(Spoilers herein)
I really enjoyed The Sleepless. The lore lit up my brain in a really fun way, and I think the unreliable narrator really worked for this story. It would feel like a very thinly veiled allegory for AI, if not for the fact that it was published in 2022. It's really just a very pointed commentary on capitalist society, such that of course the next big awful tech thing would line up so well with the story because this is just how things work.
"Oh Jamie, you're so naive," he said. "This is how we already live."
I think it did a good job of unraveling the perspective of someone who bought into really harmful tech, convincing himself he was being smart and informed about it, and then being met with horror as he realized the impact it was having on his brain and his ability to live the life that he wanted. On top of realizing that he had been aligned with extremist groups and powerful bigots. It was really gratifying to see him acknowledge that he bought in because he wanted to, when I've had to hear "we just had no way of knowing" so much from former Musk fanboys who can't admit they ignored the signs that he was awful.
I also just really appreciated that the ending took its time. I feel like a lot of modern SFF I've read has a tendency to try and wrap things up really quickly, which tends to not work well when your characters are trying to establish an ~imperfect but improved~ version of society. But The Sleepless isn't focused on a neat-and-tidy feel-good ending, and that's what makes it so satisfying. Like Jamie goes to prison at the end, which is something so many books go out of their way to avoid happening to someone who's done everything he can to save the world. But he's a brown journalist and he was going up against billionaires, and I think the ending aligned with the story that was being told.
It feels kind of dumb to be like "this reads like a book where the author knew how to end the story" but I've just gotten to the point of accepting that most stories won't stick the landing, and that's fine. So it was just really nice that The Sleepless actually sat with its ending and let it breathe.
Oh yeah also that homoerotic tension between Jamie and Lochner did not slip my notice. Like why was that more tension than with any of the men Jamie actually slept with. And why did it seem like he was having poly feelings for Sid and Slimane at the end. If anything, I wish there had been more of these things.
Anyways, let The Sleepless be your daily reminder to divorce your life from the cloud.
