When the Sleeper Awakes
1899
- fiction
- twenty-first century
- technological innovations
- time travel
- science fiction
- literature
- classic literature
- british and irish fiction (fictional works by one author)
- fiction, fantasy, general
- fiction, science fiction, general
The story
A troubled insomniac in 1890s England falls suddenly into a sleep-like trance, from which he does not awake for over two hundred years. During his centuries of slumber, however, investments are made that make him the richest and most powerful man on Earth. But when he comes out of his trance he is horrified to discover that the money accumulated in his name is being used to maintain a hierarchal society in which most are poor, and more than a third of all people are enslaved. Oppressed and uneducated, the masses cling desperately to one dream – that the sleeper will awake, and lead them all to freedom.
What it’s like
Wells's prose here is brisk, wry and urbane, with the easy Edwardian-era confidence of a narrator who enjoys describing marvels: vast gleaming towers, moving pavements, airborne machines drifting over crowded streets, all rendered in crisp declarative sentences rather than lush description. The sensory world is one of contrast, bright technological spectacle set against dim, smoky, dusty underground places where the poor live in noise and heat, so the reading feels like a slow tour from dazzle to unease. Its vibe is brisk melancholy with a sardonic edge, best suited to a rainy afternoon or a late-night read when you want ideas to carry you rather than atmosphere to sink into. The pacing is episodic and discursive, with long passages of observation and argument punctuating brief scenes of chase and confrontation. Emotionally it stays cool and somewhat detached, following a bewildered man who moves from bemused isolation toward reluctant public responsibility. Violence is occasional and mostly off-page, with some crowd unrest and a few grim, sudden deaths; there is no sexual content and nothing graphic. It suits readers who enjoy classic speculative fiction, social critique and the pleasures of an older voice thinking aloud.
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