The Dream Engine

The Dream Engine #1

by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant

When Eila Doyle first hears the strange boy calling from somewhere deep in her sleep, she begins to question her sanity. In the gleaming steampunk world of Waldron's Gate, citizens aren't meant to dream -- and those who eschew their daily Crumble and dare to do so anyway face madness … and imprisonment in Joffrey Columns, the asylum of towers.

And yet, "Dreaming" of a very specific sort is what Eila does every day at the Ministry of Manifestation with her mind hooked to the great engine, called the Blunderbuss. She's accustomed to using her thoughts to Build all that the city needs … but never before have her thoughts been so dark, so laced with demons and shadows. Now those nighttime visions hint at dark conspiracy, a millennium of lies, and a fathomless secret hiding beneath the quiet streets.

As Eila follows the boy down the rabbit hole, she discovers secrets that were meant to remain hidden. She discovers an unknown caste of underlings, an unknown place underneath the city. And she learns of her terrible destiny as her own dreams and reality blur, as "what is real?" becomes something uncertain.

This thrilling young adult dystopian adventure is the first in the Dream Engine series by masters of story Platt & Truant, authors of The Beam, Unicorn Western, and many more. The Dream Engine will have you asking yourself "What is real?" along with Eila's strong female lead -- but watch what you ask for, because the answer may unsettle and disturb you for weeks to come.

Genres: Fantasy, Steampunk, Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fiction, Young Adult Fantasy, Urban Fantasy

366 pages, ebook

First published July 1, 2014

About the author

Sean loves writing books, even more than reading them. He is co-founder of Collective Inkwell and Realm & Sands imprints, writes for children under the name Guy Incognito, and has more than his share of nose.

Together with co-authors David Wright and Johnny B. Truant, Sean has written the series Yesterdays Gone, WhiteSpace, ForNevermore, Available Darkness, Dark Crossings, Unicorn Western, The Beam, Namaste, Robot Proletariat, Cursed, Greens, Space Shuttle, and Everyone Gets Divorced. He also co-wrote the how-to indie book, Write. Publish. Repeat.

With Collective Inkwell
Yesterday's Gone: Post Apocalyptic - LOST by way of The Stand
WhiteSpace: Paranoid thriller on fictitious Hamilton Island
ForNevermore: YA horror that reads nothing like YA Horror
Available Darkness: A new breed of vampire thriller
Dark Crossings: Short stories, killer endings

With 47North
Z 2134: The Walking Dead meets The Hunger Games
Monstrous: Beauty and the Beast meets The Punisher

With Realm & Sands
Unicorn Western: The best story to ever come from a stupid idea
The Beam: Smart sci-fi to make you wonder exactly who we are
Namaste: A revenge thriller like nothing you've ever read
Robot Proletariat: The revolution starts here
Cursed: The old werewolf legend turned upside down
Greens: Retail noir comedy
Space Shuttle: Over the top comedy with all your favorite sci-fi characters
Everyone Gets Divorced: Like "Always Sunny" and "How I Met Your Mother" had a baby on your Kindle

Sean lives in Austin, TX with his wife, daughter, and son.
Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanplatt
 (say hi so he can follow you back!)

Reviews

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Source: I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to Sterling & Stone and NetGalley.)

This book was confusing, and it lost me.

Eila was an okay character, and I understood why she’d be confused by what was going on, because I was confused too.

The storyline in this was quite hard to follow, but I stuck with it, and I did manage to understand a little of what was happening. As the book went on I got more confused though, and things made less and less sense. How does an underground city survive without light? How do they produce food? How do the ‘builders’ make solid products from stolen dreams? What is this thing that refer to as the ‘pianoforte’? And why is it easier to build during it?

The ending to this was just as confusing, and I don’t really understand what happened, I don’t think I want to read the sequel to this.



5 out of 10

[Giselle · Rating 1 out of 5]

* I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

DNF @ 35%

Reading this steam-punk novel written by the two best selling authors seems like it dragged forever. It was undeniably hard to get through at the first few chapters. I wasn't that invested with the flow of the story as much as I thought I would. Books that explore topics that are downright bizarre like human's states of consciousness or stories our mind creates while we sleep definitely intrigued me but the plot execution was way too hard to get through despite having a topic that got my attention in the first place. For the record, I don't like DNF books as much as possible, but I just can't take it any longer. As the evening wears on, this book lull me to sleep, I need to come to a screeching halt otherwise I might fall miserably in the fathomless chasm called Reading Slump.

The authors wrote this book in 30 days and that's quite impressive but that's the exact reason why I found some plot holes and shortcomings in the story. Topics about DREAMS were so damn fascinating but the main problem was the way it was delivered: slow, incoherent, ambiguous, too complex.



I decided to put it down at around 35% for some significant reasons:

-It was a bit slow in the first few chapters.
-Some parts lose its focus on the plot by narrating too much of the protagonist's line of thought.
-The book uses myriad of vague terminologies: Blunderbuss, Covenience, Joffrey Columns, Crumbles.
-As a reader, the first quarter of the book matters so much to me but this book fell flat for me.
-The world building was too far-fetched.
-The complexity of the setting didn't help either.
-The differences between the characters like Eila and Cora weren't established well as I often confuses the two.
-The pacing was a bit slow for me, I just couldn't get into it.
-The book has concotion of fantasy, weird science, mystery, post-apocalyptic fiction that are too difficult to follow along.
-Each idea was like a separate ingredient to our recipe. Each of them tastes so finger-licking good but if you mixed them all up in a separate bowl, the result was just too overwhelming.

