There is an innate limitation in books based on a television series that they cannot make major changes to the status quo. Since Nick is still a vampire in episodes that take place after Intimations of Mortality, it comes as no surprise that he does not obtain a permanent cure during the course of the novel. In spite of this, Susan Garrett was able to create a suspense-filled novel. Once I started reading, I could hardly put the book down.
The premise of the book is that, as part of his quest to become mortal again, Nick obtains a doll that gives him a series of dreams. The dreams take place in a world that is both like and unlike that of the television series. In them Nick and several other vampires are (and always have been) mortal, while many of the mortals from the show are vampires. The dream world, besides being interesting in its own right, is free from the restrictions of the waking world. There is no built in guarantee that the protagonists will even survive the events taking place.
To complicate matters even further, there are indications that the dream world might actually be an alternate universe, just as real as the waking world. As Nick travels back and forth between the two worlds, each version seems to have a greater affect on the other, in a manner inexplicable to the (effectively) sleep-deprived police detective.
The transitions between the two worlds are well done. It is clearly established that, whichever way he is traveling, Nick will wake up in one world after falling asleep in the other. Still, many of his napping places have enough similarity between worlds that it takes a few paragraphs to be absolutely certain that he has switched again. This makes the transitions seem smooth and yet properly simulates the haziness most people have upon waking up.
All in all, I found it a very enjoyable book. The characters were true to the series and their dream world counterparts allow the reader to view them under circumstances that could never occur in the main Forever Knight timeline.
This review previously appeared in Interregnum #29.
