And Then I Woke Up

Written by Malcolm Devlin

Narrated by Graham Mack

In the tradition of Mira Grant and Stephen Graham Jones, Malcolm Devlin's And Then I Woke Up is a creepy, layered, literary story about false narratives and their ability to divide us.



In a world reeling from an unusual plague, monsters lurk in the streets while terrified survivors arm themselves and roam the countryside in packs. Or perhaps something very different is happening. When a disease affects how reality is perceived, it's hard to be certain of anything . . .



Spence is one of the "cured" living at the Ironside rehabilitation facility. Haunted by guilt, he refuses to face the changed world until a new inmate challenges him to help her find her old crew. But if he can't tell the truth from the lies, how will he know if he has earned the redemption he dreams of? How will he know he hasn't just made things worse?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Feb 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798765086063

Malcolm Devlin

Malcolm Devlin is the author of And Then I Woke Up (2022), Engines Beneath Us (2019) and the collections You Will Grow Into Them (2017) and Unexpected Places to Fall From (2021). His short fiction has been published in Interzone, Black Static and Shadows and Tall Trees. He currently lives in Brisbane, Australia.

[Dearbhla Ní Fhaoilleacháin Ryan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Really good even though it had a bit of a feeling of an extended short story rather than a fleshed out novel- til the phoned-in ending :(

[Chelsi Moe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

dystopian with that weird and "idk what's really going on" element

[slmr4242 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolutely brilliant. Love the way it turns the infection trope on its head.

[sturlington_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting twist on the zombie apocalypse trope, and certainly a commentary on current politics, this short novel postulates a world where people's perceptions form a narrative that becomes their "truth" even in defiance of objective reality--in this case, that the dead are coming back to life and will eat them. What would happen if a signficant portion of the populace started behaving as if it were [The Walking Dead] in real life and believing the other people trying to go about their business were actually brain-munching zombies? I was with it for a while, but instead of exploring its premise and the nature of reality as deeply as I hoped it would, and perhaps commenting more insightfully on the current climate of deep fakes and no more facts, I think it fizzled out as it went on.

[clrichm · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I’m categorizing this as horror mostly because that’s what the author says it is. For my part, it’s…what genre is Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”? If that’s horror, then so is this, but neither are the first sort of stories that leap to mind when thinking of the genre, in my opinion.

I did enjoy this, but I wonder if I’d have enjoyed it less had I not been listening to the audiobook. There were long sections in the latter part of the book where I think I might have been tempted to skim ahead to get back to action. The majority of the book is *not* action; it’s thoughtful deliberation, twisted recollections, and dialogue stilted by design. The draw of the book is in just that: those active parts being told and retold until nobody is certain what was real or not.

I like the concept. Definitely more unnerving than scary, though.

[beserene · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The cover makes this novella looks like it's going to be terrifying. It's not, except in the existential sense. Another metanarrative, as has become common in the Tor.com novella line, this one is about a literal plague of misinformation and what results. Unsettling rather than scary and sometimes very deliberately on the nose, but I thought it was smart and thoughtful.