A Review of Waking Nightmares (Tales from the Dream Nebula #3)
Quirky pulp science fiction at its best!
Hail, fellow readers! Before I get into this review, I would like to give a small disclaimer: this is my first experience reading Tales from the Dream Nebula. For those who are curious about the series, I highly encourage you to check out the earlier novellas. What I’ll be looking at today is the third book in the saga. Don’t worry, however! I shall try and keep spoilers to a minimum.
Alright, on to the review proper. Waking Nightmares is the latest entry in Tales from the Dream Nebula, a series of sci-fi pulps written by M.D. Boncher. Until just recently, I was vaguely aware of the author and his written works. And being an avid fan of pulp literature, myself, I was curious to see what his writing could bring to the table.
Needless to say, my expectations were blown out of the water.
The book kicks off by following our two main heroes, space-trucker Winston and mechoid Billy Joe, respectively. Following up from the previous novel, both are taking a well-earned respite on the planetary fragment(s) of Paula’Lolo. Yet it isn’t long until they’re summoned by professors Amanda and Quentin, the former being stern and level-headed whilst the latter is simultaneously brilliant and naive.
This is only the beginning of a more exotic mystery, however, as Professor Quentin invites both of them to his research library housed on a nearby island, one that’s complete with an entire theme park for good measure. Here we learn that the man in question has been receiving some rather strange gifts as of late, and that the packages have been confined to a small blast chamber so that they can either be safely opened or incinerated.
Now without going any further into potential spoilers, let’s just say that things take a rather strange turn for the worse. Here we end up building from relatively low stakes to threats that could potentially overtake the entire planet.
As you might have imagined by now, Waking Nightmares is not your typical sci-fi. At least, not in a stylistic sense. In fact, it has a lot more to share with classic adventure pulps than anything penned within the last few decades. All of this feeds directly into the narrative, with a good amount of thrilling action and snark to boot.
Overall, I would have to say I really enjoyed the pacing and tone. Winston is shown to be quite likable as our main protagonist, and Billy Joe adds just the right amount of sardonic humor to keep even the darkest moments from being too dreadful.
Later on, we also encounter the space pirate Holly, a femme fatale who, if we were to put this in gaming terms, put all her points into Charisma and got a few perks on top of that. She’s imposing, seductive, and has a pair of knockers which I’m convinced could squash a watermelon into chunky bits.
Jokes aside, I genuinely enjoyed her interaction with the team, and her sinister motives make for a great source of conflict between our heroes.
Along with some great character-work, the Dream Nebula itself is teeming with life and a bevy of fun little oddities. The worldbuilding leans heavily into the concept of dreams (an idea which this reviewer thoroughly enjoys, himself). Only in this world, limbic manipulators can enhance or detract from a person’s features, mechoids (or this setting’s variation on robots) are rebuilt by a special nanosand compound, and DNA itself can be codified into organic computer viruses.
All of these ideas add a nice variety to what is really a simple setup. Factor in on top of that the weird and outlandish designs for aliens, and you’ve got yourself one hell of an entertaining story!
Now it’s time for me to indulge in the book’s flaws. Thankfully, I only found a small handful during my time reading, which was quite a delight considering how short the narrative is. First of all, I think the climactic battle was a lot of fun, yet the finale proved just a tad underwhelming for my personal taste. If it wasn’t for an abrupt fade-to-black transition at one key moment, then I think the scene would have worked perfectly fine.
The scientist Amanda also gets some fun moments in the spotlight; however, I wish just a little more was done with her. As a side character, I think she fits nicely into what’s here, but I would have liked a little more of the scenes that focus on her scientific discoveries, not to mention some of the more interesting worldbuilding she gets to deal with.
Last but not least, coming in as a new reader to this series, it was a little difficult for me to get a feel for Winston as a character, at least later on once we’re revealed certain plot details (no spoilers). I feel like a little more exposition on who he is upfront could have gone a long way towards fixing this particular flaw. But then again, this might be me nitpicking when the vast majority of readers will likely have no problem at all here.
Which really does sum up my feelings on this review: all of my gripes are just nitpicks. Nitpicks to a plot that’s both exciting and fast-paced, gory and bodacious. I finished the book in under two sittings, myself, and I must say that I adored my time with it from beginning to end.
In short, it’s a must-read!
If you would like to learn more about Waking Nightmares or Tales from the Dream Nebula, you can find them both on Amazon. M.D. Boncher also has his own website, Facebook page, Minds, and Discord server, where you can check out his latest projects.
>mfw that lady on the cover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyDZPNpCFek