CIRCADIAN ALGORITHMS

In Night’s SF novel, an experimental surgery affecting sleep requirements turns a woman’s waking life into a nightmare.

It’s 2019, and Madeline Johnston has had trouble sleeping ever since she took up the reins as CEO at a tech startup. Her frequent business trips across the Pacific Ocean have thrown off her circadian rhythms, even when she stays at Stasis Hotels, her preferred chain. She’s so desperate to feel rested that she travels to Bangkok to undergo an operation that’s not yet legal in the United States. It’s called the “modified Huxley procedure,” and the point of the surgery is to decrease the amount of sleep the body needs each night. However, the doctor warns her that it may affect her dreams: “They will likely become more vivid, but also more fantastical, like fever dreams. You may also experience a higher prevalence of lucid dreams. It’s important to keep a record in the unlikely event of adverse side effects...” Meanwhile, Madeline’s husband, Darwin Johnston, is back in San Francisco raising the couple’s two young daughters. As Madeline’s post-procedure behavior turns erratic, it’s up to Darwin, a former neuroscientist, to figure out just what’s going on. Things start to look more dire after other patients who underwent the surgery are found dead by suicide. The book’s premise is gripping from the start, but it’s the strength of Night’s writing that truly sells this appealing near-future world of high-tech hotels and dream-enhancing surgeries. The prose is urgent and sharp, as when he describes Darwin’s attempt to reconstruct the events of a crazy night: “Various jumbled scenes from the prior evening flashed through his mind, like someone cut up a film reel into different sized pieces, discarded half, and reassembled the rest in random order.” Although Darwin comes off as overly earnest (and thus slightly annoying) at times, Madeline and the supporting characters are intriguing enough to keep readers invested. The author ably keeps things grounded in a recognizable, real world even as the waking and dream realities begin to mingle and interact.

A highly imaginative and engrossing cyberthriller.