[Abi · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I received a copy from Netgalley, In exchange for an honest review.)

Actual rating - 2.5

This wasn't a book I enjoyed unfortunately. I found it to be quite hard to follow, which made me very confused at points. That, mixed with the book dragging, didn't make a fun or enjoyable read for me.

Overall, Not completely awful, but not a book for me.

[Jemimah Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not usually a fan of fantasy, and to be honest, it took me a long time to get into this book, but the ending had me hooked! For a book that was written in one month, it's very well written, but I do feel like the plot was pretty monotonous until the end.

[M.A. Brotherton · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a very long time to actually get around to finishing this book. I started off listening to the audiobook, but couldn't finish because of technical issues. My reader ADD got the better of me, and I didn't come back to this story until very recently.

I'm not sure what I can say that hasn't already been said.

Take your average young adult novel, throw in a little Wachowski Brothers, a dash of Equilibrium and several Star Wars references, and you get The Dream Engine.

It's a great story. I'll be sending a copy to my 13-year-old niece in hopes that I can prove to her that Young Adult novels with female leads don't have to be... um... single word titles that rhyme with "regurge-ant."

I'm looking forward to diving into the sequel when my reader ADD comes back around that direction.

[Yzabel Ginsberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

[I received a copy of this novel from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

2.5 stars

A very interesting theme, but ultimately this novel felt more like an introduction.

I liked the idea of a world shaping its inventions through thoughts, from concepts and a strange machine called the Blunderbuss. I liked the explanation behind how this weird science worked, where exactly the concepts and images came from, not to mention that in general, anything that has to do with dreams tends to fascinate me. One part of the world living a relatively placid existence, with nights spent in quiet, without dreams; and the other, its counterpart, having to sift through dreams nightmares in order to send feedback. And the remnants, what nobody wants, the pollution born from human minds, which just goes… somewhere else. Although the explanations weren’t too easy to follow at first, soon they made sense.

Another thing I liked was how the “mysterious boy” didn’t end up as the mandatory love interest, the one that always ends up trampling over the plot in typical YA novels, whether their genre is actually romance or not. It was quite refreshing, and I can only hope that the world and the stakes presented by the “dream engine” will not fall prey to “luuuurve” in the next volume. There’s enough going in without giving in to trends. So, authors, thank you for sticking to the weird science and dreams and contraptions here.

However, as I was reading, I kept feeling that a lot of things often got rehashed and repeated more than necessary—that some trimming would’ve been in order. It took a long time for what I thought would be the plot to unfurl, and while Eila’s hesitation and questioning herself was totally understandable, it still looked to me like beating around the bush, instead of helping flesh out her character as well as others. In the end, Cora, Daw, Levi (for a few minutes, I couldn’t even remember his name, even though I’ve just finished reading the book… that’s how much an impression he made on me), all the others, were more shades than actual people. Eila was the most developed of all, yet her running in circles in her mind kept her at a basic level: I still don’t know what she likes and dislikes, for instance. I think this is the kind of plot where less time should’ve been spent on introspection, and more on subplots (no need for complex ones: simple things such as more than just Atwell confronting Eila after dinner, or someone realising she wasn’t with Cora every evening, etc.).

So much potential, so many endless possibilities, yet never truly explored...

The world itself, albeit interesting, also suffers from the “pocket universe syndrome”, in that the idea behind its foundations is great, but it seems really, really tiny, no more than a city and some land around it. It could be an island, for what it’s worth, completely isolated, and I didn’t get the feeling of a “real” world, for all its talks of airships and pilots bringing goods from other areas. How far is Stensue from Waldron’s Gate? Is Pavilion only under the latter, or does it extend everywhere? Are there other Pavilions under other towns? And so on.

Conclusion: despite finding quite a few likeable elements in there, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I may or may not pick the second book someday, to see if the potential of this series is going to be properly exploited; right now, though, I really don’t know.

[Michael Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

The thing I enjoyed most about this book is the knowledge of how it was crafted. The co-authors structured and wrote this book in a public forum, and in thirty days. I'm not aware of anything like it being attempted before. The success of that process, in itself, is amazing. The story, too, is good. Well told, though a bit slow around the 3/4 mark. The maturation of the lead character, Eila, really ratcheted up in to the finale. The twist as the story climaxed was well played and a witness to Eila's evolution. I'll definitely buy the sequel and continue to follow this series.

[Frankie Ness · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars is me trying to be objective, but personally, I didn't like the flow of this book. I liked everything else, but with such a complicated world, I wish the duo found a way to NOT do info dumping. That slowed down the pace of the book for me, so much so that I can't tell you much about the nitty gritty. A lot of the details flew over my head that I can only focus on the EVENTS and not too much on the details.

