Drowse

by Derek Langley

hello cradleIn a near-future world where a mysterious source provides humanity with limitless energy and everyone is seamlessly interconnected to infinite data, Cradle is drawn by an extraordinary intuition for patterns to something strange in The Flow. Something odd. A disturbance.

But as the sleeping disease Drowse tightens its grip over the Earth’s population, the truth is beyond Cradle's wildest imaginings and he must follow his instincts to their terrifying conclusion. Energy, love and balance. Only he can find the way.

There has only ever been one question. How much must be lost before everything becomes possible?

Drowse is Derek Langley’s first novel. It’s a David and Goliath sci-fi thriller telling the story of one man’s shocking discovery about the Earth’s energy source and the resulting conflict with the vast international conglomerate that controls it.

If you like your technothriller recipes with a slightly cleaner-cut cyberpunk than William Gibson’s "Neuromancer", sprinkled with flavours from Forster’s “The Machine Stops”, spices from “The Gods Themselves” by Asimov and gentle aromas from Spike Jonze‘s “Her”, then Drowse is for you.

383 pages, Paperback

First published November 25, 2023

About the author

Derek Langley has built a thirty-eight-year career designing airborne reconnaissance and surveillance systems; work which has taken him all over the world – currently, his team’s designs are helping protect wildlife against poaching. He is a new author and, with retirement imminent, plans to continue his passion for writing.

In November 2013, an open day at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy provided the inspiration to develop a nascent idea for a science thriller story based around energy, love and balance. Written over the following years during holidays and weekends and predating the COVID pandemic, Drowse is his first novel.

Derek is a family man, married to a great woman for over 40 years with two grown-up children. He has been an active and successful STEM Ambassador for many years and delivers the "Rocketude!" kids' activity at the Latitude Festival. He is constantly and hopelessly beguiled by the sea and can hit a tennis ball. He probably drinks a little too much red wine, he certainly eats too many crisps and yet, despite all this, Derek remains alive and well in the heart of Suffolk, UK.