Scan barcode
A review by charlotekerstenauthor
Dreams of the Dying by Nicolas Lietzau
So What’s It About?
Years after a harrowing war experience, ex-mercenary Jespar Dal'Varek has taken to drifting. It's a lonely existence, but, barring the occasional bout of melancholia, he has found the closest thing to peace a man like him deserves. Life is "all right."
Or so he believes. Hoping to turn the page, Jespar accepts a mysterious invitation into the beautiful but dangerous archipelago of Kilay-and everything changes.
Plagued by explosive social tensions and terrorism, the tropical empire is edging ever closer to civil war. Kilay's merchant king is the only person able to prevent this catastrophe, but he has fallen into a preternatural coma-and it's Jespar's task to figure out what or who caused it. As the investigation takes him across the archipelago and into the king's nightmares, unexpected events not only tie Jespar's own life to the mystery but also unearth inner demons he believed to be long exorcised.
Battling old trauma while fighting for his life, his sanity, and the fate of Kilay, the line between dream and reality blurs until only one question remains: If your mind is the enemy, where do you run?
What I Thought
Like many others, my first exposure to Lietzau’s work was the full-conversion Skyrim mod Enderal: Forgotten Stories. I played about two hours and really enjoyed myself, but I ended up wandering in the wrong direction and facing an enemy I couldn’t defeat. Demoralized, I haven’t picked up the game again - but I do fully intend to return to it (she says while physically restraining herself from replaying Dragon Age). My understanding is that this book was originally set in the Enderal world but then had to be modified so that it wasn’t connected with Enderal anymore. If I’d played more, I’d be able to say more about this; as it stands, the world of Dreams of the Dying is definitely well-realized on its own.
I was fully absorbed while I read this book and I think Lietzau is a very intelligent person and a strong writer in many ways. I thoroughly enjoyed what I felt was an engaging plot, grisly horror elements, very cool magic in the forms of dreamwalking and shifting, and some powerful character development in the “Great Dreamer” Oonai. That being said, there were also a lot of things that did not work for me here and I decided that I wanted to spend some time talking about them here.
Many reviews have described this book as deeply philosophical, and that is definitely true. It is rife with discussions of capitalism, morality, oppression, and determinism vs. choice. The main character, Jespar, largely believes that people act however they do because it preserves their sense of self-identity and cognitive dissonance keeps them from examining alternatives. For example, Oonai needed to believe in the capitalist, individualist bootstraps narrative. Jespar’s fatalism itself is another example of this because of how mired he feels in his own issues. The character Lissja argues against his determinism at first, but her ultimate conclusion at the end of the book is an extension of Jespar’s theory: we don’t really have a choice in what we do, but we have to believe that we do because the alternative is so incredibly difficult to live with.
One of the things I wish Lietzau had explored more is the relationship between determinism and a sense of fatalism about suffering and oppression. Given that a large part of the book is about a revolution of the masses, I’m still not quite sure how this fits in with a philosophy of determinism. Doesn’t the idea that we have no real control over our lives and choices fit somewhat strangely with the ways that we see the colonized proletariat in this book successfully resist the status quo and fight back? Or, perhaps, is the idea that oppression and resistance follow each other in a predetermined cycle? This is touched on a bit when Lissa argues back against Jespar’s determinism, but I would have liked to have seen more of it.
I don’t know how true this is of philosophy in general, but some of Jespar’s arguments just feel so out of touch and needlessly granular to me - for example, he says that unless you have no money or spend it all on charity, everyone puts people’s needs above their own to some extent. Therefore a merchant who buys his wife a dress could be considered no more evil than a capitalist “Great Dreamer” who ruthlessly exploits and kills people to attain his power and wealth. Call me dumb, but to me they clearly are not the same????
