Equal parts social commentary and science just beyond our reach, the novel was like a trip through someone else's hangover in the best way.

What wouldn’t a person do to fit a few extra hours into the day if the only tradeoff for those hours was sleep? And especially if after what can almost be compared to a more localized lobotomy, there were relatively few health risks to giving up that sleep? It might be the cynic in me, but the fact so many people make that choice in Circadian Algorithms doesn’t seem all that far-fetched. And author Tom B. Night only uses that premise to launch one of the craziest vehicles I’ve ridden on in a while.

Set just before the pandemic hit, the science behind the ‘modified Huxley procedure’ seems just plausible enough that it grounds a novel that can sometimes feel like a drug trip. I don’t want to say more for risk of spoiling exactly why it feels that way, but the closest thing I think I’ve read is probably Catch 22. The story flips back and forth between two points of view, a married couple going through hard times. Both Madeline and Darwin have very distinct and strong character voices. And though I didn’t like Madeline at first, she grew on me as the novel goes on.

There are a few things I didn’t quite enjoy about the novel though. And one is that it pulls one of my least favorite tricks at the very start. I am personally not a fan of prologues, even less so of ones that flash forward to a point further into the story. From that point to whenever we finally catch back up as readers, it’s essentially one giant flashback. For this novel, that catch-up point happens roughly two-thirds of the way through. That’s a huge chunk of story to read through to end up right where we are at the start. Still on the stylistic side of things, having both POV characters be unreliable narrators for such large portions and at the same time, sometimes made understanding what was going on rather hard. On the content side, I wanted to see the antagonists of the story fleshed out a bit more. Both motivations and means didn’t entirely ring true which made the force Madeline and Darwin are up against feel less multi-dimensional than they could have.

I do still highly recommend Circadian Algorithms to readers who enjoy fiction about technology that can go a little haywire. Or the extraordinary lengths people will reach to achieve their goals. I also caution that there was a bit more gore described in some scenes than I had expected from a novel with only a mildly explicit warning.

Circadian Algorithms is available to buy on Amazon or you can learn more about the author here.

Verdict:

READABLE