[Emily Craven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came to this book via the Fiction Unboxed writing course and found the author's process of world building, outlining, and writing, brilliant, and absolutely facinating to watch. I remembered liking the complexities of the world they were trying to set up and the character seemed like someone I could invest in as a reader. Near the end of the course I got flattened with my own work and set aside the book to complete at another time. Fast forward 2 years (I know, I'm horrid at keeping up with all my book purchases).

While I still like the concepts and the position of the character in the world, the execution of the story, much to my disappointment, left a lot to be desired. It would have been a great book with a harsh edit to remove all the repetition. That is my main problem with this book, Eila constantly going over and over the same thought cycles in every bloody sceen, so you, as the reader, also treaded water in the slow paced quagmire. As a result Eila didn't advance as a character and her story of addiction became incredibly annoying. So rather than exploring a real societal problem we just wish she'd grow a backbone already.

I truely believe this book could be great, as could other books exploring this world, with a re-edit maybe it will re-emerge better and more awesome. But for the moment, maybe read this book in conjunction with the Fiction Unboxed course (which is available to buy on their website) which was really fantastic and worth wading through this book for the lessons you learn above and beyond what the author's meant to teach you.

[Averi Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. it's very different from a lot I've been reading recently. I like how much it makes you think. it's very vague on who's good or bad or why so it definitely makes me want to read the next book for more answers. I will say my copy had tons of typos in it. I'm always shocked by the lack of editing in books. Still this book is definitely worth reading!

[Sage Knightly · Rating 3 out of 5]

*I received a free digital version of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Dream Engine is about a 15 year old girl named Eila who, at the beginning, had been experiencing odd visions. The people of Waldron's Gate don't dream, and they certainly don't have visions, so Eila begins her journey of finding out why she's having them and what they mean. In doing so, she unravels a road of truth, deceit, secrets, power, and new friendships. She has to learn to trust herself to figure out what's real and what's false, as well as help a group of people she never knew existed before.

I did enjoy this book, but there's a lot that didn't work for me. Namely how confusing everything is. Maybe there's so many subplots intertwining that the main plot is lost in the paths, or maybe the plot just in any clear enough to me, but either way I don't understand what this book was aiming towards. Yes, Eila had to help people escape from underground and to do so she had to build a safe place through the treacherous fog that is home to many horrors, but they don't have a plan, a place to go, and they didn't really leave either; they just made sure they had a way out. It didn't make sense to me that there was this whole buildup of them leaving, only for them to get out and return. But there's also so much about Crumble and the Joffrey Columns thing and figuring out the truth and being shaped to be a leader. So much was going on, and the buildup had a flat end.

The world-building was good though, if not a little too much. It reminded me a lot of Alice in Wonderland because of the horrors in the fog and her night mares; dragons, dwarves, monstrous shape being things. The book was surrounded by the thought of insanity and these fantasy-like aspects that made the book feel almost... two dimensional? Like it's real, but it really isn't; maybe she's dreaming, maybe none of this is really happening because how could it be? It's hard for me to explain, but having surrounded the book on these dreams and nightmares becoming real and living in the fog, it really made the world feel too far-fetched, in a way. It was a bit complex. It made for a very interning novel, and it was fairly enjoyable to read, but it may have been better with less. I did, however, love the details and the worlds themselves. The lives the characters lived and their jobs and how they shape their minds was all wonderful. The way everything was written was well-done and made everything flow well (after the beginning), even if there were things I could've gone without.

The beginning was also really slow to start, and I almost gave up around 30% through because nothing was really happening. Things built up from there though, and I'm glad I finished the whole book.

The characters were great, though I do feel that Cora and Eila were hard to tell apart. I didn't see much difference between them, especially at the end. There wasn't much to Levi either, though I wish we had more from him.

I loved Eila's struggles. She felt very real, especially since she didn't believe every word Daw said until she saw proof, and that she still felt fear and defeat. There were times she felt so defeated and done, but she always got back up. Most of the time it was because Levi or Daw made her see things in a new way, or told her straight up that she had no right to be so angry or righteous. She learned from those around her, she made mistakes, and she grew.

Overall, I liked this book. Some things didn't fit for me, but I'm still interested in reading the next book.

[(;Missy.Lala;) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was quite an interesting read... When I heard that this was a steam-punk novel, that got my attention, because I've only ever read one steam-punk novel and liked it a lot :) (it was the Unnaturalists by the way)...

This book reminded me of Alice in Winderland mixed with Crewel, because the creativity of the world is mind blowing, and the way the characters are introduced and the balance between both worlds when I was introduced just intrigued me :)

Summary:

A truth terrible enough to bury for a millennium …

A mysterious boy calling in her sleep …

A secret city that shouldn’t exist …

When Eila Doyle first sees the strange boy beckoning in whispers from somewhere deep in her imagination, she questioned her sanity. She was used to seeing strange things with her eyes closed — that’s what Eila did all day while strapped to the Blunderbuss, Building whatever the Ministry of Manifestation required — but never before have those images felt so real, or so dangerous.

After Eila learns the terrible truth about her reality and the monsters inside it, she thinks that maybe madness might be her only escape...

This thrilling young adult steampunk adventure is the first in the Dream Engine series by masters of story Platt & Truant, authors of The Beam, Unicorn Western, and many more.

I would be definitely be reading the next book when it comes out, I cannot wait to find out what happens!!!

