Metropolis (Book of Dreams #1) by Brian Jackson

Metropolis (Book of Dreams #1) Reviews

• 
  Ozsaur

  Nicodemus Smith is a dream retrieval expert. She can enter the dreams of anyone and help them with their problems, wake them from a coma, or save them from the hazards that can be found in the Narcoscape. That's the name of our collective dreamscape.
  
  Nic is contacted by a man who is from a group that works with dreams, but comes at it from a completely different perspective. Guys like him think Nic is a kook at worst, or a fraud at best. He needs help, but he can't turn to his own people because they would think he's crazy.
  
  Nic agrees to help and ends up in way over her head. She's not an investigator, but she does her best to put the pieces together. She meets a cop that she eventually learns to trust.
  
  I really enjoyed the worldbuilding. Explanations of the dreamside, and how it works, was very interesting and nicely integrated into the narrative. No big infodumps. There was a lot of action, both in the Narcoscape and the waking world.
  
  The dangers that Nic faced were pretty cool. I was sitting on the edge of my seat wanting to know more about what was going on, and how everything linked together. There were a couple of side tracks, but they were interesting, and they didn't bore me. I was also happy with a couple of surprise twists. Once Nic figures out the bad guy, things didn't go any way that I expected.
  
  I also like Nic. She's a loner, and unlike most books with lone wolf characters, she doesn't suddenly change into a warm and fuzzy social butterfly. She stays a loner. She lets a few people get closer because they've earned her trust, but essentially, she remains a self contained person. Some people might not like this, but Nic shaped up to be a unique character for me.
  
  The ending didn't quite have the punch that I wanted, but it was good enough. I'll be reading the next book.
• 
  Carolyn G. Manuel

  An Absolutely Mind Blowing Universe.
  
  The Jackson’s have created a fantastic new world with unique characters and laws of being and existence. Nic Smith is a strong antihero and lone wolf in this world and the alternative dreamscape. This book of dreams and nightmares is a fantastic ride to an alternate reality. The chapter beginning quotations are awesome.
• 
  Fallon

  I stumbled upon this book a week or so ago and thought that the premise sounded interesting, I didn’t read any reviews, because well, so often they contain spoilers, so I didn’t really know what to expect. It starts off really interesting, a ‘fun ride’ and then it drags, building the world, characters, etc. After a while I thought it would be an overly verbose book, but then it got really good and a bit creepy (in a good way of course). Once we were past the building of everything and understanding the concept of the dreamside and wakeside the story doesn’t really slow down. I really enjoyed the concept of “The First Book of Dreams: Metropolis”. I hadn’t seen this particular type of dark fantasy before and it worked really well. The authors did a fantastic job in creating believable worlds and it wound up being a rather impressive read.
• 
  Milinkalap

  Got through the first couple chapters. Not really my thing but well written.
• 
  Wendi

  Very clever and creative.
• 
  Mike

  Promising premise, but the prose lacks liveliness and is intermittently infodumpy, and it's full of homonym errors. Got 76% of the way through the sample and decided against.