BOOK REVIEW | SLEEPING WORLDS HAVE NO MEMORY | YAROSLAV BARSUKOV

 

Book Review

Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory

Yaroslav Barsukov

Good Morning! In today’s past I am going to be taking a look at Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov, which is released on 12 NOVEMBER 2024. The book is an expanded vision of his earlier novella The Tower of Mud and Straw. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

When lies become truths and
two kingdoms’ head to a bloody war,
a man is exiled for his conscience

Refusing the queen’s order to gas a crowd of protesters, Minister Shea Ashcroft is banished to the border to oversee construction of the biggest defensive tower in history. However, the use of advanced technology taken from refugees makes the tower volatile and dangerous, becoming a threat to local interests. Shea has no choice but to fight the local hierarchy to ensure the construction succeeds—and to reclaim his own life.

Surviving an assassination attempt, Shea confronts his inner demons, encounters an ancient legend, and discovers a portal to a dead world—all the while struggling to stay true to his own principles and maintain his sanity. Fighting memories and hallucinations, he starts to question everything...

Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory is a thought-provoking meditation on the fragility of the human condition, our beliefs, the manipulation of propaganda for political gains, and our ability to distinguish the real from the unreal and willingness to accept convenient “truths.” The novel is a compelling exploration of memory, its fragile nature, and its profound impact on our perception of identity, relationships, and facts themselves. 

 

REVIEW

 

Yaroslav Barsukov’s Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory is one of those books that defies pigeon holeing into one particular genre.

Set against a back drop of the threat of oncoming war and state paranoia, the story takes place in a world where the two main super powers are in an arms race against to develop the ultimate defence against each other.

After refusing to gas the members of a demonstration that has been deemed a riot, Shea Ashcroft, the minister in charge is sent to a backwater town where a monument to the defensible power of the Queen is been built in the form of a 2000ft tower.

In the midst of attempting to manage this mammoth task, he will come against the political machinations of the local governments and members of the party, the trials of building the hubristic monument to a nationalistic state and ghosts from his own past. Not only that he will have to use all his skills to stop an ancient evil crossing from one reality to another.

Throughout the book, Baraslov writes with an almost dream like quality as the story interweaves reality and unreality. The characters are both morally and structurally grey as they try to make the best of the situation that they have been put in. Shea is battling against ghosts form his past and how to make the most of the situation that he has been thrust upon him, whilst the rest of the characters try to survive in a harsh world. 

Mixing a multitude of influences from fantasy, sci fi, cosmic horror and folk horror amongst others, Baraslov writes a mesmerising tale of the pitfalls of ambition and the terrors of nationalism, plunging the reader into an enthralling and sprawling tale, that in places reads like a speculative The Man Who Was Thursday. Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory is an enthralling book that had me devouring its pages in two sittings, and if you want a fantasy story that falls out of the normal confines of everyday fantasy stories, this one is highly recommended.