Tuesday, January 1, 2008

The Glitch in Sleep by John Hulme and Michael Wexler


My best-of-lists savvy husband gave me this for Christmas, and I can't wait to introduce it to the Eoin Colfer fans in my class. Becker Drane, the twelve-year-old hero of the novel, is a Fixer in The Seems. The Seems is the secret alternate world, ruled by The Powers that Be, responsible for making our world work according to The Plan. Unluckily for Becker, his first Mission as a Fixer involves a Glitch, and a Glitch is no ordinary mechanical failure.
While being a fun read, the book does raise some age-old questions. If the world is working to a plan, how come some people have such terrible lives? What kind of power would deliberately incorporate pain and suffering? As an adult reader, I can't help but compare the doctrine of 'trusting in The Plan' adopted by The Powers that Be with the dogma of our own organized religions. However, the often incredible situations in The Glitch in Sleep - it is simply impossible that every human in the world would have a custom made dream delivered every night- make it hard for me to reconcile these two disparate attributes of the book. Then again, I haven't actually finished reading it yet, so perhaps reconciliation is yet to come.

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