Sleeper

by Paul Kane

The sleepy English locality of Middletown is about to get even sleepier, as a strange malady starts to affect the population. It spreads quickly, causing the authorities to quarantine this small city and seek out the only person who might be able to Doctor Andrew Strauss. However, Strauss has a secret - one that has linked him to this place all his life; one that has linked him to a particular person there, though he doesn’t yet know who.

But he’s not the only one hiding things, and as he ventures into Middletown to collect samples with an army escort - a mixture of UK and US troops - cracks soon begin to appear in the operation, especially when his team come up against the most terrifying threat humankind has ever known...

From the imagination of the award-winning and best-selling author of Who’s Been...? and Red (optioned for film and turned into an award-winning feature script), this chilling reworking of another well-loved fairy tale is like a heady mix of The Andromeda Strain, Inception, Outbreak, and Quatermass, and is a tale that’s bound to delight genre fans the world over.

Genres: Horror

Audible Audio

First published June 30, 2013

About the author

Paul Kane has been writing professionally for almost fifteen years. His genre journalism has appeared in such magazines as Fangoria, SFX and Rue Morgue, and his non-fiction books are the critically acclaimed The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy and Voices in the Dark. His award-winning short fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic (as well as being broadcast on BBC Radio 2), and has been collected in Alone (In the Dark), Touching the Flame, FunnyBones, Peripheral Visions, Shadow Writer, The Butterfly Man and Other Stories, The Spaces Between and GHOSTS. His novella Signs of Life reached the shortlist of the British Fantasy Awards 2006, The Lazarus Condition was introduced by Mick Garris - creator of Masters of Horror - RED featured artwork from Dave (The Graveyard Book) McKean and Pain Cages was introduced by Stephen Volk (The Awakening).

As Special Publications Editor of the British Fantasy Society he worked with authors like Brian Aldiss, Ramsey Campbell, Muriel Gray and Robert Silverberg, he is the co-editor of Hellbound Hearts for Pocket Books (Simon and Schuster), an anthology of original stories inspired by Clive Barker's mythos - featuring contributions from the likes of Christopher Golden and Mike Mignola, Kelley Armstrong and Richard Christian Matheson - The Mammoth Book of Body Horror (Constable & Robinson) - featuring Stephen King, James Herbert and Robert Bloch - and the Poe-inspired Beyond Rue Morgue (for Titan).

In 2008 his zombie story 'Dead Time' was turned into an episode of the Lionsgate/NBC TV series Fear Itself, adapted by Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (SAW II-IV). He also scripted The Opportunity which premiered at Cannes in 2009, The Weeping Woman - starring Fright Night's Stephen Jeffreys - and Wind Chimes (directed by Brad '7th Dimension' Watson. He is the author of the novels Of Darkness and Light, The Gemini Factor and the bestselling Arrowhead trilogy (Arrowhead, Broken Arrow and Arrowland), a post-apocalyptic reworking of the Robin Hood mythology gathered together as the sell-out Hooded Man omnibus. His latest novels are Lunar (which is set to be turned into a feature film) and the short Y.A. book The Rainbow Man (as P.B. Kane). He currently lives in Derbyshire, UK, with his wife - the author Marie O'Regan - his family, and a black cat called Mina. You can find out more at his website www.shadow-writer.co.uk which has featured Guest Writers such as Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, Dean Koontz, John Connolly and Guillermo del Toro.

Reviews

[Elke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great old school horror story that was both creepy and fun. After the people in Middletown fall asleep due to some unknown virus (or whatever?!), the military bring in expert Dr. Andrew Strauss, in hopes of finding a cure for this outbreak. When Dr. Strauss, his assistant and a crew of soldiers enter the quarantined town, they find all inhabitants asleep, covered in some spiderweb-like residue which seems to ooze off their bodies like sweat. However, when Strauss takes samples and even wants to bring one of the 'sleepers' back for examination, they start to rise - and attack. Only barely manage Strauss, his assistant and a handful of soldiers to escape. That was the moment the whole story took on a very weird turn, as Strauss has a recurring dream of a sleeping woman and is convinced he'll find her here in Middletown, somehow linked to the creepy situation. What now follows is an action-packed thrill-ride with a surprising, though not completely surprising, end. I had much fun reading this mix of sci-fi horror which at first glance reminded me of 'The Andromeda Strain', the geeky comments of Dr. Strauss about books and movies fitting to their situation, and the dream-like turn of events towards the surprising conclusion. Prologue and epilogue present a clever frame for this fast and very entertaining story.

