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Wake Up And Dream [signed jhc]
It's the golden age of the Feelies. What could go wrong?
338 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
15 people are currently reading
300 people want to read
About the author
Ian R. MacLeod
173 books127 followersIan R. MacLeod is the acclaimed writer of challenging and innovative speculative and fantastic fiction. His most recent novel, Wake Up and Dream, won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, while his previous works have won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and the World Fantasy Award, and have been translated into many languages. His short story, “Snodgrass,” was developed for television in the United Kingdom as part of the Sky Arts series Playhouse Presents. MacLeod grew up in the West Midlands region of England, studied law, and spent time working and dreaming in the civil service before moving on to teaching and house-husbandry. He lives with his wife in the riverside town of Bewdley.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 30, 2012
What can I say? i am a sucker for alternate histories and this one is quirky and just that bit different.
January 24, 2012
Excellent! Deserves a publisher in the US.
July 10, 2012
Five word review: Sam Spade by David Lynch
April 17, 2023
Hollywood, June 1944. Europe is still at war, with England about to fall to Hitler’s legions. In the United States, FDR readies a run for a third term as the fascist Liberty League gains ground across the land. Everywhere, people are flocking to the theaters to take in the newest “feelies,” introduced a dozen years ago. Just as the “talkies” replaced silent films, displacing the stars of the older format, so too has it been with the feelies. Clark Gable, rising to stardom in the early 1930s, has long since faded from memory. He now ekes out an existence as an unlicensed, low-rent private investigator. He spends his time photographing errant husbands and wives in compromising situations. But Clark is about to take on the biggest role of his life, and not at a studio. Which begins the enthralling story in Ian MacLeod’s alternate history of Hollywood, Wake Up and Dream.
THE BIGGEST ROLE OF CLARK GABLE’S LIFE . . . OFF-SCREEN
A woman named April Lamotte has sent Clark a more than generous advance of $50—about $850 today—to meet her at her mansion in the hills. And what a mansion it is! It turns out that the sexy Mrs. Lamotte is the wife of the most famous screenwriter in Hollywood, Daniel Lamotte. He’d written the screenplay for the greatest feelie hit ever produced, and obviously made a lot of money.
What this beguiling woman wants of him is simple: “I want you to play my husband.” And she’ll give him $1,000 for Clark to impersonate Dan Lamotte for a few hours. He’s to meet her tomorrow morning, accompany her to a lawyer’s office, and sign a contract for Lamotte’s newest screenplay, “Wake Up and Dream.” Simple, right? But of course it’s not.
WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?
So, you read a lot of thrillers, and right away you know something’s up. Bad guys will surface. There’s going to be a murder. Maybe lots of them. And poor Clark Gable’s going to be caught in the middle. Possibly even be a victim himself. And you’re probably also going to suspect that the author wouldn’t have written so much about a new technology and fascism gaining ground in America unless they both figure into what’s going on here. And so it is. You’re on the right track.
ADVICE TO THE UNWARY
Fair warning: if you’re offended by bigoted references to people’s race of ethnicity, even if the context makes entirely clear why the author includes them, then don’t read this novel. There’s lots of nasty language here. Because, in the final analysis, using it helps drive home the point MacLeod was driving at. This is, after all, an alternate history of Hollywood.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The British science fiction and fantasy author Ian R. MacLeod was born in 1956 near Birmingham. He studied law and worked as a civil servant before going freelance in early 1990s. To date, he has published seven novels and eight collections of short stories. MacLeod has won numerous awards for his writing. For more perspective on him, you might turn to his long, rambling autobiographical post on his website.
THE BIGGEST ROLE OF CLARK GABLE’S LIFE . . . OFF-SCREEN
A woman named April Lamotte has sent Clark a more than generous advance of $50—about $850 today—to meet her at her mansion in the hills. And what a mansion it is! It turns out that the sexy Mrs. Lamotte is the wife of the most famous screenwriter in Hollywood, Daniel Lamotte. He’d written the screenplay for the greatest feelie hit ever produced, and obviously made a lot of money.
What this beguiling woman wants of him is simple: “I want you to play my husband.” And she’ll give him $1,000 for Clark to impersonate Dan Lamotte for a few hours. He’s to meet her tomorrow morning, accompany her to a lawyer’s office, and sign a contract for Lamotte’s newest screenplay, “Wake Up and Dream.” Simple, right? But of course it’s not.
WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?
