Genres are meant to be broken down and mixed. Some authors really shine in one particular genre but become stale if they don’t try to break out of it every now and again. Some, such as Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury, can write in multiple genres with skill. Others, like Nora Roberts, may only choose a couple and write successfully in them. And then there are the authors that are better off just sticking with what they know.
Dr. James Richardson is a young ambitious psychiatrist who gets the opportunity to work with one of his heroes, Dr. Hugh Maitland. Not only does Richardson get to head Dr. Maitland’s hospital at Wyldehope, he gets to be in charge of Maitland’s most ambitious experiment, the sleep room. The sleep room is an experiment where patients are kept asleep for months at a time in order to treat their mental disorders. Using a process called narcosis (also known as deep sleep therapy), Maitland believes he can cure what plagues the patients in the sleep room. While the explanations here are interesting-Tallis is a clinical psychologist–it doesn’t do much for entertainment or intrigue. Tallis spends quite a bit of time setting up a spooky atmosphere and explaining something he has extensive knowledge about, but at the expense of moving the narrative forward. More...
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