[Jarkko Laine · Rating 4 out of 5]

When talking about The Dream Engine, you have to start by mentioning the groundbreaking way it was brought to life. It all happened in just one month's time as Platt and Truant, in their Kickstarter funded project, Fiction Unboxed, went from no idea at all to publishing the book on Amazon -- all of this with the world watching.

If that wasn't an amazing feat in itself, what makes it even more special is that they actually produced a great first book for their Dream Engine series.

It's a great book, but it isn't perfect. The Dream Engine's setting is brilliant and its story strong, but as other reviewers have already pointed out, the book loses some of its power as it keeps explaining Eila's (the main character) thoughts rather than showing her in action. Told a bit differently, through more action and less explaining, I feel that this could have been a real masterpiece.

That said, taking all into account, it's a great read — and I have big hopes for the next installments in the series. The Dream Engine is a good read and a remarkable accomplishment.

[Phillip Berrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to give this four stars because this is an exceptional book for something that was brought from initial idea (which was decided by a group) through to publication in a month. Well done guys.

With regard to the actual story itself: I thought there was a little too much introspection by the characters in the story and would have preferred more action and a greater element of the fantastic. We have a machine that can realise dreams but the civilisation that makes the most use of it seems mired in a prim and proper world restricted by Victorian sensibilities. This mix was a result of the original suggestions for the story, but I didn't like the juxtaposition then and the resulting story didn't make sense to me either.

Caveat: I was a backer for this kickstarter-based project.

[Eva Holmquist · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm usually a fan of Sean Platt and Johnny B Truant's books, but this wasn't my cup of tea.
I found it boring, because too little happened in a large chunk of the book. In the same part the protagonist was also irritating, because I found her too whiny and not proactive enough for my taste. The last chapters improved so it can be that the next book in the series is more of my liking...

[Nina Miteva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review/ Цялото ревю - click, click

