Unique and absorbing science fiction thriller.

When the global pandemic struck in 2033, the panic and confusion it created started a massive world shift. The condition did not actively kill -- it produced sleeplessness. Since no one understood where it came from or the vector or the mode of transmission, those affected were hauled to quarantine as scientists scrambled for answers. Things settled down in the ensuing decade, but Jamie Vega is a bit envious of those who are now sleepless. They have a lot more time in their lives to work, to pursue all sorts of hobbies or talents. The lure of becoming sleepless makes Jamie do something really daring.

Jamie is now finally sleepless and working as a journalist for a huge media company in the midst of a corporate takeover. He's living his best life and doing hard core investigative journalism when he finds his mentor, Simon Parrish, dead in the office right before a big board vote. Not believing in the line that this was a suicide, Jamie gets caught up in something that changes everything he believed about hyperinsomnia and has to face the consequences of how what he did was more than dangerous.

This was so much fun and I really enjoyed it. The character of Jamie is well-developed and certainly an unusual protagonist. I do not understand the emphasis in advertising the book about it being queer genre as that is such a small part of the narrative that it was inconsequential to any part of the story and certainly should need keep anyone from picking up this book to read. The science fiction part, the condition of hyperinsomnia or sleeplessness, was quite an interesting theme to explore with how all of those with it must consume so many resources and how they count time. It gave me lots to ponder and the plot, though a bit typical with good vs evil and someone being tasked to save the world, was entertaining. I liked the author's writing style and the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Erewhon Publishing for the e-book ARC to read, review, and recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Erewhon Books for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The Sleepless is a tale about a world plunged into chaos when a new pandemic causes a large portion of earth's population to develop hyperinsomnia.

Victor Manibo pens what I see as a very believable work of speculative fiction. Though the world is different than our present day, nothing in the setting of The Sleepless is wildly out of the realm of possibility (besides perhaps the sleeplessness itself). Things like technology, extremist ideologies, corrupt politicians, human responses to disasters, and the predatory nature of capitalism are all rooted in our reality today, making the underlying plot resonate much more deeply.

The plot does start a bit slowly, but I think that the exploration of the world and exposition through the protagonist's eyes adds color and thematic weight to the story as it progresses. It also forces greater connection to Jamie Vega as he struggles with the weight of reality as the book progresses.

If your wheelhouse is near future sci-fi, speculative fiction, journalism, or anything to do with gene editing technology, this one is worth picking up.

Crossposted to Goodreads at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4885823177

(Content warnings: Suicide, death, drug use, violence, grief)

I love a sci-fi book that takes a simple "what if?" scenario and then just RUNS with it like this. The Sleepless is a fun blend of near-future sci-fi, thriller, and mystery that reminded me a bit of Michael Crichton's technothrillers (but, yknow, more diverse and with less focus on the science and more on the characters).

The story's compelling and immersive from the beginning and only gets more exciting as the pace slowly picks up. It keeps you guessing till the end, and all the threads pull together into a satisfying conclusion (though I did feel like everything following the climax was a bit too drawn out, making the ending less punchy than it could've been). Jamie's a great, well-rounded protagonist - messy, unreliable, driven; I'm not sure if I'd call him likeable, but he's interesting as hell and and I love how his tireless persistence in finding the truth drives the story. Love the worldbuilding, too - not just all the Sleepless stuff, but also the technology like drones or VR, even details like the outrageous price of coffee - the 2040s world of The Sleepless feels like such a seamless, believable extension of our times. I found the exploration of the consequences of Sleeplessness under capitalism - how some people found it desirable not to have more time to learn or pursue hobbies or anything like that, but to *work* - particularly interesting (and painfully realistic).

Also, I wasn't expecting so much casual queer rep, so that was a pleasant surprise, and I really liked Jamie and Veronica's friendship - it's rare to see close, 100% platonic friendships between men and women in fiction like that.

Overall, if you enjoy multilayered, slowly unfolding thriller mysteries with a sci-fi flair, I definitely recommend this book :)

(Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!)

This book took me by surprise in that I loved how it blended several different genres together— the finished product is a stunningly queer sci-fi read, with added mystery & thriller elements. As someone who has been diagnosed with chronic insomnia, I found this story to be very interesting, especially in how it deals with and dissects tough subjects such as mental health & illness; grief & loss; and, in a more general sense, how we, as individuals, choose to process our emotions in ways that may only make sense to us. The pacing of this book also kept me thoroughly engaged throughout, and I really rooted for our main protagonist/narrator, even in spite of some of his more unlikeable (but still very human & realistic) traits. I’ll definitely be checking out more from this author in the future!

