The Sleeper Awakes - Jesse Best

The novel I’ve been reading is The Sleeper Awakes by H.G. Wells, published in 1910. It’s a science fiction story that is way ahead of its time for being written more than 100 years ago. It starts with a man sitting in a cave named Graham who hasn’t slept for many weeks because he’s having family problems and he is addicted to drugs. He is discovered by another man named Isbister who talks with him and becomes a friend of his, and invites him back to his house for food. Suddenly at the house, Graham goes into a coma. Soon after, they arrive at the hospital and Graham is put under observation for a few years. While this is happening, Isbister is out buying lots of property and is becoming very wealthy, soon owning most of earths land. As time progresses, Isbister is getting older and needs to put his inheritance into something he knows will be trustworthy, so he places everything into Grahams life, knowing he will not wake up seeing as its already been many years. The twist is that he awakes….203 years in the future. He wakes up to see many strange things and too many surprised faces that had no idea he was going to ever be reanimated. Isbister, when he was alive, described Grahams state as, “…,empty. Not dead a bit, and yet not alive. It’s like a seat vancant and marked ‘engaged.’ No feeling, no digestion, no beating of the heart – not a flutter. That doesn’t make me feel as if there was a man present. In a sense it’s more dead than death, for these doctors tell me that even the hair has stopped growing. Now with the proper dead, the hair will go on growing- “The most prominent idea that stuck in Grahams head was how every living person he knew was now dead.