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Cerulean Dreams

by Dan O'Brien (Goodreads Author)

3.71 of 5 stars 3.71 · rating details · 14 ratings · 8 reviews

Orion, the last city of men. Deep within the desert, a secret lay waiting. Young women found dead in the street. A corporation that controls the sleep of a populace that never sees the light of day. Alexander Marlowe seeks to unravel the mysteries of Orion as he helps a young girl, Dana, flee the city. The closer they come to the truth, the greater the danger that hunts th...more

Paperback, 346 pages

Published November 21st 2011 by Create Space (first published March 11th 2011)

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Feb 21, 2012 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, advanced-readers-copy

**This book was received as a free advanced readers copy**

O'Brien has a very distinctive writing style. I hesitate to call it masculine, but I do feel that it may attract more of a masculine crowd. I'm not saying those who like a feminine tone won't like this book, just merely stating the ideas that flitted through my head as I read it. I thought the premise was interesting myself, but I just couldn't connect to the characters.

In a place called Orion, human beings are connected directly into the...more **This book was received as a free advanced readers copy**

O'Brien has a very distinctive writing style. I hesitate to call it masculine, but I do feel that it may attract more of a masculine crowd. I'm not saying those who like a feminine tone won't like this book, just merely stating the ideas that flitted through my head as I read it. I thought the premise was interesting myself, but I just couldn't connect to the characters.

In a place called Orion, human beings are connected directly into the system. A company called Cerulean Dreams has everybody on the grid, and they are seemingly content that way. And everybody stays in Orion because the desert outside wouldn't allow anyone to live, or so they've been told. So when Alexander, in his pursuit of finding a murderer who's been preying on young girls, comes across one of these girls and they have to flee the city for reasons that are somewhat unknown to them, he learns just how hard Cerulean Dreams wants to keep everybody in the dark. And if they make it out of the city, they have no idea what may lie in store for them.

Alexander was interesting to say the least. He was a strong character, and very convinced of his convictions. He was actually admirable in that way. But he has some strange tendencies too, which are in part brought on by his world and the events that happen to him. Dana, the girl, is kind of a strange character too. She starts off all knowing and quickly falls to the role of a damsel in distress. I think I would have preferred her to be one or the other consistently through the book. And the main bad guy was somewhat odd in his motivations too, although he made a very compelling threat.

The plot started out as sci-fi, drifted into philosophical and then returned to sci-fi. The problem was the ideas didn't mesh in a way that was cohesive and supportive of each other. I think that maybe letting it all be sci-fi and removing such elements as the creature "the Mimic" and other philosophical things would have made a smoother read. They were actually all really good ideas, but perhaps better suited to two different books. And the ending was a bit rushed and kind of threw a curve ball in with no real answers. I would have liked to have seen several different plot elements elaborated on more to support the ending. But I did like the writing, the dialogue was nicely done and the descriptions were crisp in tone.

Not a bad book. I think there are ideas that could be expanded on but any sci-fi person will probably like it.

Cerulean Dreams
Copyright 2011
345 pages

Review by M. Reynard 2012

More of my reviews can be found at www.ifithaswords.blogspot.com (less)

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Jan 11, 2013 Matt Schiariti rated it 2 of 5 stars

In the distant future, after what was known as the Water Wars, only one city is left standing: Orion. It’s a technological marvel, run by the Cerulean Dreams Corporation. There is no crime, there is no greed. The vast corporate entity that is Cerulean Dreams oversees the wellbeing of all Orion’s citizens through an advanced neural network. People want for nothing. They don’t even have to opt when to sleep. They’re told when to sleep. It sounds like utopia. But all is not what it seems.
Enter Marl...more In the distant future, after what was known as the Water Wars, only one city is left standing: Orion. It’s a technological marvel, run by the Cerulean Dreams Corporation. There is no crime, there is no greed. The vast corporate entity that is Cerulean Dreams oversees the wellbeing of all Orion’s citizens through an advanced neural network. People want for nothing. They don’t even have to opt when to sleep. They’re told when to sleep. It sounds like utopia. But all is not what it seems.
Enter Marlowe and Dana. Marlow is ex-military, ex-police. Young women have been going missing in Orion. Nobody wants to address the disappearances. Nobody wants to admit there’s a problem in the city without crime. When he digs further he’ll meet Dana, a young and enigmatic woman who’s frightened and on the run. She’s on the run from what she calls ‘The Lurking’ because she knows ‘The Truth’. Her plight becomes Marlowe’ as they attempt the breach the massive wall that surrounds Orion and leads to the vast, deadly desert beyond. The leader of Cerulean Dreams wants Dana back at all costs and enlists the services of a mysterious and cunning assassin named Armon. With the assassin hot on their heels, Marlowe and Dana will leave everything they know and brave the arid wastes. They’ll search for answers and they’ll find them. But what they find is beyond anything they could have imagined.
I wanted to like this book. I really wanted to like this book. As soon as I read the description, I wanted to dive right in. For a while, I was pleased with the story. As it opens up in Orion, we’re introduced to the city, its strange futuristic way of life and a shadowy corporation that runs it. The author hints at the bigger story but doesn’t give anything away, just placing little hints at the larger picture here and there. I thought I was in for a very good and wild ride…
And then they left the city. The latter two thirds of the book are primarily Marlowe and Dana traversing through the desert and what they encounter there. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s just very very slow. That, and it takes what’s set up to be a very fun and exciting science fiction novel and turns it into a quest in which very little happens. Is there a destination? Yes. Do they encounter people out in the barren wasteland? Yes. Is the assassin chasing them? Yes. It’s just a matter of pacing and setting. They leave the most interesting location in the story, Orion, very early on. That’s when I found the story getting bogged down.
Of course, characters are the heart of any good story, and I had issues with them as well. While I generally found the writing to be good overall, I found the characters to all read the same. Once they leave the city, everyone begins to talk more formerly, especially Marlowe. Their dialogue seems overly dramatic and, for lack of a better word, stiff. ‘I will not. You shall not, my friend. I cannot, shaman.’, etc. When everyone speaks that way, all the characters’ voices blend into one; no one character stands out from the rest. This is really a personal nitpick for me. When people don’t speak using contractions, it doesn’t sound natural to me. And when nobody does, it just exacerbates the issue.
I will say that the book is plotted pretty tightly. No glaring plot bugaboos or anything like that. But the climax and ending were a little ‘anticlimactic’.
At the end of the day, I was let down by this. I was completely psyched to read it but between the stilted dialogue, abandoning the coolest set piece of the book entirely too early, and a lackluster showdown/climax sequence, I’m afraid this one gest a low rating from me.
(less)

