Blight

The Sleep of Reason #2

by Rachel A. Rosen

What use is a revolution in a world ruled by magic?A young wizard on the brink of burnout searches for her lost mentor. A bereaved mother, summoned to the sea by an ancient god, risks all to avenge her child. Her ex-husband smuggles weapons to a rag-tag resistance.

The Cascade ruined the world that was; the Blight nearly destroyed what remained. The magical catastrophe unleashed demons and shriekgrass, an endless winter, and a promise of worse to come.

In what remains of Canada, the genocidal Dominion government rules with an iron fist, while the libertarian Silicon Valley Autonomous Region chips away at the country's sinking west coast.

Can a restive coalition of revolutionaries, defectors, and magicians pick up the pieces?

Praise for Cascade (The Sleep of Reason, Book I)

“A near-perfect blend of implacable horror, gallows humor, and ecological apocalypse. It seems almost absurd that a novel about chaos magic and bureaucrat magicians (even if they are embedded in the sociopathic morass of Canadian politics) can somehow feel more viscerally relevant than all the earnest mainstream novels and Suzuki-Foundation bulletins you could stuff into a ballot box. Pay attention, all magic aside, we're far closer to this future than any of our rulers will ever admit. Rachel A. Rosen is some kind of twisted genius. I wish I had even half her moves.” — Peter Watts, author of Blindsight

“Finally, an urban fantasy that kills the cop — and the rest of the government — in your head. Relentlessly radical and often hilarious, Cascade will change the way you look at magic, and the state, forever.” — Nick Mamatas, author of The Second Shooter

“Cascade is an excellent introduction to the imaginative prose of Rachel A. Rosen. Her debut novel takes us to a futuristic North America filled with vividly realized characters surrounded by magic and the possible end of the world. One of the few novels I've read recently in a single weekend. Sharp and thought-provoking, with thrilling moments and crackling with compelling ideas, I wouldn't miss this one. I'm looking forward to her next instalment!” — Bryan Thao Worra, author of Before We Remember We Dream

“Rachel A. Rosen's Cascade is one of the best books I've read this year. She brings a unique blend of magic environmentalism, Canadian politicking, and indigenous and queer rights to the table. I never thought I would be so interested in the near-futuristic Canadian political process!” — Marsha Altman, author of The Darcys and the Bingleys

Genres: Science Fiction

422 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 15, 2025

About the author

Rachel A. Rosen is an activist, graphic designer, and for her sins, a high school teacher. In a previous life, she published two long running anarchist ‘zines and designed the uniform for the Christie Pits Hardball League.

She is the author of Cascade, Blight, and, with Zilla Novikov, the co-author of The Sad Bastard Cookbook: Food You Can Make So You Don't Die. More of her writing can be found in Beyond Human: Tales of the New Us, Instant Classic (That No One Will Read), The Dance, and Trollbreath Magazine. Rachel co-hosts the Wizards & Spaceships podcast with David L. Clink
(www.wizardsandspaceships.ca), and freelances as a book cover designer.

She lives in Tkaronto (Toronto), where she is the harried personal assistant to two cats. Her website is www.rachelrosen.ca.

Buy Cascade: https://mybook.to/cascade or https://bppress.ca/shop/

Buy Blight: https://books2read.com/u/mYVl9P or https://bppress.ca/shop/

Reviews

[I. Merey · Rating 5 out of 5]

BLIGHT is the beach read for when you’re sitting on an irradiated strand, with an abomination pulsing in the off-shore deeps. It’s hard to be light following a resistance trying to peck back at a genocidal Canadian government and the lesser wolves coming to pick at society’s carcass. But like the characters who come together here, we take our levity and jokes and romance where we can find it. There is a pure, horrible beauty in Rosen’s prose and a gallows’ humor weariness anyone involved in left activism will feel deep in their bones.

Rosen brings intelligence and insight to craft a believable and chaotic N American post-political scene, and I also really enjoy what she does with the concept of magic in general. BLIGHT’s magic is untamable, unpredictable, and it communes with our world, belonging more to the sea, the grass, and the corrupted demons, than it does to humans. This particular magic seems a manner of environmental occultism, brushing against religion and science and veering sharply from both, and is a fascinating character in its own right.

Another nice touch is the “Night Beats” procedural show that is a mainstay in the Sleep of Reason series. Like the ‘Invitation to Love’ vignettes in Twin Peaks, I love the reflection and refraction of media within media, BLIGHT’s reminder of how collective stories get us through the times when real life starts to outcrazy the fiction.

These are hard times and a lot of us are swamped in burn-out and frustration. BLIGHT isn’t the piece of escapism to distract from what is going on right now. It is raw, stained with grief, full of broken bones and buildings, but it is a book to remind us that we have to keep pushing, because what else is there? Maya says: “This isn’t the kind of fight we win—it’s the fight we fight.” Did we ever think the self-proclaimed Princes would give it all up without a fight? No matter how dark it gets, BLIGHT hangs on to its tenacious, acerbic hope.

[M. Wehm · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Any ship can be a submersible if you don’t care about coming back up.”

Dotted with laugh-out-loud gallows humour, Blight is supernatural horror with a distressingly prescient narrative. Its disparate (and desperate) cast of resistors, revolutionaries, and reluctant heroes are pitted against a particularly Canadian fascism which is all too believable, even as it comes to power through a response to the resurgence of magic in the world. Fast-paced and populated with characters to fall in love and hate with, Blight is a compelling, entertaining, timely, and thoughtful read.