After-read thoughts:
The book sets off with a very strong start, where from the very first pages it starts giving hints about the world it is set in. Like one of the first things I noticed was how the act of Building was emphasized on, and it really picked my interest. It progressed into one of the most wonderful mixes I've read lately (but second to the Western, lol!) that combined motifs you thought were all used up already into something amazing; and brought together two ideas I thought to be opposite. From one hand we have the genre of stempunk, whichm even when mixed with fantasy, is always about thinkering, and gearsm and working with your hands, And then we have those creationist ideas of bringing something with only your mind. And these two blended perfectly together in the world of Alterra, where an almost magical engine helps turn thoughts into reality while his twin processes dreams to clear their essense and feed it to his brother... while throwing the waste away.
Eila was a nice, very normal character, the one who (thankfully) isn't so unreasonably eager to jump up at the chance to give up everything and go fight someone other's battle. At some points I loved her, at other I was really annoyed with her. The book's weakest point was that we got to spend too much, way too much time in Eila's head. Almost nothing happened in the middle of the book and it was filled with Eila going over and over the same things, and asking the same questions, but somehow missing the one I thought to be of real significance. This time could have been used to get us readers acquainted with the other characters and give us better understanding on the them (like Cora and Levi - till the end I was still unsure about where should I place them) and the world of Alterra where the story is based. I was left with too much to wonder, like how their world is (if it is ) linked to ours, if the characters can understand White Rabbit puns and recognize Atlas holding the world on his shoulders. There were other things that didn't make complete sense at this point and I hope to see them clarified in the next books of the series. As I mentioned the other characters, I must point another think I liked about Eila's relationship with them - the accent was not on the teen romance, but on the family, and I loved this. And I think there's still a hint for romance coming in the next book, something I love as well :)
As said, I got really bored toward the middle of the book and my rating was getting close to three stars. But then the last few chapters of the novel got me back on track and gulping the pages one after another. Closing the book I was full of impatience to know what would happen next and how the fated of the different characters would interwine. The ending of The Dream Engine has so much promise that it almost made up for the boring middle.
I give The Dream Engine a total of 4 stars and will be looking forward to the next instalment. Well with those two behind the writind desks, it should be here soon :D

~~~
Следпрочитно:
Книгата започна наистина силно, като още от първите страници и изречения започна да подхвърля улики за тайните на света, в който се развива. Например акцента върху Строенето, това да бъдеш Строител - тази главна буква бе едно от първите неща, които ми направиха впечатление. Подозренията ми се оказаха правилни и по-нататък този свят се разкри като един от най-чудесните миксове (но все пак, не така добър като "Еднорожкият уестърн :D ), които съм чела напоследък. Алтера и "Машината за сънища" комбинират две идеи, които на пръв поглед са сякаш взаимоизключващи се. Първата се корени в самия жанр на книгата - стиймпънк. Независимо дали е придружен от фантастика или не, стиймпънкът винаги е бил преди всичко за сътвореното от ръката, за мислителите, чертежите, машинното масло. А тук го срещаме заедно с една форма на креационизъм, да създаваш от нищото - нещо. Но тези две линии са помирени в света на Алтера, където всички захранват с мисли и сънища, и хвърлят всичките си сили в огромния двигател и подземния му близнак - с или без свое знание.
Айла беше приятен главен герой, интересен, но и изключително нормален - и, за щастие, не привества като идиот идеята да захвърли всичко и да се бие за нечия чужда кауза. В някои моменти я харесвах, в други ме дразнеше. Това, което ѝ попречи да се нареди сред любимите ми героини бе, че ние читателите бяхме принудени да прекараме твърде много време в главата ѝ. През цялата средна част на книгата почти нищо не се случва - запълнена е с размислите на Айла, с предъвкването на едни и същи риторични въпроси, които не водят на никъде - и НЕзадаване на по-съществените въпроси, за които аз копнеех. Все си мислех как това читателско време можеше да е оползотворено като ни запознаят повече с другите герои (като Ливай и Кора) - до последно сякаш ги знаехме само повърхностно. Или със самия свят - имах толкова много питанки за устройството и позицията на Алтера, включително и спрямо нашия свят - защото героите явно разбираха намеците ��а "белия заек" на Карол и разпознаваха поддържащия света Атлас. Надявам се всички тези подробности да намерят отговор в следващата книга. Тъй като отворих дума за другите герои и отношенията на Айла с тях, трябва да спомена още нещо - акцентът тук е не върху тийн-романса, а върху връзката на Айла със семейството ѝ, факт, от който бях много доволна. Но надушвам и обещание за някакъв романс в следващата част - нещо от което също няма да се откажа :D
Та, прехвърляйки средата на романа, бях вече отегчена и оценката ми клонеше към три звездички. Но после нещата отново се устремиха, последните глави бяха изпълнени със силни и вълнуващи сцени и ме накараха трескаво да разгръщам страниците, а когато затворих последната - да се чудя неистово какво ще се случи нататък. Макар и доста отворен, краят на книгата бе така обещаващ, и като история, и като начини, по които съдбите на героите биха могли да се пресекат, че в голяма степен поправи вредите от скучната среда.
В крайна сметка дадох на "Машината за сънища" четири звезди и се заредих с търпение за следващата част. Поне от тези двата мога да я очаквам скоро :D

[Mayhem-RW · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her name is Eila (eye-la), and she has never dreamed, until now. But as all dreams seem to do upon waking, they fade away, but not this one. She is about to learn how upside-down her world really is. You see, her job is to work at the Ministry of Building, and as such, she is hooked up to a machine where she consciously dreams about putting together pieces of whatever the Aether gives her to work with. But the boy that she dreamed about at night was something that was not supposed to happen. His name is Levi, and the madding thing is that he wants her to follow him down a rabbit hole.

Besides the obvious reference to another world-famous story, this story takes you on a trip. The physical world-building puts you there. The ethereal world-building adds to the physical. The character’s interaction is believable. The character’s history is part of the story, and as the main characters are young, there is not much of a history to begin with.

Fiction, check. Fantasy, check. Science Fiction, check. Steampunk, check and double-check! Young adult, yep. :) Four stars out of five stars, sure.

[Haley C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am so conflicted about this book. On the one hand, I am very fond of the cast of characters the author(s) created, and the basic concept of the world is intriguing and fun to engage with. On the other hand, there are several aspects of the worldbuilding that are hard to understand -- the exact nature of Eila's powers seem to change to suit whatever she needs to do at a given moment, for example. This book also would have benefited from a thorough content edit, because several scenes run on for much too long, and there are some moments that fall flat structurally. It's almost hard to rate this book because what is good is SO good, but it has some very serious flaws that hold it back.