I am also unsure how this fits with another statement of his, which is that only the net results of good and bad we achieve in our lives matter and the argument against violent resistance that “answering injustice with injustice will never be right.” If the achievement of the revolution is a society that moves forward free of its previous oppression, wouldn’t that be considered a positive net result, or is it canceled out by the bloodshed that accomplished it? It seems that Jespar’s argument is that the good would not cancel out the bad - but then wouldn’t the Great Dreamer’s net result of living a rich, happy life while killing and exploiting people for his own gain make his actions morally worse than the merchant buying his wife a dress?
Again, I only brushed up against these kinds of conversations the slightest bit in some undergrad seminars, so maybe the problem is me failing to truly understand the arguments at play here. As it stands though, the philosophy in this book largely left me feeling annoyed and frustrated, both because of the arguments as I understood them and the ways that they seemed to be incongruous even coming from the same character. I think another big problem is that these topics are largely explored via characters having long debates with each other, often at strange times such as while they are lost in an alley. (I probably only noticed this because it’s a flaw that is definitely also present in my own writing).
The other major part of this book is Jespar’s struggle with trauma, depression and suicidality. The author’s note makes it clear that this exploration comes from his personal journey and I have a great deal of respect for that experience and intention. The execution, however, feels somewhat unsuccessful to me. Jespar’s cycles of spiraling and nightmares got extremely tedious and I say that as someone who is currently doing this Trauma in SFF reading project. My basic argument is one that I see come up often when people discuss the depiction of mental health in Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives: yes, the experience of having mental illness is repetitive and frustrating and painful, but that doesn’t mean that the experience of reading about it has to be too.
It was to me here, particularly because Jespar has the same dream about the Corpse in the swamp over and over again. I do think it’s excellent thinking on Lietzau’s part to have his nosedive and rock bottom moment come at the end of the book after the intense trials of the plot are over - this makes a ton of sense because Jespar just had to push on in crisis mode until finally getting a chance for everything to hit him all at once. I think this is something that other authors could incorporate to great effect. But the problem is that the reader ticks through the final percentages of the book watching the character drink and wallow and make terrible decisions, wondering if there is going to be any kind of resolution. For me, at least, the resolution that does happen is not satisfying because it is so sudden. Jespar has a sudden breakthrough at the very end of the book and then sails off into the sunset with Lissja, who randomly happens to be on the same boat as him. Again, I do like that Lietzau did something unconventional with the main character’s arc but I think less repetition and more space for resolution would have made it more impactful. I've seen plenty of reviews talking about how impactful this book was for readers with mental health issues, so of course YMMV!
There’s also a lot of rape in this book, handled somewhat strangely to me. On more than one occasion Jespar just walks past women while they are being assaulted, and when he walked in on his soldier friend raping a girl in his backstory, he attacked his friend and then left the house with his friend and the girl still inside. I don’t think it requires a lot of insight to extrapolate what would happen after he left the house. I would actually be fine reading a story about a man who wasn’t able to intervene effectively in these assaults, and I feel like that could even be incorporated in the general morass of his regret and self-loathing. But the strange thing is that Lietzau just doesn’t really do that?? Jespar is traumatized by what happens with his friend, but the general message he beats himself up with is that he brings bad luck and suffering wherever he goes. There are no thoughts about what happens to any of these women after Jespar leaves, no moments of him truly being conflicted by his lack of effective intervention in a meaningful way or anything like that. It felt strange and fridge-y to me, and an extremely tasteless rape joke hinging on Jespar’s alcoholism further soured my feelings about how the topic was handled and how prominent it was in the story.
A couple of random scattered thoughts about other things that didn’t work for me - many characters speak in a hackneyed lower-class accent that is spelled out in vernacular, which I never really like. Also, there are a surprising and (to me) excessive number of references to scaphism or threats to have characters killed with scaphism. By the end I wasn’t grossed out by the descriptions anymore, just puzzled as to why there were so many of them.
There was a lot here that did not work for me, but I mentioned earlier that a number of the books main elements did feel stronger to me. The sticking points that bothered me might not be as consequential to other readers, and there is a lot that makes this book a unique and powerful read. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next book while hoping that some of those rough edges get smoothed down…and maybe I’ll go back to Enderal and try not to die again.
