Insomnium

by Zachary Bonelli

Nel Hanima grew up amidst chaos. The government collapsed when he was five, and he lived in an underground bunker until he was twelve. His adult life, by comparison, is stable. Government and public services have been restored. But still, the trees and grasses grow browner. The ocean continues to rise, swallowing up neighborhood after neighborhood of Nel’s youth.

A faint tug drags at him day after day—the suspicion that his life is without purpose or meaning. Hope for a better future fades with each passing day.

One night, he falls asleep in his Seattle apartment and awakens in the City of Nowhere, an impossible conundrum world of non-human citizens, where time and space are an illusion and paradoxes run rampant.

As Nel explores the city, he meets Giniip Pana, Rev Merveille, and Drogl Belgaer, humans from alternate versions of his world’s timeline. Together with his new friends, Nel works to unravel the mysteries of Nowhere, to learn how he came to be there, and discover not only a way to return to Seattle, but also the purpose and meaning his life has lacked.

Genres: LGBT, Science Fiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 2014

About the author

I grew up in a small town in northern Illinois, west of Chicago. After graduating high school, I dual majored in English Literature and German Language at a small, Midwestern liberal arts college. After undergrad, I turned my eyes towards exploration, and spent many years in Japan, Thailand and Hawaii.

Nowadays, I live with my partner near Seattle, Washington, where I work in the gaming industry.

I love stories. I’ve long been fascinated by video games as a storytelling medium, and I love exploring different cultures, discovering the different underlying stories that different groups of people tell themselves, the stories that define who they are and how they perceive the world.

Reviews

[Jeff Suwak · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to get an advanced review copy of this work.

What stood out most to me about the book was the surrealistic imagery. Insomnium has some gnarly characters and surrealistic settings that sparked my imagination and stayed with me long after reading.

As with all Bonelli's writing (that I've read, anyway), there are also some interesting thought experiments and philisophical questions at work. The book works on the external (physical action) level, but also on an internal, cerebral one.

To me, it's a thinking person's entertainnment. I almost hesitate to say that, because I'm afraid it might be a death knell in the current age, but that's how I feel about it.

This is the kind of book you read and then want to discuss the topics with a friend. I might not necessarily agree with every point, but they are always thought provoking, and that, to me, is the best part about a work of literature.

Insomnium is definitely a unique and a worthwhile read.

[Alissa Berger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of imagination as always. This world was definitely different because it was more organized than crafted, which lent its own feelings to the reader. It felt more like being on a space station, where each room had its own dedicated purpose. It was different, not bad, just different. What I liked most of all was that because of these individual worlds in one large universe, each one had its own set of physics - but I'm a nerd. It was a very interesting read. My biggest problem was with the characters because although I agreed with their personalities and liked their development, sometimes it felt like their actions didn't fit them, though this was pretty rare.

[Matt Sayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

At one time or another, we are all dissatisfied with our lot in life. No money, few friends, poor past decisions coming back to haunt us. We dream of escape, of fleeing to a place where no one knows who we are, where our old lives can be forgotten, a place like Nowhere.

Nel, a civil engineer working in a Seattle suffering apocalyptic-level climate change and war-time rationing, is about to realise this fantasy. An impossible place existing outside of time, where the problems of his old life are but echoes of a distant dream...

Too bad Nowhere's got its own share of woes for him to deal with. Maybe Nel would have been better off with the devil he knew...

With an eclectic menagerie of wonderfully weird characters, and a smorgasbord of locales sporting influences from Lovecraft to Escher, Insomnium delivers surprise and intrigue with gleeful abandon. Horse-head soldiers living in a castle of living flesh. Justice doled out underwater by jellyfish judges. A bacchanal labyrinth employed as a perverse feeding device.

Nowhere may be a dangerous place, but the reward for visiting far outweighs the risk. With each of Insomnium's episodes, Zachary explores a new theme, a new aspect of society that so keenly pierces the shadows of our own lives. From autocracy to libertarianism, from relationship commitments to homophobic discrimination, from shame and regret to zeal and tenacity; Nowhere may be an alien world, but the life lessons discovered there strike home with unerring precision.

[Thomas Everson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insomnium starts following a man, Nel, in a future Seattle where it has become an island due to waters rising. But the story really starts when Nel falls asleep and awakes to find himself in a place called "Nowhere" that defies all reality. Soon after arriving he begins meeting the bizarre, non-human inhabitants and taking in the impossible sights and places Nowhere has to offer. Only when he feels completely out of place does he run into other humans, but something is strange about them too. He and his new human compatriots work to find a way out of this land of impossibility and back to their real lives only to be pulled farther into this new reality.

This novel piqued my interest when I was speaking with the author in person at an event. He painted a world for me filled with paradoxes and he didn't disappoint. If you combined Alice in Wonderland, Labyrinth and M.C. Escher's work, you'd only begin to scratch the world that Zachary has created. This story takes you on an imaginative ride which plays to those who like fantasy and science fiction.

One of the biggest things I was impressed with were the naming of the cities in Nowhere. Zachary clearly took time to cleverly craft names like "Inhibition Quashed Curiosity Ablaze", "Progress Forward Guile Back", and "Blame Outward Justice Inward". Each name had decisive purpose and unique qualities.

I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to get lost in a universe of paradoxes!

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

*review originally posted on A Bibliophile's Reverie*

Alice in Wonderland meets Inception, this story covers it all. We are introduced to Nel as he is pulled into a dreamworld where he must begin to understand what it’s like in other people’s shoes and why people do the things they do. I enjoyed it a lot as we get to see different universes and how society could have been if things had been different.

The different worlds were definitely unique and I loved how Bonelli was able to draw in problems in modern society and show them in a way that was clear. It differently mirrors Alice in Wonderland in that way, as Lewis Carroll was defining British Society in his tale, Bonelli does the same for the United States, more specifically Seattle. I thought it was a great way to get people to think not only on problems like homophobia and racism, but also in understand why people act the way they do and how their past has shaped them.

The characters were interesting but I wasn’t able to fully grasp them until near the end. I wished I was able to really get into their shoes near the beginning, but other than that I found this novel to be outstanding. If you love anything that has to do with parallel universes, dreams, and perception, definitely pick this one up.

All in all I give this novel a 4.5/5 and recommend it to anyone who is wanting an interesting read. Please check it out and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insomnium is a collection of episodes detailing the experiences of Nel Hanima and his friends in a dreamscape called Nowhere. As Nel ventures throughout Nowhere, he learns about himself, his friends, and his own world. Insominium is a fun romp through a vividly imagined world, with allies and villains in abundance. As I read, I almost felt like i was reading my way through a videogame. A single narrative threads the chapters together, but they take place in different areas with different laws, physics, and populations.

One of my favorite parts of Insomnium is its characterization. The main characters are fully realized. Many of the inhabitants of nowhere are less believable, but this may be a plot element ala the inhabitants of Fillory in the Magicians series.

I recommend this book to fantasy buffs and folks who wish they could read their way through Kingdom Hearts.