciting scene, the majority of the first half of this book was slow. I found the characters to be largely flat and had very little interest in their well-being. The dialogue was boring and there was a lot of focus on the mundane. About half-way through, the story picked up and the slow suspense that had been simmering came to the forefront. Where the beginning was somewhat slow, the pace of the story became much faster as we hurled toward a lackluster ending.

Overall, I would have a hard time recommending this book to other readers. I did see some promising elements and will likely read future offerings from this author, but this book as a whole just did not do it for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free copy of this ebook.

The Dreams of the Eternal City is a sci fi novel set in the UK where sleeping hours are rigidly enforced by the Government. Unfortunately, I found majority of the book repetitious where the main protagonist, Ethan Thomas travels to work, jokes with his work colleague Mohammed, travels home, converses with his girlfriend and tries to sleep. It is only during the final third where things get interesting but even then, nothing worth reading the previous two thirds to get to. And then it ends.
On face value it is an interesting premise but as you read through the book the more it becomes less convincing. There does not appear to be any opposition apart from the Ilkonian shadow terrorist group (Ilks) however it is confirmed that people voted for sleep enforcement however the enforcement reads like a dictatorship, but this is not confirmed.
Mark Reece is a good writer and this would have worked better to set up a world for a sequel or even a trilogy however it would have required a large part of the book to be cut down and maybe extend the ending which just ends without any resolution.

I wanted to like this book, the premise sounded good and I always find it interesting to read books on alternate future/present situations. The writing style itself was good, I liked the sense of mystery about the inner workings of the agency the main character works for, the sense of paranoia he develops with his illicit sleeping patterns and his contact with the clandestine organisation. I really wanted to find out more about why the sleep restrictions were introduced, find out more about the clandestine organisation, see more of a conclusion to the story not just of the main character but what changes were occurring in his world. Unfortunately I don't really feel like I got that, so for me, this isn't a book I'll be recommending.