Death Sleep

by Jerry Sohl

Lingering in a coma, Dr. Curtis Sheridan learns he has the power to kill other patients and plans his revenge on his wife Elsie, and her lover, Dr. Alex Hanson

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Gerald Allan Sohl Sr. (December 2, 1913 - November 4, 2002) was a scriptwriter for The Twilight Zone (as a ghostwriter for Charles Beaumont), Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits, Star Trek and other shows . He also wrote novels, feature film scripts, and the nonfiction works Underhanded Chess and Underhanded Bridge in 1973.

His 1955 Point Ultimate is a piece of Cold War invasion literature: in 1999, a faraway future history at the time of writing, the US lies under a cruel Soviet occupation, reinforced by a deadly artificial disease which makes conquered Americans dependent on the conquerors for the injections which keep them alive. But a dashing Illinois farm boy breaks out in revolt, killing a degenerate soviet governor and his "Commie" American collaborators. Eventually, he becomes a leading member of a very formidable resistance organization which is capable of breaking at will into the occupiers' security headquarters and springing prisoners out, and which had already established a clandestine space program under the Soviets' noses and established a sizeable colony on Mars.

In the far more low-key The Time Dissolver (1957) Sohl tells the story of a man and a woman who wake up one morning to find that, inexplicably, they had lost all memory of the past eleven years including any memory of how they ever came to meet and become married to each other, and who embark on a quest to find what happened and to trace back these eleven lost years. Aside from the science fiction aspects, the book captures the atmosphere of late 1950s America.

Reviews

[Bruce McNair · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent story from one of the master storytellers of the Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits and Star Trek. Curtis Sheridan was a surgeon on the rise before a motor accident that left him in a coma. The doctors pronounced him brain dead, but he is kept alive in intensive care. Everybody was waiting for him to die, especially his wife who spent most days at his bedside. However, Curtis discovered that he could invade the dreams of others. What ensued was a series of attacks on people known to him in what he viewed as revenge. The end was in one sense predictable, but the way it occurred was very different.

[Clare S · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book on in the street and I couldn’t resist the cover or the premise. A wild ride. The ending comes out of nowhere and is completely unhinged. A fun read that you think will be absurd but is actually well executed and a little creepy.

[Mikepottz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dr Curtis Sheridan is in an irreversible coma, tube hanging out of his body but remarkably looking healthy, looking like he might wake up. In a coma the doctor starts to feel he is an amoeba, fed by IV, mechanical ventilation, excretion through enemas, his anger rising, unable to move or communicate. The doctor's son starts having dreams, bruises appeal on his body from his vegetative father. The doctor's wife having nightmares, her husband wanting to cause harm even death. The doctor getting stronger, his sexual urges raging, he starts to feel, able to visit people in their dreams, able to rape and murder. Sleep has become the enemy, sleeps means death. And the doctor is really pissed and going to fuck more people up.