First: can you imagine never needing to sleep? That is wild, and such a cool premise for a story! It starts out as a virus of sorts that causes humans to not be able to/need to sleep. But... some folks decide that they could be more productive sans sleep, so they try to become sleepless. Such is the case with our friend Jamie, who no longer needs sleep, but also finds himself missing chunks of time.

This story is kind of two-in-one: You have the component of sleeplessness, which is obviously a big part of it. How the virus started, what the side effects are, the pharmaceutically-manufactured sleeplessness and whether it has side effects, how the various Powers That Be react to sleeplessness, how society itself views those who are Sleepless. But the second component is a mystery, a whodunit, if you will. When Jamie finds his boss and mentor dead, from what at first looks like a suicide, Jamie is not buying it. And eventually, neither do the police.

The mystery and the Sleepless are of course intertwined, and not only because Jamie himself is Sleepless. But he refuses to give up his quest for information on what may have led to the death of Simon, and along the way, he finds himself in the center of a whole world of messiness.

That is all I'll say about the plot. Because obviously this is the kind of book you want to read this stuff for yourself. Jamie has to come to terms with a lot of stuff from his past, as well as confront some of why he chose to become Sleepless in the first place. He also will uncover a lot of things that he never bargained for, and hopefully will solve the mystery along the way. The book is exciting and incredibly readable, as well as thought-provoking. I could not help but wonder what choices I would have made in Jamie's shoes.

Bottom Line: Thought-provoking and complete with an exciting mystery, this book has something for everyone.

This book kept me wanting more. I love the unique premise around this book. The author did a wonderful job at keeping me on the edge of my seat. Looking forward to share this.

I really enjoyed THE SLEEPLESS and so will you if you enjoy near-future cyber-noir. I've stayed away from books with pandemics recently (for obvious reasons, I'm sure), but the nature of the pandemic in THE SLEEPLESS made the book easier to read than the heavy-handed allegories that have been flooding the market in the past couple years. While I guessed the surprise twist before it happened, I still enjoyed witnessing the main character put all the pieces together. Also, representation is important and this book has a lot of it.

This wasn’t for me. I found the writing muddled and hard to follow. None of the characters drew me in. The plot was messy and uncomfortable to read about.

The year is 2043, and millions of people on earth cannot sleep. No, not because their faces are glued to their phones, or because they’re night owls: there is a disease running rampant throughout the world called Sleeplessness, where people have lost the need to sleep. Their bodies don’t need it, and to fill the long, literally endless days, people have been taking on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th shifts at work or picking up every habit and activity imaginable. While initially a cause for concern, being Sleepless is now seen as something positive, something that can not only boost the economy with the renewed workforce, but give people the time they need in their life to accomplish all that they’ve ever dreamed of. New York-based journalist Jamie Vega is Sleepless, although he did not come by the condition naturally. When his boss seemingly commits suicide in the office and it comes out that Jamie was the last person to see him alive, he finds out that he cannot remember what transpired that night. Searching for a way to clear his name, Jamie stumbles upon something that could potentially bring the world, both normal and Sleepless, to its knees.

I’m not typically drawn to sci-fi. I dabble, but I am by no means a connoisseur of the genre. But when I saw the synopsis for The Sleepless, I was instantly intrigued. You see: I’m a night owl. I usually go to bed around 3-4am, sometimes later, and don’t wake until around 12pm, again, sometimes later. It's 5am as I'm writing this! My sister, who, hilariously, was reading the book Why We Sleep while I was reading this one, never fails to let me know my sleep schedule is unhinged. The idea of Sleeplessness, a disease that could just take away my need to sleep, sounded just lovely to me. I’m also one of those people who never feels like they have enough hours in the day, so having 24 of them fully available to me? Heavenly. I felt this way until I actually read the book lol. Manibo has created a world in The Sleepless that sounds idyllic: high-tech everything that can help you fill all of those hours; jobs willing to pay more for Sleepless workers; apartments, restaurants, and clubs just for Sleepless. But there is a dark side. Some think Sleepless people have an unfair advantage. They think the Sleepless are unnatural. They think the Sleepless should be separated from regular society, and at the beginning of the Sleepless pandemic, they were quarantined—whole settlements popped up to house them. Sleepless supremacist groups and hate groups alike have sprouted, causing division. And then there have been rumors that being Sleepless is not all it’s cracked up to be. No, Sleeplessness is not as great as it sounds on the surface.