So, you read a lot of thrillers, and right away you know something’s up. Bad guys will surface. There’s going to be a murder. Maybe lots of them. And poor Clark Gable’s going to be caught in the middle. Possibly even be a victim himself. And you’re probably also going to suspect that the author wouldn’t have written so much about a new technology and fascism gaining ground in America unless they both figure into what’s going on here. And so it is. You’re on the right track.
ADVICE TO THE UNWARY
Fair warning: if you’re offended by bigoted references to people’s race of ethnicity, even if the context makes entirely clear why the author includes them, then don’t read this novel. There’s lots of nasty language here. Because, in the final analysis, using it helps drive home the point MacLeod was driving at. This is, after all, an alternate history of Hollywood.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The British science fiction and fantasy author Ian R. MacLeod was born in 1956 near Birmingham. He studied law and worked as a civil servant before going freelance in early 1990s. To date, he has published seven novels and eight collections of short stories. MacLeod has won numerous awards for his writing. For more perspective on him, you might turn to his long, rambling autobiographical post on his website.
December 3, 2020
The career of has-been actor, Clark Gable, didn’t make the jump from the talkies to the “feelies.” Now he’s a two bit private eye specializing in matrimonial cases, sniffing pillow cases and peering under beds. But a fresh case drags Clark back into acting and to the dark side of the technology underlying the feelies, the mysterious Bechmeir Field.
While the average citizen craves to escape in the dream of the feelies, Clark’s skin crawls whenever he's in the cinema. And the technology may have other uses in politics and advertising capable of drifting the United States closer toward fascism and collusion with Nazis. Can Clark Gable, unlicensed private eye, solve the case, save his own life, and prevent a socio-political disaster?
The twisting plot combines hard-boiled private eye tropes, an imaginative, speculative technology, Hollywood angst, history, and social commentary. The stellar writing expertly captures the beauty and grit of Depression era Los Angeles. While famous people from Hollywood’s Golden Age appear in Wake Up And Dream, the celebrity characters are integral to the plot or provide plot-relevant information, so the scenes in which they’re featured don’t seem forced. And since the era is so remote, their fame is remote, so readers probably won't be offended by perceived misrepresentations. In fact, many readers won't recognize some of these celebrities.
"People, when they first came here from back east to make movies, they said it was because of the quality of the light. But what they didn’t talk about was the quality of the darkness. I mean, whatever’s lurking underneath…"
While the average citizen craves to escape in the dream of the feelies, Clark’s skin crawls whenever he's in the cinema. And the technology may have other uses in politics and advertising capable of drifting the United States closer toward fascism and collusion with Nazis. Can Clark Gable, unlicensed private eye, solve the case, save his own life, and prevent a socio-political disaster?
The twisting plot combines hard-boiled private eye tropes, an imaginative, speculative technology, Hollywood angst, history, and social commentary. The stellar writing expertly captures the beauty and grit of Depression era Los Angeles. While famous people from Hollywood’s Golden Age appear in Wake Up And Dream, the celebrity characters are integral to the plot or provide plot-relevant information, so the scenes in which they’re featured don’t seem forced. And since the era is so remote, their fame is remote, so readers probably won't be offended by perceived misrepresentations. In fact, many readers won't recognize some of these celebrities.
"People, when they first came here from back east to make movies, they said it was because of the quality of the light. But what they didn’t talk about was the quality of the darkness. I mean, whatever’s lurking underneath…"
July 1, 2021
I have enjoyed MacLeod's work, and I always enjoy an alternate history story. The premise for this one was interesting, and I think he did an excellent job of capturing the tone and tenor of the era he created.
The hallmark of a good author is that the reader gets lost in that world that is created, and for most of the read this was the case. I marked this attempt down due to the implausible use of UK English in both the narrative and the dialogue. It is so out of place it jars me back to the world and out of the story.
For goodness sake, the publisher knows there is a following across the pond, and that Americans will read his work. Could they not have hired a proofreader who was versed in American-standard?
Americans, even those in 1938, do and did not use:
gone past three
valves instead of tubes
volts instead of voltage
got it sorted
whilst
few minutes gone one o'clock
seconded to.... instead of reassigned
get my brain properly sorted
get that city sorted
and the money sorted
public booth instead of phone booth
queue instead of line
get them good and sorted; get your sorted
RTs should be police radios
And while a few revolvers have safeties, Colt snub-noses do not. Something else many Americans are familiar with is firearms.
Hire an American to look over your syntax, mate. It would make the reader of an interesting story a great experience.
The hallmark of a good author is that the reader gets lost in that world that is created, and for most of the read this was the case. I marked this attempt down due to the implausible use of UK English in both the narrative and the dialogue. It is so out of place it jars me back to the world and out of the story.