A very disappointed 3.5 stars. Could have been a favorite of mine if it had more time to bake, but these authors are notorious for not seeing their projects through.

[Christian Andreo · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a fan of YA Steampunk, I highly recommend this novel. The series spins in a direction I wasn't expecting, and it's so rich that I feel another three or four books would have made sense. If I have any complaint, it's that a trilogy isn't enough.

I originally only got the sample, one of a dozen with the hope that one would get me through a couple of long flights. It was the first sample I read, and when I got to the end, I bought the complete book immediately. I had to know what happened next. Once the Blunderbuss scene hit, I was committed. There was no going back.

[Rhiannon Watkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book didn't pull me in as much as I was hoping, and I felt it was definitely inspired by the Alice in Wonderland story, so it wasn't as original as hoped either. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable read with enough flair to keep my attention. I'm interested in reading the rest of the trilogy now, though it won't be in my top books of all time.

[Jim Wilbourne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story and writing.

[Cheng Cheng · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was confused the entire time. So I just speed read it.

[Andy Febrico Bintoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually the story is not that bad, a dreamer and a builder in the same person. An ability to dream and manifest it on the same time, a unique but a dangerous ability.

[Cheryl Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

*I received an ARC of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

You must determine what is real and what is not...

2.5 Stars actually...

What can I say about Sean Platt's The Dream Engine? It was good I guess. I enjoyed it by the time I was at the last chapter, but this being an honest review, I have to say something bothered me throughout this novel.

Let me start with the negative thoughts I have, so we can finish on a positive note, shall I? Great.

The Dream Engine just didn't grab me, it didn't draw me in, hook me and make me want to continue reading. I had seen in another goodreads members review (of a different book) that they said, "when I stop looking forward to my reading time, it's time to find a new book". That's a pretty accurate statement for how I felt. I didn't want to continue on at parts. The beginning of the story was slow, and I was sure I wasn't going to enjoy it at all, but I like to give things a real chance. So I continued...and I do have to say I was glad.

Platt's idea for The Dream Engine is a very cool one. I saw the cover, read the description and thought, "Wow, this is going to be a trip", but for me, it just fell a bit flat. After getting about 40% into the book it did pick up and I knew I would finish it. At that point I became invested with the story and finding out what happens. How,ever I never felt particularly close to or invested in any of the characters...

Eila was a likable enough main character. I didn't like her always, but that's okay. When a character is too likable, they tend to feel very fake and 'goody-goodyish'. Characters that have and show flaws and bad judgement at times are more realistic and complex, more like us - real people. Supporting characters seemed very 'staged'. What I mean by that is it felt to me that characters were created only to serve a purpose for Eila or a goal/problem she was trying to achieve or facing. Daw was maybe an exception to that last statement, as he clearly had his own purpose. Many reviews for this novel are giving praise, and I hate to be that voice of negativity, but so be it. This story did nothing for me.

Now, all that aside I love Platt's 'big picture' idea. (By the way, please picture me doing air quotes with my fingers each time you see a word or phrase in quotes) The idea that some or all people could be 'builders' and do simulations in their dreams, manipulate dreams...steal dreams, etc. I had a million and 2 thoughts racing through my mind after I read the title alone. But the execution was confusing for me and it became difficult for me to stay involved with. Not that I didn't grasp it, but more that I felt a strain to connect, and in my opinion, reading should be fun and relaxed, not strained.

The writing wasn't necessarily what I would call bad, but for some reason I felt confused or had to re-read certain parts. I felt that the writing became scattered and therefore the main points or meaning was, at times, lost. The world-building also fell flat for me, and this is where I felt this book could have really shone. A world in which dreams could be manufactured, invaded or the like, what a world it could be! I also understand I am being extremely vague about the content or 'meat' of this story, but I try to be. Even with books I adore, I never want to take away the experience of discovery for a reader.

I will however include a few excerpts from The Dream Engine that are examples of what I am talking about above.

"I've been wondering something. If a person is allowed to dream, and those dreams can't be stolen, that's one thing. But if that same person is a Builder, would it affect her ability to Build? I know building is like dreaming, but how much like it, Mr. Brampton? Would dreaming - a true dream state - create a fault on the array? Or would it create Built objects the Ministry doesn't understand, even if they might be works of genius?"

"You are usually guided by your dreams, but we must teach you to control them. That means flipping input and response. Your mind is new to seeing dreams as they happen. We must teach it to process what it sees, then turn it around. Sure, you were able to manifest a dragonstone, but only after being stimulated to do so by the dream."

I just feel that the idea Platt had come up with is such a big, imaginative idea, filled with endless possibilities that when it came to bringing the reader in to understand his thinking and explain the setup of his world, characters, laws and etc., the reader (me) was left with a very silly look on her face, kinda like my friend below...



All in all I didn't hate this book, but I wouldn't outright recommend it. Give it a try or don't, either way I doubt this will leave a lasting impression.

[M.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it

Great characters, amazing world, and a very cool story! Recommended for people who like dark fantasy with a philosophical tilt.

[Magda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Check this and other reviews at https://maginibooks.wordpress.com/201...

Here we have a young-adult novel, a beginning of new series written by two creative authors. Everything happens in steampunk dystopian world, where two world don’t know of each other’s existence. Two worlds separated, yet dependent of each other, and on the mysterious device they call Blunderbuss.

I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Story follows Eila, 15-year old Builder from Waldron’s Gate, a city built around the Blunderbuss machine and closest to the mysterious fog everyone’s so afraid of. Eila’s job is to build whatever the Blunderbuss machine sends to her mind while she’s in a builder’s trance. She and all people living on the ground think their building ideas come straight from aether.