While reading, I was amazed at the sheer amount of plot and world-building that Manibo managed to fit into a book that only clocks in at a little over 300 pages. The pacing was just in that sweet spot between medium and fast, and it didn’t let up until the very end. I love it when a book can keep me engaged and intrigued the entire time! The only reason I docked off a star is because some of the plot beats felt a little too convenient, and some of the twists were a tad predictable. But what do I know? I don’t read a lot of mysteries or thrillers, either! Lol I may just have caught on because of the way that I read—closely and extremely critically, because often I am reading to review afterward. So take my opinions on the predictability with a grain of salt; the book is still fun and hard-hitting, with a phenomenal premise that gave exactly what it promised.

I may be reading too much into the book, but while reading, I kept getting the sneaking suspicion that Manibo was using Sleeplessness as a metaphor for marginalized identities. If so: I feel so smart for making the connection lol. Really! The commentary was so sharp and intelligent, and, if I’m correct, discussions by readers on the real-world correlations could be so fun to read. Sci-fi has always been the gift that keeps on giving in terms of examining the real world through a fictional lens, and I believe that Victor Manibo has crafted a book that will be discussed by lovers of the genre for years to come.

The Sleepless is a slow-paced and complex story, but also one of the most original science fiction books I've read in a long time. It feels completely rooted in the real world as it plays with the limits of technological and biological innovation, and it explores human nature in a way that infuses the story with emotion. This book is both a science fiction story and a crime thriller, and while I wished the first half had less exposition and more plot and/or character development, I really love this concept. 3.5/5 stars.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and my interview with Victor on my podcast. His interest and passion for the story came through both in the book and our discussion.

Jamie Vega is a believable character, particularly so as a person trying to figure out his own path as a sleepless person. The hurt he feels at the loss he's suffered also struck me as genuine. I didn't like everything about the character, but I liked it plenty.

The story, as it were, is a whodunit surrounding Jamie's boss and mentor. Initially ruled a suicide, then a murder, then a murder with Jamie as a suspect, the story here is good, intriguing, and motivated me throughout the story.

Good story, and I look forward to more from Victor Manibo.

I really enjoyed this thought provoking read! The technology in 2038 and all of the cultural shifts were endlessly fascinating. This book was really well done.

An intriguing premise and well executed The Sleepless takes us on a murder mystery journey to find a killer.

Jamie is a suspect in the murder of his boss and after undergoing an experimental he strives to uncover the truth and clear his name - all while sleeping. While the story starts off on the slower side, the world building and events are so believable it's unsettling. The characters are (mostly) ones to root for but decide for yourself!

4/𝟱

🌱THE EXCELLENT
~ Sleep pandemic
~ Good combination of characters
~ LGBTQIA+ representation
~ Messy & unreliable MC (if you like that)
~ Series of mysteries & shady corporations

Jamie is a man on the edge. After losing someone close to him post sleepless pandemic, his only true relationship seems to be with his job as an ‘investigative reporter’. However, when he finds his new fav person (his boss) dead, pieces of his life & his tragic choices are revealed bit by bit. His sleepless conversion, his friendships, his job & his memories, all become highly questionable as Jamie begins to investigate who killed his boss. Worst of all? He doesn’t have a good track record of maintaining his ‘cool’ in stressful situations & NOT being a reckless mess.

Cue police detectives, lawyers, youngsters, dealers, drugs, extremist groups, creepy CEOs & wide hints of madness & ‘losing it.’

✨𝗚𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱.

🌱THE MEH
~ This obsession ppl seem to hv with drugs! wtf?!
~ Jamie is a dumb impulsively reckless & plan-less mess 😬
~ Stereotypes?
~ An interesting read, but a tad meandering


♡🌱 𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗲 ;)

It’s my fault I didn’t particularly enjoy this one. I ignored the possibility that this was a political thriller (not my thing) and only read this for the soft sci-fi elements. Turns out this is a political thriller and therefore not my favorite. It was average in my opinion.