Years after a harrowing war experience, ex-mercenary Jespar Dal'Varek has taken to drifting. It's a lonely existence, but, barring the occasional bout of melancholia, he has found the closest thing to peace a man like him deserves. Life is "all right."
Or so he believes. Hoping to turn the page, Jespar accepts a mysterious invitation into the beautiful but dangerous archipelago of Kilay-and everything changes.
Plagued by explosive social tensions and terrorism, the tropical empire is edging ever closer to civil war. Kilay's merchant king is the only person able to prevent this catastrophe, but he has fallen into a preternatural coma-and it's Jespar's task to figure out what or who caused it. As the investigation takes him across the archipelago and into the king's nightmares, unexpected events not only tie Jespar's own life to the mystery but also unearth inner demons he believed to be long exorcised.
Battling old trauma while fighting for his life, his sanity, and the fate of Kilay, the line between dream and reality blurs until only one question remains: If your mind is the enemy, where do you run?
What I Thought
Like many others, my first exposure to Lietzau’s work was the full-conversion Skyrim mod Enderal: Forgotten Stories. I played about two hours and really enjoyed myself, but I ended up wandering in the wrong direction and facing an enemy I couldn’t defeat. Demoralized, I haven’t picked up the game again - but I do fully intend to return to it (she says while physically restraining herself from replaying Dragon Age). My understanding is that this book was originally set in the Enderal world but then had to be modified so that it wasn’t connected with Enderal anymore. If I’d played more, I’d be able to say more about this; as it stands, the world of Dreams of the Dying is definitely well-realized on its own.
I was fully absorbed while I read this book and I think Lietzau is a very intelligent person and a strong writer in many ways. I thoroughly enjoyed what I felt was an engaging plot, grisly horror elements, very cool magic in the forms of dreamwalking and shifting, and some powerful character development in the “Great Dreamer” Oonai. That being said, there were also a lot of things that did not work for me here and I decided that I wanted to spend some time talking about them here.
Many reviews have described this book as deeply philosophical, and that is definitely true. It is rife with discussions of capitalism, morality, oppression, and determinism vs. choice. The main character, Jespar, largely believes that people act however they do because it preserves their sense of self-identity and cognitive dissonance keeps them from examining alternatives. For example, Oonai needed to believe in the capitalist, individualist bootstraps narrative. Jespar’s fatalism itself is another example of this because of how mired he feels in his own issues. The character Lissja argues against his determinism at first, but her ultimate conclusion at the end of the book is an extension of Jespar’s theory: we don’t really have a choice in what we do, but we have to believe that we do because the alternative is so incredibly difficult to live with.
One of the things I wish Lietzau had explored more is the relationship between determinism and a sense of fatalism about suffering and oppression. Given that a large part of the book is about a revolution of the masses, I’m still not quite sure how this fits in with a philosophy of determinism. Doesn’t the idea that we have no real control over our lives and choices fit somewhat strangely with the ways that we see the colonized proletariat in this book successfully resist the status quo and fight back? Or, perhaps, is the idea that oppression and resistance follow each other in a predetermined cycle? This is touched on a bit when Lissa argues back against Jespar’s determinism, but I would have liked to have seen more of it.
I don’t know how true this is of philosophy in general, but some of Jespar’s arguments just feel so out of touch and needlessly granular to me - for example, he says that unless you have no money or spend it all on charity, everyone puts people’s needs above their own to some extent. Therefore a merchant who buys his wife a dress could be considered no more evil than a capitalist “Great Dreamer” who ruthlessly exploits and kills people to attain his power and wealth. Call me dumb, but to me they clearly are not the same????
I am also unsure how this fits with another statement of his, which is that only the net results of good and bad we achieve in our lives matter and the argument against violent resistance that “answering injustice with injustice will never be right.” If the achievement of the revolution is a society that moves forward free of its previous oppression, wouldn’t that be considered a positive net result, or is it canceled out by the bloodshed that accomplished it? It seems that Jespar’s argument is that the good would not cancel out the bad - but then wouldn’t the Great Dreamer’s net result of living a rich, happy life while killing and exploiting people for his own gain make his actions morally worse than the merchant buying his wife a dress?