[Michelle Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb follow up to the first book, Blight is even better. Rosen is unafraid of breaking hearts and shattering your feelings with a tactical brick, but there's tenderness and hope under the broken glass.
This is the Empire Strikes Back, and things are dire. However, pining relationships make progress, there's awesome world building, harrowing monsters, and possibly the best parade/protest scene I've ever read.
In a time when we need anger, hope, and doses of humour, the Sleep of Reason can't be missed.

[Michael Porter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novel delves into rich world building. It’s a fantasy world much like our own. Well written, action packed and filled with danger and intrigue. The large cast can get a little busy at times. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Mathieu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Cascade, but enjoyed its sequel, Blight, even more. what's not to love? Magic, antifascist revolution, demons. This story has everything. I'm hoping the next book will include a battle between the dominion and the mac paps at Christie pits. It would be fitting.

I especially appreciated the glossary and list of characters. If you're like me and have a short attention span, the easy reminder of who is who was a great help.

I'm looking forward to the next book in this series.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing read!! Like with the first book, I am continually blown away by the world-building and how fleshed out and real all of the characters are! The story just pulls you and engrosses you so much that you feel like you are part of the world itself. Highly recommend!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Rohan O'Duill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosens ability to create such a beautifully vivid picture of a vicious world as it slowly chokes to death is simply breath taking.
One of the best books I have read in years. Highly recomend.

[Zilla Novikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

it is hard to review a book when all you want to do is unhinged screaming

Blight is FINALLY HERE and I'm not gonna be normal about it.

Book two in The Sleep of Reason series, this book is what happens when right-wing governments stop dog-whistling about fascism and fully commit to the bit. Set in Canada, this book shows how menacing "peace, order, and good government" can be.

It's not all doom and gloom. Sure, there's "Cleaners" and "unencumberances", but in the depths of the fractured cells of the rebellion, the queers finally move past "twenty years of pining". Love is all we've got. Sure, electricity and food is swell, but turns out, the heart's need for love and friendship and connection outlasts the rising ocean, the falling parliament.

Plus, this book is funny, and turns out, you can survive (almost) anything with the application of sufficient quantities of dark humour.

[Arturo Sierra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stuff; characters you love to hate, really evil villains and scrapy heroes. The prose and passing is agile, there’s a lot going on, the worldbuilding is surprising at every turn. Some things got in the way of my full enjoyment, though, a lot of adulting that needed doing, so I couldn’t commit fully to my reading schedule, and also—more importantly—that it was very difficult to remember exactly who was who from the last book, since it has been some time. A dramatis personae at the beginning would have been great help.

There is something lost from Cascade to Blight, however. Cascade had such a sense of imminent doom, of Last Days. Very reminiscent of Musil’s The Man Without Attributes, with the mundane, day-to-day politicking happening on the eve of the catastrophe that makes it all trivial. And there was a balance between the other-wordly-ness and the mundane, ordinary experience of life just before a fascist takeover. Like, proficiency with Microsoft Excel was still important, together with communion with Elder Powers, to paraphrase a great line from the first book.

Inevitably, that ominous feeling is lost in Blight, since the catastrophe has already happened. The post-apocalypse ends up being not as interesting as the pre-apocalypse. There’s also less opportunity for the sardonic, tongue-in-cheek humour of Cascade.

Still, fantastic fun… despite the bleakness.

(I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.)

[Rowan Mclaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored Rachel's previous novel, Cascade, and joined her mailing list to make sure I got hold of the follow up as soon as possible. Blight exceeded my expectations. The grim magic infested world of Cascade has gotten even more chaotic and some would think hopeless but there are still people fighting for what they believe in by whatever means necessary. As someone who has spent many years in activist spaces this book's depictions of the internal politics was faithful which added to my immersion considerably. All of the characters are flawed but you are rooting for them all the same. Thanks also Rachel for the great LGBTQIA+ representation without it being clunky of feeling bolted on.

[Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magic doesn’t have motivations, exactly. It wants, but it isn’t so precise about its intentions. It transforms living things. It turns a moose into “lurching horror.” You may think you’re not worried about a moose, but wait until you come face-to-face with the moose that was.

When Maya buried her old name, that was just the beginning for her. She finds that the sky, “acid green,” holds a Pattern, and she is "no longer able to delineate where her skin ended and the Northern Lights began. They corkscrewed through the thin membrane that stood between her and the world. Every vein was a tripwire, burning white hot. An electric shock arced across her tongue."

Everyone, I mean everyone, is absolutely in trouble if the Silicon Valley Autonomous Region gets magic like this.

We try to work our magic, and we’re needed more than ever. The stakes are very high, we can’t do it alone. Frankly, even working together, it’s going to take magic for us to get through it. That’s the thing, yeah? We need magic. So we need to know where to find it, or to be ready for it when it comes for us.

[Robert Mound · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you want to read a book with Canadian Politics and Eldritch Horror set during a Climate Crisis? A book with imperfect characters struggling to build resistance to fascism after fascism has won? Seem relevant to your current world?

I loved Cascade, but i like this second book in the The Sleep of Reason Trilogy better. You could start with Blight if you wanted as there is a helpful Dramatis Personae at the front...

[Saphana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of course I read volume 2.

I was not as taken as with 1. The plot slowly descends towards religious themes with are most definitely not my thing. Also, the detailled descriptions of the Toronto cityscape may be a plus point for people familiar with the city - to me it was just gratuitous.

That said, the non-sequiturs from the beginning of 1 are gone. The prose is much more fluid - if sometimes repetetive.

All in all - a good book. Not sure, I'll do the third, tho ...

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t hate it but I just had a hard time getting into it or caring about the characters. I don’t think it’s at the fault of the author; none but my own.