The Sleepless by Victor Manibo (sci-fi, murder mystery)

First of all! Thank you Erewhon Books, Victor Manibo, and NetGalley for my early digital copy of the book! Can’t express how excited I was when I saw that “Approved” e-mail. Thank you!
(My opinions are my own though)

I knew I wanted to read the book when I stumbled upon a blurb. Not-so-distant future. People start to become sleepless. Without visible consequences to their health, they stop sleeping and get additional hours to their rushing lives (my childhood dream! imagine the number of books we could consume, guys)).

The MC, Jamie Vega (a bisexual POC), is a journalist working for a big investigative news agency. He’s sleepless. He’s also the first to find the body of his boss in an empty office early in the morning. Soon Jamie realizes he misses all the memories of the night of the murder, and now he’s under investigation and should find out what is really happening.

The idea sounds amazing! We’re promised a sci-fi mystery and the author delivers. Advanced technology, themes like genetic and corporal modification vs mental health, dangers of capitalism and monopolization, corporate games, and planet preservation. We’ve also got a lot of action, a thorough investigation, clues, and revelations.

The writing style is straightforward. First-person POV makes us dependent on the MC’s thoughts and knowledge, which adds to the experience when it comes to plot twists. I can’t say they were revolutionary, but some of them were unexpected all right.

The only thing that I believe dulls the overall impression and could be served smoother is worldbuilding. It seems “bulky”. The real action starts at 30% of the book. Almost everything before that (and some moments after) is a straightforward explanation of how the world operates. People and corporations, politics, and economics are described in great detail. Too much raw information. It dampens the mood.

Otherwise, it’s a solid sci-fi work. If you like the genre you should definitely give it a go!

Trigger/Content warning: suicide, burnout, gun violence, beating, alcoholism, drug abuse

In the year 2043, the world has passed through a plague like any other, one that rendered a quarter of the population Sleepless. We follow Jamie Vega, a reporter, who didn’t develop hyperinsomnia via the illness. He got it by biohacking, and it leads to some serious problems. Like forgetting the details of what happened the night before he found his boss, Simon, dead. Mysteries and a global conspiracy unravel, with twists on twist on twist.

This sharp examination of the cost of non-stop productivity at a personal and a global level includes a personal character journey as Jamie tries to clear his own name and get to the truth of what really happened that night.

While getting back eight to ten hours of your day sounds awesome, Manibo quickly nips that awesomeness in the bud. From the introduction of Jamie’s Sleepless status, the affliction is exhausting as he has . In addition, there is an eye for the environmental costs of having a population who never rests, and the potential biases and crimes against the afflicted. It’s handled in a way that feels true

Jamie himself is a mess even without being Sleepless. Granted, there is a heavy bit of back story that, if suicide is a trigger for you, I recommend treading with caution. Even in the future, trauma is still complicated, and it makes sense why he would turn to biohacking. While the ones making those drugs are unequivocally the villains of this story, there logic is outlined in a way that makes sense until you consider the environmental impacts.

The examination of productivity and “the hustle” as a concept is also critiqued in a way that both fits with the narrative and contemporary society in real life. People take on multiple jobs and myriad hobbies only to fill the time, chasing fulfillment from external sources that have nothing to do with intrinsic needs. Jamie’s loneliness highlights this, especially when taken in the contrast with the community values held by his Filipino family. In addition, it’s relying on other people that gets him out of his binds with both the legal entanglements and finding a way to free himself from being Sleepless.

With a hopeful ending and a clever resolution, this is a science fiction mystery clearly written by someone with a love and reverence for both genres.

I genuinely really enjoyed the concept of this book. Its queer and has a main character who's likable, and I wish I was more into the actual writing style than I am, because when the plot is moving it's really well done. There's just a lot of side mini flashbacks in the story that took me out of trying to follow along. I kept forgetting that Jamie was there to try potentially figure out what happened to Simon. And I guess that's kind of the point, because the sleepless don't need sleep they have to fill their time with stuff to do and at times that's what it felt like the author was doing with the story, but it just made it hard for me to follow. I do think that there is an audience for this book.

I truly wanted to like "The Sleepless" better than I did. I love cyberpunk, which this is; I love noir, which this is; I love queer fiction, which this is. It's a cyberpunk noir murder mystery, with an Asian (Filipino) bisexual male protag who is a journalist and has to investigate a crime he's too close to. Like, that's gold.

There were parts I did still like quite a bit. The central mystery was genuinely very good! I'm usually fairly good at picking up the details of mysteries like this and have (in my own assessment) a pretty good rate of guessing what happened before it's revealed. But even if I picked out some people who correctly were involved, I didn't figure out what happened in this case. It's complicated, with plenty of well-set-up red herrings, and a solid conclusion that is completely based in data we were already given, which is ideal for a mystery.