[Sharron Joy Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

A whole town asleep, the military cordon keeping the virus from spreading. It started with extreme tiredness and then everyone dropped where they were. Cars drove into trees, buses went off road, one by one the whole community of Middletown succumbed to a comatose state and as they lay a white web like filament coated them in a cocoon. As Dr Andrew Strauss goes in with a military escort to investigate the sleeping rise to defend one sleeping woman in the town’s hospital.

Oh this is good, very much in the style of old school scifi with a presumed alien infection controlling and changing the population. The violence and deaths are brutal and gory, the infection insidious and the military machinations nefarious.

A tale that asks how much control do we really have over our lives, haunting and heartbreaking in the midst of the horror, exceptional storytelling!

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Middletown is nothing special, just a little town in the UK where not thing much happens. You even consider it a sleepy town, and you would not be wrong. Middletown is even a little sleepier than it used to be. Students have always fallen asleep in class, but now lecturers have begun to do so as well. Then a young woman falls asleep while walking down stairs, breaking her neck when she hits the bottom, and the people of Middletown realises something very, very wrong is going on.

Sleeper(s) is my first book from this author, and doing a quick search on him it is a real wonder that I had never crossed paths with his work before. He has quite a catalogue, with some titles I would be very interested in reading in the future, and after listening to the audiobook of Sleeper(s), performed by Christian Francis, I think I’m very likely to seek them out.

Sleeper(s) is not great art. It’s a competent classic piece of cheesy horror entertainment that plays a great many of the familiar themes. It reads a great deal like early James Herbert, with an emphasis on action and speed of delivery. There’s atmosphere, and character development, but the author is frugal in such areas, knowing that a little goes a long way. We don’t need the township described in minute detail, nor do we need a complex character analysis with every character. All we need is a few people we can believe in, a town, and an evil to defeat.

With Sleeper(s) Paul Kane manages to write a tale that’s original while somewhat familiar. There’s a deft creation of story where the author seems to know how little he actually needs to do in order to get the reader involved. Then the story is fleshed out with some great character interactions, some of them genuinely amusing, and a few moments of horror that may not be hugely original but are used to great effect.

I have read better written stories, I have read far better books, but I have rarely read a book that I have consumed so easily and enjoyed quite to much. It's a horror fast food meal that you’ll enjoy a great deal, but it may not be something from which to create a well rounded diet.

If you even have the slightest interest in this title, then I urge you to give it a go. I am very pleased I’ve finally discovered Paul Kane, and I hope I enjoy the titles I'll certainly read from him in the future. One warning however; if you have an allergy to movie references, be careful, this book may leave you permanently damaged.

[Monique Snyman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine if Freddy Krueger bottled up his particular brand of terror and shipped it off to England, just for the hell of it. Well, what do you think would happen? Sleeper(s) by Paul Kane is not exactly like that, but if I close my eyes and imagine Freddy Krueger with a better - eviller - marketer, I can see him coming up with something similar to what's in Paul Kane's novella. In other words: Nine, ten, never sleep again ...

Sleeper(s), set in Middletown (somewhere in the UK), is a haunting tale of a whole town suddenly falling asleep ... for no apparent reason. The UK and US military (reluctantly working together to get to the bottom of this illness) bring in the help of renowned doctor, Dr. Andrew Strauss - who's been waiting for this case his whole life. The thing is, there are more dangers in the quarantined town than they thought possible, which includes some violent sleepwalking scenes, sleep-falling scenes, the sleeping undead scenes, and some sleep-killing scenes. Sounds intriguing, yes? Well, it is. Sleeper(s) is fast-paced, contrary to the sleeping sickness plot, and the characters are realistic (even the psychotic ones).

I can't actually say what part I didn't like about Sleeper(s), because of spoilers, but let's just say that "the revelation" part of the story could have been a little less trite. Strauss is an unlucky a-hole, and I love him for it, but his connection to a certain person in Middletown should have been rethought.

That being said, I still enjoyed Sleeper(s) by Paul Kane a lot. It's got some sci-fi elements, a great deal of horror, some interesting characters, and best of all, it's a novella, so it's a fun little book to read before bedtime rolls in ...

Review originally posted on:

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was really great and frankly, the kind of story I was hoping to get when I picked up Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King. It's scary and it's fast, an interesting take on a story type that will feel familiar. Very glad I picked this up.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast-paced thriller with overtones of John Wyndham, enjoyable way to lose yourself for a few hours.