Again, I only brushed up against these kinds of conversations the slightest bit in some undergrad seminars, so maybe the problem is me failing to truly understand the arguments at play here. As it stands though, the philosophy in this book largely left me feeling annoyed and frustrated, both because of the arguments as I understood them and the ways that they seemed to be incongruous even coming from the same character. I think another big problem is that these topics are largely explored via characters having long debates with each other, often at strange times such as while they are lost in an alley. (I probably only noticed this because it’s a flaw that is definitely also present in my own writing).
The other major part of this book is Jespar’s struggle with trauma, depression and suicidality. The author’s note makes it clear that this exploration comes from his personal journey and I have a great deal of respect for that experience and intention. The execution, however, feels somewhat unsuccessful to me. Jespar’s cycles of spiraling and nightmares got extremely tedious and I say that as someone who is currently doing this Trauma in SFF reading project. My basic argument is one that I see come up often when people discuss the depiction of mental health in Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives: yes, the experience of having mental illness is repetitive and frustrating and painful, but that doesn’t mean that the experience of reading about it has to be too.
It was to me here, particularly because Jespar has the same dream about the Corpse in the swamp over and over again. I do think it’s excellent thinking on Lietzau’s part to have his nosedive and rock bottom moment come at the end of the book after the intense trials of the plot are over - this makes a ton of sense because Jespar just had to push on in crisis mode until finally getting a chance for everything to hit him all at once. I think this is something that other authors could incorporate to great effect. But the problem is that the reader ticks through the final percentages of the book watching the character drink and wallow and make terrible decisions, wondering if there is going to be any kind of resolution. For me, at least, the resolution that does happen is not satisfying because it is so sudden. Jespar has a sudden breakthrough at the very end of the book and then sails off into the sunset with Lissja, who randomly happens to be on the same boat as him. Again, I do like that Lietzau did something unconventional with the main character’s arc but I think less repetition and more space for resolution would have made it more impactful. I've seen plenty of reviews talking about how impactful this book was for readers with mental health issues, so of course YMMV!
There’s also a lot of rape in this book, handled somewhat strangely to me. On more than one occasion Jespar just walks past women while they are being assaulted, and when he walked in on his soldier friend raping a girl in his backstory, he attacked his friend and then left the house with his friend and the girl still inside. I don’t think it requires a lot of insight to extrapolate what would happen after he left the house. I would actually be fine reading a story about a man who wasn’t able to intervene effectively in these assaults, and I feel like that could even be incorporated in the general morass of his regret and self-loathing. But the strange thing is that Lietzau just doesn’t really do that?? Jespar is traumatized by what happens with his friend, but the general message he beats himself up with is that he brings bad luck and suffering wherever he goes. There are no thoughts about what happens to any of these women after Jespar leaves, no moments of him truly being conflicted by his lack of effective intervention in a meaningful way or anything like that. It felt strange and fridge-y to me, and an extremely tasteless rape joke hinging on Jespar’s alcoholism further soured my feelings about how the topic was handled and how prominent it was in the story.
A couple of random scattered thoughts about other things that didn’t work for me - many characters speak in a hackneyed lower-class accent that is spelled out in vernacular, which I never really like. Also, there are a surprising and (to me) excessive number of references to scaphism or threats to have characters killed with scaphism. By the end I wasn’t grossed out by the descriptions anymore, just puzzled as to why there were so many of them.
There was a lot here that did not work for me, but I mentioned earlier that a number of the books main elements did feel stronger to me. The sticking points that bothered me might not be as consequential to other readers, and there is a lot that makes this book a unique and powerful read. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next book while hoping that some of those rough edges get smoothed down…and maybe I’ll go back to Enderal and try not to die again.