However, I found myself not buying into so much of the premise. There's a lot I couldn't suspend disbelief on, and I'm going to mark it with spoiler tabs; skip to the next paragraph if you want but: <spoiler>I didn't believe the reason that Jamie was there in the office that night; it made no sense to me since he was due to go into the office the next day, why wouldn't he just go home and bring it in the next day? If the place was close, why not stop off there before the workday or on lunch when (spoiler) didn't pick up the phone? It didn't feel realistic to me. Second, the entire premise hinges around a supremacy group being willing to lose the status that gives them supremacy. That's just completely off how those groups tend to act. There were several other things -- something just didn't feel right about certain elements of those, but I could consciously suspend in those cases since they were situations that fit the cyberpunk setting.</spoiler>

Finally, I just.... didn't like Jamie very much, both in terms of a lot of the decisions he made and in terms of reading his POV. He exposits (or the author exposits through him) a LOT. Like... at one point early on I muttered aloud, "Jeez, he likes to talk." Every few pages you get a really lengthy infodump of worldbuilding instead of it being integrated. And I get this -- I'm given to an infodump myself -- but it was frequent enough that I couldn't stop noticing it. At one point, we get five straight (kindle) pages of exposition about synthetic coffee. I found it kind of tiring to read as a result.

Anyway -- I still did like it! This is a solid three star read for me. Other people might have an easier time in suspending disbelief over the parts that didn't work for me, and I hope so, because the parts that I liked, I liked enough that I wish they could stand on their own, and hope they do for other people. Likewise, if exposition isn't as distracting to you, I can easily see this being a five star read. So take this review for what it is and I hope you get to go forward and enjoy it as much as I'd wanted to.

THE SLEEPLESS is Victor Manibo’s debut novel, a smart noir mystery set in a near-future Manhattan where a segment of the population has lost the ability to sleep, through a pandemic of unknown origin.

Sometime in the 2030s the world experienced a pandemic, the main symptom of which is that people impacted no longer needed to sleep. At first panic spread around the world as lockdowns and testing of the Sleepless got underway. No one knew, or yet knows, how the pandemic spread, but over time up to a quarter of the world’s population came out as Sleepless.

Over time, as it seemed that the Sleepless suffered no other effects than the lack of need for sleep, panic and prejudice subsided, or at least went underground. Still, the Sleepless were different from the “normies”, able to work longer hours, make more money, buy more things. Some began to envy the Sleepless and wish they could become Sleepless themselves.

Now, in 2043 we find journalist Jaime Vega, a prodigy of Simon Parrish, founder of C+P Media, one of the leading news and investigative journalism firms of the day. Jaime has recently broken up with his girlfriend Hannah. She finds he’s been too distant, even forgetful. He’s deep into an investigative piece for his boss when the book starts, pulling an all-nighter to do research on the story. Which isn’t a problem for him, since he is Sleepless. Walking into the office the next day he discovers Simon dead at his desk, an apparent suicide. But something tells Jaime this is no suicide.

From that beginning Manibo peels back the layers. Chapter by chapter we learn more about Jaime and how he became Sleepless, about the Sleepless pandemic, about the pending corporate takeover of C+P, about Simon and what he was up to in his last days, about Elliott, Jaime’s Sleepless coworker, and about the extremist organizations and corporate interests pushing their own undercover Sleepless agendas. Things are not what they seem at first.

Manibo has built a wonderfully realistic near-future world, and his descriptions of it are well done. It’s filled with tablets that do holo projections, metaverse experiences delivered through visors and full body suits, strength enhancing exoskeletons called x-frames and other neat tech. The people in Jaime’s world are mostly single New Yorkers, young urban professionals who dabble in various drugs and diverse sexual couplings. It’s as if the world of MINORITY REPORT collided with the world of RUSSIAN DOLL, and it’s fascinating and a lot of fun to contemplate.

The story itself is a slow burn. Clues to the mystery at the heart of the story build in a satisfying way, but the pacing bogs down in the middle. And when the payoff finally comes it isn’t as clean or as satisfying as I’d hoped it would be.

Manibo is a queer Filipino immigrant living in New York and he’s populated the book with a set of diverse characters, starting with Jaime, a bisexual Filipino American. While I loved that aspect of the book, I was not so fond of the repeated drug use and references to “oxy”.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