Book Review: The City Of Nightmares Duology by Rebecca Schaeffer

‘The City of Nightmares Duology’ by Rebecca Schaeffer consists of two novels: ‘City of Nightmares’ and ‘Cage of Dreams’, a profound science fiction novel that explores the concept of potentially being transferred into your worst nightmare whenever you dream. The first novel was released in January 2023, with ‘Cage of Dreams’ being released in September. Which is, in its own right, an astronomical release turnaround – not that I was complaining about the hasty sequel release. After reading ‘City of Nightmares’ in July, I was desperate to find out what happened next.

‘City of Nightmares’ lays a fantastic foundation into a horrible, merciless world filled with monsters, and deep systemic corruption, and from a young age, protagonist, Ness, is terrified. She is a witness to her older sister, Ruby becoming a Nightmare, and eating her father alive, while Ness cowered in fear, in a kitchen cabinet. Orphaned, she moves to live with her only living relative, her aunt, in the city of Newham, and when her aunt dies, Ness ends up joining a cult. To avoid homelessness, of course. She’s totally not brainwashed in any capacity. Or traumatised.

Serving the Friends of the Restful Soul, Ness is perfectly content, and feels safe. Safe: a luxury few can afford in a dangerous, fear-ridden world. But, in her cosy, totally not a closet, room with zero windows, and just enough room for a bed, she’s perfectly capable of hiding from almost anything that could hurt her. Except it’s her fear, and the prejudices that derive from her fears that are what’s hurting her.

After a run-of-the-mill work day goes awry, and promoting the Friends of the Restful Soul’s pay-what-you-can-afford therapy for families, results in a traumatised, bereft wife turning into a Nightmare of her own just days after losing her husband to a Nightmare, everything that Ness considers safe is thrown into jeopardy. The Director has had enough. Ness isn’t suited for this line of work, and needs to face her fear.

When a mail delivery job blows up in her face, she encounters a vampire called Cy, who throws everything she thought about Nightmares into question.

I loved the worldbuilding in this book. It was clear, concise and straight to the point, as a narration through prejudiced eyes would be. Ness is young, scared and irrational. She explores the world with caution and would rather burrow away in safety than risk being hurt by others’ mistakes. Ness’ fear of Nightmares is spurred on by her sister’s transformation into a ten-foot-tall man-eating spider, because her sister forgot to take the nightly medication that prevents you from dreaming. Because, if you dream, you risk waking up as something completely different. She is grateful to live in Newham, where the tap water is imbued with medicine to prevent Nightmares, and is pro-prohibition because this is a world where alcohol impairs the drugs that keep dreams at bay. She’s afraid of Nightmares, whether they are people who have kept their sanity, or been reduced to animalistic, rampaging creatures. It doesn’t matter. Everything is scary.

Her fear makes the narration incredibly compelling. You can see how Ness develops as a character, not just through her actions, and reduced aversion to Nightmares, but also through how the narration, third-person limited, changes from medicinal, categorical, unempathetic classification of vampires at the start, to acknowledging that Cy is warm and kind. It is her ability to unlearn her fears and befriending Cy that encapsulates her growth. She always chose to flee in a fight or flight scenario, and instead of running at the first sign of danger like she does at the start, she sticks by Cy, even when his vampirism makes him vulnerable.

Vampirism is a topic of conversation throughout the book, being considered a contagion, as well as a Nightmare. It demonstrates great depth of world-building, and consideration on Schaeffer’s part. People who contract vampirism by touch, or bite, could still be transformed into a Nightmare, like other contagious transformations. Nor do they cancel each other out in this universe. It’s incredibly interesting that someone could be a vampire, werewolf and a zombie simultaneously. How terrifying is that?

I loved exploring this world and immersing myself in it with Ness and Cy. I had incredibly high hopes for the second book, after a shocking conclusion to the first book. I won’t spoil it, but the description, the way that Ness figures things out, and the dialogue were fantastic. It made what happens to Ness, and the characters she encounters at the end incredibly scary. I was horrified, and couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.

I pre-ordered ‘Cage of Dreams’ immediately.

It may seem surprising but I found the first chapters of content, exploring Ness’ life after her experiences with Nightmare Defense were almost a lull and a slug. I felt like it was insane for me as the reader, to be bored by the idea of a literal bar shoot-out because I want to get into the meat and potatoes of the story.

I would argue that this could have maybe been condensed a bit more and reduced to give more moments some room to shine. I loved how the pacing had me gripped and once I’d made it through the lull of the exposition segway-ing the content to the fast pace and punchy action-packed plot, I was gripped. I really appreciated how quickly this book grabbed me by the hair and immersed me in the politics, the world, and the stresses that someone like Ness experiences.

As a human, an uncorrupted mortal person, she is surrounded by danger in a corrupt cesspit of a city like Newham. I liked how you could see how her fears have developed and how her encounters with The Nightmare Phantom and with Cy haven’t rendered her an overpowered, fearless hero. I loved that she was vulnerable and afraid, even though I personally could have used maybe a chapter or so less of exploring that fear in Ness’ daily life.

I loved Ness’ character development through the duology as she learned more and more about how deep the corruption existed within the world around her, and how she, and Cy’ manage to embrace the quirks of a life in a City of Nightmares. The story was very compelling and closed off a lot of open-ended questions. I could have easily read another book, Schaeffer told a fantastic story.