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Jan 04, 2013 Robert Day rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: competition

Alexander Marlowe embarks suddenly on a quest, complete with guns, swords, axes, girls, post-apolcalyptic landcapes, monsters and visions; not to mention a ruined city, a brand spanking new city, a tower, an unreasonably murdurous villain, a lost tribe and several walls of various type. What more could anyone want? Well, I wanted zombies, but that's another story (quite literally).

At first I thought the writing style to be clunky, but that's probably down to my expectations of how books should b...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Kathleen (Kat) Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, fantasy-adventure-fiction, young-adult-fiction, science-fiction-and-fantasy

About the Book:

Orion, the last city of men. Deep within the desert, a secret lay waiting. Young women found dead in the street. A corporation that controls the sleep of a populace that never sees the light of day. Alexander Marlowe seeks to unravel the mysteries of Orion as he helps a young girl, Dana, flee the city. The closer they come to the truth, the greater the danger that hunts them. Follow them as they search beyond the boundaries of everything they have ever known for answers.

BOOK REVIE...more About the Book:

Orion, the last city of men. Deep within the desert, a secret lay waiting. Young women found dead in the street. A corporation that controls the sleep of a populace that never sees the light of day. Alexander Marlowe seeks to unravel the mysteries of Orion as he helps a young girl, Dana, flee the city. The closer they come to the truth, the greater the danger that hunts them. Follow them as they search beyond the boundaries of everything they have ever known for answers.

BOOK REVIEW:

As a reader of his other novel "The Ocean and the Hourglass", I knew I would be in for another good surprise! What I found was a great plot with an amazing cast of characters.

Alexander Marlowe, an ex-cop who uses his visor that connects him to the existing network that runs the city and is worn by all, but he doesn't like it. Most of the surviving humans after the Water Rights War have all inhabited the city and it's a utopia society - or so they would have everyone think. All of the citizens of Orion use the visors as their main link to everything, but little do they know how much Cerulean Dreams controls them while their visors are on!

Alexander Marlowe is an investigator - used to be cop. He watches the news and knows that young blonde girls are disappearing but no one seems to care. He takes it upon himself to investigate what is happening which leads him to Dana, a woman who technically is off of the grid. She tells him the Lurking are coming to get her and she refuses to go. Marlowe's visor malfunctions and he soon finds himself a wanted man - wanted for the murder of the young girls who have disappeared. He now also sees through his visor manifestations of ghosts and other phenomena gliding around the rooms, buildings, and city streets. He knows that the government is behind another project called "The Lurking", and why he is a wanted man, but does not know how to uncover the corruption within the Cerulean Dreams project.

Dana urges Marlowe that they must leave Orion, the city but Marlowe believes they won't exist outside of its walls. All that is out there is desert but Dana beseeches him. If they stay, they die. If they go, they die, but she is sure that once the Truth is revealed, it will explain everything. If you want to find out what happens, then read Cerulean Dreams by Dan O'Brien and find out how it ends!

This book has a great storyline that somewhat reminds me of Blade Runner in a futuristic land of corrupt governmental politicians and technology that runs the world. I rate this book a 4 out of 5 stars for it's writing content is good, but sometimes I found myself a little confused within the story itself and had to go back a few times to see what I missed. Cerulean Dreams is still a great read for the Sci-Fi futuristic genre readers out there!

