Sleepless (novel)

The novel was generally well received by critics, with The Scotsman describing it as a "traditional police procedural tucked into a stunningly original work of speculative fiction".[1] Strange Horizons welcomed the crime writer's first foray into speculative fiction, highlighting the novel's "coherent and exciting, familiar and wrongfooting" vision of a dystopic alternate present and Huston's "gift for dialogue and for moving the plot along", while noting that the seemingly desperate "grasping at coolness" of the setting and characters stretches plausibility.[2] Publishers Weekly appreciated Sleepless as a "brilliant mixture of sci-fi and noir crime",[3] while noting that "fans of Huston’s crime fiction may not be comfortable with a novel that itself resembles a role-playing game",[4] in reference to the massively multiplayer online role-playing game that links the novel's narrative strands.