Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory

Yaroslav Barsukov
Completed 3/22/2025 Reviewed 3/22/2025
3 Stars

I’ve started reading the 2024 Nebula nominees and this is the first of the bunch.  It’s a beautifully written novel with lovely prose.  It’s an expansion of a novella previously written by the author.  I had not read the novella so I had no preconceptions about the plot.  The plot is interesting, reminiscent of the arms buildup and one-upmanship between the East and West during and after the Cold War.  One of the antagonists is clearly a stand-in for Putin.  Though not exactly reflective of the international chaos of this specific moment in time, it is still a lesson in authoritarian rule and misinformation.  Unfortunately, I found the book to be less engrossing than many other reviewers on the internet.  My attention varied throughout my reading despite having good, long, uninterrupted concentration on the book.  

Shea Ashcroft was a minister in his own country until exiled for not following the queen’s orders to gas an unruly mob, which Shea’s conscience wouldn’t allow.  He’s sent to a neighboring duchy to oversee the construction of a tower that is both a show of national ego and force.  When he arrives, it is already over a thousand feet high, with more to build.  It is being kept up by devices invented long ago by an immigrant race from another dimension.  However, the details of the devices have been lost.  All they know is that it has anti-gravity properties, allowing for easier construction.  Lena, a woman from the court of the duke, believes that the completion of the tower will bring forth the appearance of a Mimic Tower which will signal the apocalypse.  In the meantime, a neighboring kingdom run by despotic prince in the absence of his father is also building a rival tower.  Shea finds out the truth behind the towers and the other dimension and vows to stop this mad, ego-driven arms race.  

The characterization was pretty good.  Barsukov brings out the tortured past of the main characters, including Shea, in bits and pieces to explain motivation and give them depth.  One thing I didn’t like was that Shea had a sister named Lena whom he often reflected upon.  I found it an interesting parallel to his relationship with the other Lena, but ultimately confusing.  His affair with the other Lena muddled the distinction between the two as he remembered scenes from his childhood.  

Most of the other characters were interesting in various ways.  The dowager queen who was being secretly drugged by her son’s doctors was very well done.  Her meanderings between lucidity and fantasy were tough to follow, but well written.  I felt the frustration of Shea as he tried to coax the truth about her son from her.  At first, I didn’t like the fact that both the prince and the queen’s dog were both named Rudi, but it illustrated her mental state and the frustration in Shea’s search for the truth.  I also liked Brielle, the tower’s architect.  She was very believable with her self-doubts and their historical context.

I was disappointed in the other dimension.  I could only conjure cartoonish images of the giant baby chasing Brielle and Shea and its King Kong-like climbing of the Mimic tower.  I also felt it wasn’t explained well how and why the immigrants from that dimension left it, with only a giant baby remaining.  On the other hand, the treatment of the immigrants by both kingdoms was devastating and similar to the plight of immigrants in our own world.  

In writing this review, I realize that this is one of those where the parts were greater than the whole.  The writing is terrific, which is a hallmark of Nebula nominees.  The world building is meticulous.  The characters have depth and motivation.  The politics of the courts were intense, but did not alienate me.  But ultimately, I felt less than satisfied when I finished the book.  Something was missing, which I can’t readily identify.  Hence, I gave this book three stars out of five rather than the four stars I toyed with throughout my reading.  I would probably read more by Barsukov because his work is very readable and his ideas are pretty original.