I received Cerulean Dreams compliments of the author for my honest opinion and must say I can't wait to read more by Dan. This is my second book and he definitely has a unique way to take his readers on an unexpected journey. (less)

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Mar 04, 2012 Wendy Hines rated it 4 of 5 stars

Alexander Marlowe uses the visor that connects him to the network that runs the city but he doesn't like it. Most of the surviving humans after the Water Rights War have all inhabited the city and it's a utopia society - or so they would have everyone think.

Marlowe is an investigator - used to be cop. He watches the news and knows that young blonde girls are disappearing but no one seems to care. He takes it upon himself to investigate and that leads him to Dana. She tells him the Lurking are co...more

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May 23, 2012 Oriana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

Cerulean Dreams...nightmares more like. Beware: if you don't like snakes, shadows or the dark, I strongly recommend you don't read this book. Otherwise, you'll have nightmares (like me).However, most of the book was quite pleasant.
We’ll start off with the concept of the book. I found the plot quite confusing to start with. We are thrown right into Marlowe’s life within the first couple of chapters and introduced to this post-apocalyptic world of technology and mind-control. Only being given clu...more Cerulean Dreams...nightmares more like. Beware: if you don't like snakes, shadows or the dark, I strongly recommend you don't read this book. Otherwise, you'll have nightmares (like me).However, most of the book was quite pleasant.
We’ll start off with the concept of the book. I found the plot quite confusing to start with. We are thrown right into Marlowe’s life within the first couple of chapters and introduced to this post-apocalyptic world of technology and mind-control. Only being given clues to how this happened and what Dana actually was, I felt I didn’t really know the story’s plot, even after I finished it...
I found the ending particularly frustrating. All along I was under the impression that the children of Babylon were aliens that had come to save Earth. Then Armon tells us they are the ones who actually destroyed our world. We never really found out why they were on Earth, what they did to destroy it and where they actually come from. Also another point about the ending; Armon’s character. Throughout the book we only get glimpse of him being this callous assassin creating terror. And then we have this (view spoiler)I would really have liked to learn more about his character after reading that last line because he wasn’t obviously a one dimensional character.
This brings us nicely onto characters. Apart from Armon, I don’t really have much of a problem with the others. Marlowe was obviously the main guy. His background was well developed and we really got to know him quite well. Towards the end, his actions began to become repetitive and we really didn’t get to know his whole take on everything around him which was sad. I would have liked to know more of what he thought of Dana and Sephes. Speaking of which, this was a little weird in my mind as Dana, to me, seemed infatuated with Marlowe and to suddenly kiss Sephes before they parted ways didn’t quite add up. Dana wasn’t a big character in my opinion. Sure she was the whole reason this all began but I honestly didn’t feel she was that important after Marlowe met her. Also, if she really was the same ‘breed’ as Armon, I don’t quite understand why she didn’t have the same strength and speed as him. Another point, though maybe I’m just being picky is that the characters never seemed to eat anything. I never heard about them packing food for this huge trek over the dessert. I mean, was I just meant to assume they had done so or were they a new breed of humans that don’t need to eat? Other than that, the characters were quite good in the story.
I found the style of writing was really engaging and there were plenty of twists (if you can call them that – it was all just one big mystery to me with clues put in occasionally) and action scenes within the book. A lot of imagination was needed for some of the things e.g. the shadows, dragon like creatures (not sure where those came from though I had thought one of them was Armon), the Mimic…

However, despite all the above, I would still recommend this book to people who like action/adventure books. It was a good novel on the whole.
(view spoiler)

Update:
Another point I just thought of while glancing at the book: here's another question that wasn't really answered - "Why had this man, David of Orion, looked exactly like Marlowe?". But anyway, perhaps this was all the build up to a sequel ;).(less)

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Dec 28, 2011 Bookworm007 rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the second book I've read by O'Brien and I enjoyed them both. This story is futuristic and is told from many different perspectives, which I found interesting. The thing I liked the most about this book was the unique relationships the characters have with each other. The main characters, Marlowe & Dana, are like a very close father and daughter pair, then there is also an unexpected brief romantic connection between some other characters (won't give away who!). I wish that romantic...more

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Apr 14, 2012 T rated it 5 of 5 stars

The dynamics between Dana and Marlowe is that of a father and daughter relationship, I'm pleasantly surprise there was no cliche attempt to throw in a little romance between the two as some authors would have been compelled to do so.
This story is one with a clever complex story line, certainly a hard one to follow. However finding the time to go over a chapter once again, or as long and much as it takes, to keep up with the story is well worth it. Especially for those into the brilliant works of...more

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About Dan O'Brien

I have been writing novels for over a decade and had a couple published by traditional, small houses. Riding the self-publishing boom, I have four books in print that are available in paperback or e-book format. If you are interested in reading them, I am always open to sending out samples (or PDFs) to those who are interested.

I was born on the east coast and spent most of my life moving around....more

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