There's an entity that lives within our planet, and she's recently become infected with a bioweapon. Now she's dreaming, and if she doesn't wake up, reality will start coming apart at the seams.
Enter Hazel Mills, oneiric gunslinger and dreamwalker.
In order to save the day, she'll need to enter the Dreamscape--a bizarre reality where nothing is as it seems. All she has on her side are her childhood night terrors, and one adorable and curious Artificial Intelligence.
But the inhabitants of the Dreamscape have disturbing plans for the slumbering planet, and one has a curious fascination with Hazel. Even worse, Hazel's starting to discover her past may contain more nightmares than she ever imagined.
SJ Whitby lives in New Zealand with their partner, as well as various children and animals. They are predictably obsessed with X-Men and spend too much of their free time writing.
This book is about Hazel, a side-character in The Mutantsitters Club (which is still my favorite side-story set in this universe) and Dylan's step sister. I always wanted to know more of her, why does she have these dream powers and how is she as a main character? This book answers both of these questions.
We also see more of Sai, an AI who we see for the first time in Project Himbo (also a great read) and we get to see more of her personality. She's adorable and I hope this isn't the last of her we'll see.
We also are introduced to two new characters, I'm kinda mixed on them but one of them did stole my heart by the end.
There are many reasons SJ Whitby is an auto-buy author for me and this book just entered the list. Books you should read before this in order to not be spoiled: Cute Mutants Vol. 1-5, Mutopians Vol. 1, Project Himbo. Of course you can also read it as a standalone, but these books have taken place before Oneiromancer and thus have an influence on it. You do not need information from them to understand it though. In the Cute Mutants series and Mutopians we have not seen much of Hazel Mills, who is Dylan Taylor’s step-sibling. She is a side-character in The Mutantsitters Club though, which also takes plays before Oneiromancer, but does not factor into it. We know Sai, a sentient AI, from Project Himbo and Mutopians Vol. 1.
Both characters are well developed and very lovable. Sai is absolutely adorable and fiercely loyal, yet somehow Whitby managed to give even an AI anxiety. Hazel is an absolute badass and I love her a lot. Their friendship is also adorable and pretty relatable. The side characters, which include the guns (for those of you who are not familiar with the CM Universe: objects are often characters in here), were also great and we get a few cameos from some of our favorite CM universe characters, which is always awesome.
The plot has many twists and turns, many of which I did not see coming. It kind of feels like a fever dream, which is to be expected as most of the story takes place in the dreamscape (which is amazing worldbuilding, by the way!). While it feel this way, it still makes a lot of sense and you don’t have to wait until the end of the book to understand the story (looking at you here, Project Himbo).
All in all another amazing book in the Cute Mutants universe.