Soon after the death of his wife, Carolyn, Ralph Roberts starts to wake up earlier in the morning. And earlier. And earlier. Eventually, he is waking in the early hours of the morning after little more than a few hours sleep. He tries all sorts of remedies for his problem, but as his perceptions of the world around him start to alter, he slowly becomes aware that tiredness is not the only problem he has to contend with. There are powerful forces at work in Ralph's life; he can fight their influence, but should he?

My Thoughts

Another epic from Stephen King - once again he presents a view of a world behind our own, perhaps a new perspective on the concept of 'God'. Definitely not planted in the 'horror' genre these days, but more of a fantasy (in fact, the occasional reference is made to Stephen's Dark Tower books, the atmosphere of which Insomnia closely resembles). As an aside, I am looking forward to the completion of the Dark Tower series, at which point I shall re-read the first three, and then the rest!

As in a lot of Mr. King's more recent writings, our reality is being threatened by an unseen menace (in this case, the author uses ancient Greek mythology to put some of the supernatural characters in perspective), and it is up to a small group of 'ordinary' people to put things right. Stephen's recent style strikes me as being similar to that of Clive Barker's Weaveworld and Great and Secret Show, in that a plausible 'parallel reality' is presented to the reader in such a way that it is not easily contradicted, and this easy suspension of disbelief means the reader is immersed in the plot almost immediately.

As usual, I enjoyed the book immensely, and would recommend it to Science Fiction/Fantasy addicts as well as the usual Stephen King aficionados.