The truth is much worse than that.

Eila finds out the truth during a dream, something she’s not supposed to have. First thing she remembers after she wakes up is a boy. One day Eila decides she must find out if there’s a truth behind those dreams of hers. What she finds is not only the boy but also a whole new world under the one she knows – an underground Pavilion.

I did enjoy all the steampunk feel of this world. Somehow it made it easier to imagine how everything looked like than some of the SF worlds some authors try to create. But still it felt like they could do it a bit better, I just felt like it’s all incomplete. I just don’t know what I was missing. Maybe I simply wasn’t convinced that this is everything there is, that is somehow can exist, and it felt unreal. And when the world created in a book doesn’t let you to completely immerse into it, it won’t let you feel the story either.

Authors also tried to create a specific language suited for this steampunk world of theirs. They used some changed words for the things we already know, like “cofei” instead of coffee, “view box” instead of TV. It was OK, and rather matched the overall mood, it showed us that we’re in the same world and yet very different.

I really liked some parts of the book. Mostly near the end, when Eila was trying to determine her sanity, understand her visions. But also there’s this part when authors describe how one of the dreamers looked after finishing her shift:

“The woman wore a small smile. It wasn’t the smile of someone who is happy, but of someone who has done a job – no matter how unpleasant – and done it well. It was the look of a defender. Of a martyr who is, day by day, placing herself in the line of fire to save the world for those who she loves.”

This was a really good one. It was one of those moments in the book when I actually felt like I’m in there, standing right next to our heroine, seeing what she’s seeing.

There’s this one point at which Daw says to Eila that she’ll have to part the fog for the others to create a passage. It sounded like he wanted her to play Moses. It was strange. There are also many references to Alice in Wonderland that made me wonder if authors tried to write some kind of a story retelling. If that’s the case, then the idea was good, but I’ve read better and more interesting ones.

I liked the heroine, she wasn’t perfect and that made her more realistic. Although she seemed older than her age and she felt like that from the very beginning, not after she went through her adventures. But she also seemed to mature on the way, grow up as the book progressed.

The other characters weren’t that convincing. They simply showed up from time to time, always the same, supporting Eila sometimes. From her family only the father was noticeable, others felt like shadows, they might as well be just pictures on the walls.

There were those few moments when I couldn’t put the book down. But there were mostly in the last 30-40% of the story and at that point I was already almost bored with it. I wouldn’t put it down, I wanted to know what will happen next and how will it all end, although the ending was rather predictable.

I don’t think I’ll be reaching for the next book of this series, but maybe you’ll like it more than I did.

[Margaryta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to Patchwork Press for providing me with an egalley of the book to review.

With some reluctance I add “The Dream Engine” to the list of books/galleys that I couldn’t finish. I decided to put it down at around 43% for a significant reason, which I thought was the biggest issue in the whole book: the story felt like it was going nowhere.

“The Dream Engine” offers some interesting insights and thoughts by proposing a concept where there is a divided world with only the bottom dwellers being the ones who can dream, then taking these ideas and “feeding” them to the citizens above who mistake these as having come from a machine called the Blunderbuss and build these creations. It took me some time to be able to put the plot into such a condensed and simplified version in my mind and even then I’m sure I must’ve missed or misunderstood something along the way. Clarity isn’t exactly the strength of the writing, and the world building, though complex and obviously thought through, shows signs of weakness with vague terms and things that seem somewhat ridiculous to comprehend. I found the story to be too far-fetched. Usually steampunk stories make some kind of sense, especially since they focus on the scientific and engineering aspects that are required for the genre and thus should have been researched. But “The Dream Engine” tries to blend some fantasy, in the form of “dream picking/harvesting”, as well as some post-apocalyptic details and even some spiritual elements. As a result, the book became a jumble that was difficult to follow along.

Eila’s thoughts tended to be scattered and repetitive, but at the same time remained logical. Her stubbornness was admirable even, which is a rare case with stories in which the main character finds out they’ve been living a lie. It was the repetitiveness that got to me. I couldn’t see where the story would be possibly going in the next half a book, nor did I particularly want to find out anymore. Besides Eila the other characters were vaguely introduced and didn’t provide much substance to work with that could possibly add to the story. Levi wasn’t as major in the half of the book that I did read, although the summary made it sound otherwise. Cora was easy to confuse with Eila in the beginning and only established her separate identity after disappearing for several chapters. Daw somehow struck me as a more civilized version of Haymitch from The Hunger Games. The cast, as a result, didn’t enhance the story much either, which was already difficult to read as it was.

The one thing that’s admirable about this book is how fast the authors wrote it. At the same time this very fact was what emphasized the weaker parts of the book. The premise had promise but I wasn’t too thrilled with the execution. There were ideas that could also have led to an internal debate for the reader on the whole idea of dreams and who is in charge of creating as well as the nature of ‘artistic freedom’. But it wasn’t given the chance to grow up to this point. As a result the book had too many shortcomings for me to continue with it. It had potential, but the pace and continued frustration during reading overshadowed the slight interest I had in continuing and finishing the book.

[Matt Cromartie · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this review is going to require a bit of context. The reason I decided to read this book is because I wanted to read another book, Fiction Unboxed, which is basically a book-form documentary of how The Dream Engine was written. And not just how it was written, but how the duo that wrote it did so from scratch in 30 days while letting anyone who helped Kickstart it listen in on their story meeting and read their rough drafts before they had been polished. That idea fascinated me, but after buying Fiction Unboxed I was warned that it contained spoilers for the book that they wrote during June of 2014, so I figured I would read it first to better understand how the final product came about.

One other issue to to cover before diving into the book: lots of the reviews I've read for this book already talk about how it was good, but that how it was amazing considering how quickly it was written. I'm not going to play that game, I'm not going to grade this book on a curve because the authors wrote it quickly. It is truly impressive that they could write a book like this in only 30 days, but the book was only okay. If they could have made it good in 60 days or great in 90 days I would have preferred that they take the extra time. Now I know that the whole idea was to write it in 30 days to make a point and congrats on accomplishing it, but I still have to judge it as just a book, not as a book that was written quickly and should get bonus points for that fact.

So what about the book itself? It was okay. The premise is great and I will be reading the next book in the series to see where they take it. But as for this book as it stands alone I kind of feel tricked. The whole point of this book was that the authors would start from nothing (no idea at all of what the book would be about when the 30 days started) and then complete a whole book by the deadline. Well, they did complete a book in that they wrote 100,000 words of a story, but I wouldn't call it a whole story. Instead it is Act I of a larger story and the fact that this book doesn't have a true ending I think is cheating. I would have been much more impressed if they had come up with a complete story - beginning, middle and end - and published that in 30 days. I think this is an excellent set up for the future books in the series, but it isn't a whole story in and of itself. The ending seemed hurried and very unfulfilling, I barely even noticed when the climax had passed and they glossed over what would have been the best scene in the book, when the main character finally harnesses her powers and uses them Neo-style. Also, there was a lot (a lot!) of talking in the book and very little action. And I feel like there were a good 100 pages in the middle of the book where no progress was made, none of the characters developed substantially, there was no action and nothing got better or worse.

I'm still excited about Fiction Unboxed (reading it now) and I will likley read the next book in the series. But overall very disappointed with this book. Great premise and world building, but mediocre follow through.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

That last paragraph in the synopsis makes me laugh because it's SUPER DRAMATIC.

What I liked:

-I suppose Eila was a fairly strong female character, although her thoughts/actions seemed repetitive and boring up until the very end.

-beautiful cover.

-interesting concept.

-the fact that the authors wrote the whole thing (including planning, plotting, outlining, editing, etc) in 30 days.

What I didn't like:

-this book dragged forever. I felt like I was reading it for months. It got to the point that I actually felt frustrated by my inability to finish reading something that had started off on a good note.

-as I mentioned above, the book was written in 30 days. Yeah, that's impressive (though, really, if I was being paid to do NOTHING BUT WRITE for a month, I could probably churn out a manuscript too. I - and many other people - have successfully completed NaNoWriMo, and that was WITH a day job!), but I felt like there was little to no editing involved. There was a lot of repetition, a lot of introspection, a lot of explaining, a lot of build up, and not so much action.

I mean, as fascinating as it is to wonder how you'd explain "dreams" to someone who didn't understand the word, it's tiresome to read about it for twenty pages.

And it just made me confused, but maybe I shouldn't have been reading about something as abstract and intangible as dreams first thing in the morning.

Also, if I had a nickle for every time the words "Joffrey Columns", "Blunderbuss", and "Crumble" were mentioned, I could have kickstarted their entire project myself.

-this book felt like a combination of Alice in Wonderland, The Matrix, The Giver (and every other dystopian YA novel ever), with a dash of "hey, I had a weird dream last night, I KNOW, I'LL PUT IT IN A BOOK SO THAT EVERYONE ELSE IS JUST AS CONFUSED AS ME".

All those things individually are great. Put them together though, and you get a weird sense of deja vu ("follow the white rabbit", was an actual line and I'm not sure if it was an Alice reference or a Matrixreference) (also Crumble seems like those pills that Jonah had to stop taking in The Giver so that he could be open to the real world. Just like Eila!).

-I respect that not all YA books feel the need to push the romance aspect and that's cool, but if Levi is literally wandering through her dreams, you'd think there would be something going on there. But no. So that was disappointing.

It's the first book in a series and has an open ending, and honestly, I'm not eager to find out what happens next. The whole thing fell flat for me, and while I'm impressed they could write this many words in a month, I would have probably liked it more if they had taken another week or two to really fine tune it.

That being said, I'm sure there are people who are falling all over themselves about this book. I'm just not one of them.

[Kristen Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve followed Sean Platt, Johnny Truant, and David Wright with their Self-Publishing Podcast and books about writing for a while. They have some good advice and insight into the self-publishing industry. Whereas many author experts tend to come out with a couple “hot books” that capture one trend in indie publishing for a brief period of time, these three have seen several years of the ups and downs and learned to adapt to the changing industry. They also keep selling fiction despite changes in trends, so that shows they know what they’re talking about. I know a lot of people like their books and I wanted to see what their ideas looked like in practice.

This book was offered as part of a special program called Fiction Unboxed. You could actually pay on Kickstarter and watch them write this book in only 30 days. It was quite the project and turned out to be a success. After I read about The Dream Engine in the Fiction Unboxed recap, I wanted to try this story for myself.

Let me start by saying that I find Platt and Truant’s writing style to be very wordy and rambling, which can be useful for learning through non-fiction but I don’t enjoy that as much in a story. Also, I wasn’t totally in love with the story structure. I wanted Eila to jump right into the new world she discovered but instead, she spends a lot of time thinking about if she’s making the right choice and honestly just waffling. What I thought would be the first step into the bigger story, expecting her to use the quote-unquote “Dreaming” power around 25%, ended up being the climax at the very end of the book. So I wanted to skip a lot of the parts in the middle that were just building up to that moment.

But it is a fun twist on steampunk-with-magic, which some people call gaslamp to distinguish from more “scientific” or technological steampunk. The Dream Engine allows people to create anything they could imagine, even fantastical things like dragons, elves, and monsters. There’s a complex world history that Eila only gets hints of right now, and I wanted to learn more about it.

I also liked Eila (at least when she was taking action, not when she was sitting around whining about how hard everything was) and her friend, Cora. I admit that I was disappointed Cora wasn’t in the story more and I’m glad that she has a bigger role in the later books. Some of the other characters aren’t fleshed out as much, like I would have liked more time to see her actually get introduced to the people underground rather than just jumping ahead to when she already knew them.

If you skim the info dumping and armchair philosophy, it’s an entertaining book with a fresh world, and little hints of greater things to come. My hope is that later books in the series will pick up the pace a little and have some more action.