For goodness sake, the publisher knows there is a following across the pond, and that Americans will read his work. Could they not have hired a proofreader who was versed in American-standard?
Americans, even those in 1938, do and did not use:
gone past three
valves instead of tubes
volts instead of voltage
got it sorted
whilst
few minutes gone one o'clock
seconded to.... instead of reassigned
get my brain properly sorted
get that city sorted
and the money sorted
public booth instead of phone booth
queue instead of line
get them good and sorted; get your sorted
RTs should be police radios
And while a few revolvers have safeties, Colt snub-noses do not. Something else many Americans are familiar with is firearms.
Hire an American to look over your syntax, mate. It would make the reader of an interesting story a great experience.
May 24, 2017
A creepy noir set in 1940 Los Angeles, with a crucial difference. A technology to project feelings leaves 'the industry' and the star struck populace ready to follow their worst inclinations at a crucial point in history. For all that, and a good plot, the mood wasn't moody for me, the grit too easy too wash off and ignore, the prltagonist too ambivolent. Like the man said at the end of Buckaroo Banzai "Great hero. Big deal."
May 25, 2020
Set in an alternative Hollywood in the early days of WWII a failed movie star turnded seedy PI called Clarke Gable gets mixed up in plot to use recently invented tech that projects feelings as well as images at people in movie theatres to impel a local fascist businessman into the White House. Neither strands of the story came together for me - the "feelies" or the fascism - and the name-dropping of people who are movie actors in our reality but are not in this one was just irritating.
April 15, 2022
My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.
March 11, 2017
What The H--- Is Going On?
I'm sorry, I'm probably the only one who couldn't STAND this book!!! What a waste of time and energy. I don't know if it's because I'm an old black and white movie buff or what? I read the whole book hopefully thinking it had to get better but it was the same trash over and over again, and to add Gable's name to it as a fluke or fun I guess stunk! (It didn't even sound like him.)
I'm sorry, I'm probably the only one who couldn't STAND this book!!! What a waste of time and energy. I don't know if it's because I'm an old black and white movie buff or what? I read the whole book hopefully thinking it had to get better but it was the same trash over and over again, and to add Gable's name to it as a fluke or fun I guess stunk! (It didn't even sound like him.)
October 7, 2012
I'm a big Macleod fan and this book is probably the best thing I read this year.
So many of my favorite things come together here, LA and film history, Howard Hughes, noir, alternate history (in a way continuing what was started in Summer Isles). Fantasy and science in hard boiled detective story.
Macleod has been publishing his books himself for a while and it means his books are not available on Kindle. They are more expensive, yes, but at the same time I am happy about this, because now I can always have an actual, physical book of his, regardless what happens with my Kindle.
Wonderful read.
So many of my favorite things come together here, LA and film history, Howard Hughes, noir, alternate history (in a way continuing what was started in Summer Isles). Fantasy and science in hard boiled detective story.
Macleod has been publishing his books himself for a while and it means his books are not available on Kindle. They are more expensive, yes, but at the same time I am happy about this, because now I can always have an actual, physical book of his, regardless what happens with my Kindle.
Wonderful read.
November 18, 2016
Bardzo ciężko mi się czyta Macleoda. Tą książke czytałem pare miesięcy. Jest gruba i ... autor ma bardzo rozległe opisy. Jego opowiadania można przypisać prawie, że do roli powieści. Co by tu nie mówić jednak zapadają w pamięć. Może drugi raz je warto przeczytać? Jednak czytanie tego to była dla mnie męczarnia. Chciałem jak najszybciej skończyć. W międzyczasie przeczytałem chyba z 5 książek ;) Wiem, że niektórzy uwielbiają Macleoda. Ja nie za bardzo. Co do powieści "Obudź się i śnij" już jest ciekawsze, coś się dzieje, dialogi są, jakaś akcja i fajnie pomyślane kino w latach 30stych XX wieku. Powieść polecam, opowiadania jeżeli ktoś musi. ;)
July 25, 2012
This fun detective thriller is set in an alternate history about Hollywood in the late 1930s. The final climax was a bit of a "deus ex machina" and the epilogue dragged a bit, but otherwise it was quite inventive.
June 13, 2016
Very good alternative history starring Clark Gable as a down at heel private eye after his Hollywood career crashed when "feelies" pushed out the talkies. Heavily influenced by Philip K. Dick.
August 5, 2015
Weird alt-history.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews