Dream Stalkers
Shadow Watch #2
By Tim Waggoner
ISBN#978-0857663726
Author’s Website: http://www.timwaggoner.com/
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar
Summary:
A new drug – Shut-Eye – has been developed in the dreamland, and smuggled into our world. It’s addictive, and dangerous, and Shadow Watch agents Audra and Mr. Jinx are on the case, preparing new recruits to deal with the problem.
Meanwhile, a wave of ancient, bodiless Incubi are entering the dreams of humans in an attempt to possess them and live new lives. Only the criminally insane would ever risk a confrontation with them.
Thank goodness, then, for Mr. Jinx: clown, Shadow Watch agent, psychopath.
Review:
It all started with a dream… well, a nightmare.
Have you ever had a nightmare that is so scary that it wakes you up, and then you are grateful that it was all a dream? Well in Dream Stalkers, you might just not be so lucky. In the world of the Shadow Watch series created by author Tim Waggoner, there is an energy flowing through the universe called the Maelstrom. When a person is more in sync with this energy than others are and have a deep fear of something; the nightmare that they often dreamed can come to exist in this world.
This is the case for Audra Hawthorne. When she was in her teens she dreamed of Jinx, a psychotic clown that haunted her dreams. People that dream their nightmares into existence are called Ideators and their nightmares, now real are called Incubi. After Audra got back on track leaving her life of doing drugs to try to fall asleep because Ideators once they have created a nightmare can never fall asleep, she now has been a Night Watcher officer for some years with their Incubus partner Jinx.
In this new story, Audra and Jinx have to take down a new drug operation called Shut-Eye that is said to make both Ideator and Incubus fall asleep but everybody that has taking it has either died or gone crazy. But things are not going well for the two of them. Their trainees are badly hurt on duty and they are now suffering from what is called “Blending”, a sickness that is as the word says, blending their minds. And the worse thing is that Audra is noticing that somethings are disappearing and people are forgetting them.
I liked the concept of the story, of someone’s nightmare coming to life and that there is someone dreaming it into reality. Author Tim Waggoner combined this religious idea of a cult and how nightmares come to existence very well in Dream Stalkers. At first, when reading the book it might look like the story is going in different direction, but as the story progresses you will see how everything is connected.
Dream Stalkers is the second book of the Shadow Watch series, and I recommend you read the first one, Night Terrors. The book cites some events from the previous book and if you haven’t read it, it might be a bit confusing. The story of this book is easily to follow.
The characters and the story are very sarcastic. If you find these kind of story not of your liking, I recommend you to skip this one. But if you do like sarcastic characters and lines, this might be the book for you, just like Audra and Jinx. Jinx lines, to which if you pay attention, they make reference to several things of different pop cultures.
…Jinx reached into his inner pocket and removed a lily. He knelt down and gently placed it on the floor. He stood and then bowed his head. “Domo arigato, Senor Lagarto….”
…Russell’s eyes narrowed when he heard Mendez speak, but otherwise he kept his expression neutral. Smart boy. Jealousy is so unattractive…
Some parts of the story I felt that didn’t fit, but I have the feeling that maybe Waggoner is giving the reader some clues for what the next book is going to be about.
If you like clowns, nightmares, to read about dreams, and the meaning of life; then I recommend you to read Dream Stalker by Tim Waggoner, where you will meet Audra and Jinx, see Nod where all nightmares live, learn how the Maelstrom works, and even a little of romance in the story.
