Review: Interesting, yet complex, plot with numerous dream sequences and a ridiculously named antagonist
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 1, 2013
This is a very busy horror story. There's this place known as The Dreaming Field and messengers walk this area for eternity. One of them likes to play bully with those pitiful humans on the reality side. The story covers a time period spanning three centuries, although the bulk of the story is from the 1970s forward, and contains multiple important characters (a senator, an artist, an important child, a pregnant woman and a despicable antagonist). There is also a curious and somewhat puzzling biothreat story arc. As can be expected from the title, many dream sequences--some of which kind of blend together--were confusing at times. Toward the end of the book, I was sometimes unsure when I was in the dreaming field or reality.I couldn't help snickering more than a few times over the antagonist with the name Snatch. I mean, really, *Snatch*? LOL! Maybe juvenile but that character name doesn't fill me with nightmarish dread. Catastrophically bad naming aside, the evil side of this character is drawn skillfully. I found myself wanting to read more scenes with Snatch (no laughing now!). Seriously, not much on the redemption side for Snatch, leaving the bad guy a bit too bad guy.It takes one heckuva writer to pull off this many different plots and somehow make it fit in under 5,000 Kindle locations. I've seen less happen in stories two times this length. Still, the writing is fairly strong. In some scenes I felt right there (the beginning and the ending are especially well done) and kept me captivated.  The main problem I have is with execution of the overall plot complexity; it read like some good stuff was rushed and perhaps entire scenes (or groups of scenes) that would have fleshed out more plot threads better were left on the cutting room floor. The story trying to be told could have been improved by more words (and it's rare that I will ever say that about any story), or perhaps better, removing or simplifying a couple subplot threads. 4,986 Kindle locations. 3.25 stars. Not recommended.