A review by stromberg
Cascade (The Sleep of Reason, #1) by Rachel A. Rosen

adventurous dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

(Disclosure: I received a free advance review copy of Cascade in exchange for an honest review.)

Imagine having the magical ability to foresee the future, but foreseeing that, in all possible timelines and regardless of any choices made, a world-spanning catastrophe is fated to occur. Even if you had that ability, would it make you so different from all of us, in our time? 

After all, we also see a climate catastrophe looming, perhaps mitigatable but no longer avoidable. Humanity’s ecological depredations, sadly familiar in our own reality, have in the world of Cascade awakened long-dormant magic within the earth, a destructive power of Lovecraftian indifference to the humanity it is annihilating.

Some humans are affected by this magic and capable of using or controlling it; others fear this new power and the way those who wield it arrogate authority to decide the fates of many. What we fear, we seek to destroy. Even in a slow armageddon, humanity remains pettily human, so this eco-spec-fic is in large part political, dwelling on a secretive wizard who works within the Canadian government to effect needed changes, and on other political actors who oppose him, struggling against their own powerlessness before limitless incomprehensible magic.

That powerlessness, in the novel, is analogous to our own powerlessness against political currents and the top people in our world’s varied hierarchies. We too face the prospect of eco-disaster—of which the mystery of magic, the unfathomable power of the natural world, is a clear cognate—and this disaster is caused and furthered by political paralysis, of unnamed masses going to their graves in service of somebody’s reelection campaign. In the end, what stops humans from saving the world? Other humans.

As the crisis worsens in Cascade, the human instinct to impose one’s will on others, immediately taking advantage of any crisis for petty power (because, in the face of apocalypse, all power is petty) informs how the powerful exploit public fear, scarcity, and instability to indulge longtime axes-to-grind. Once the cataclysm is inevitable, the story shifts to human relationships that had earlier been crowded out in the complexities of politics, establishing what these characters stand to lose. The novelist’s delay in emphasizing relationships mirrors how many of us might turn our focus too late onto what matters once futility is undeniable. The novel challenges us to consider human limits: our inability to live by our ideals, our failure to be who we must. Is humanity its own greatest enemy? Humanity, in the form of those closest to us, is also the thing we love enough to fight for. This love and fight often drive our worst behavior—which brings us back to being our own worst enemy. The novel shows these dynamics in characters across the political landscape, from prime ministers and media tycoons to activists and anarchists.

The narrative voice is often one of ironic levity, until it swerves into dead serious tension. Many of the characters are outsize, their passions large, and the author demonstrates willingness to delve into multiple characters at different points along the opinion spectrum. Eventually there is great emotional heft in their experiences of loss. If I have one complaint, it is that (perhaps to avoid the common speculative-fiction indulgence of exhaustively explaining its world to the reader) there is an unfortunate tendency to treat new information as though it is known, sometimes leaving this reader unsure of the setting or situation in a given scene. (A note: the novel is apparently part of the “Night Beats” extended universe, but I had no trouble following things despite knowing nothing else about “Night Beats”.)

Cascade is a novel driven by an inner moral urgency, political without being superficially polemical, ultimately moving and inspirational of sober consideration of real perils our own world faces.