Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory is a novel length expansion of Barsukov's previous novella Tower of Mud and Straw, adding a fourth and fifth act onto the foundation of the novella. Shea Ashcroft, a minister disgraced for choosing not to use violence against the mob, is sent to investigate the construction of an immense defensive tower that has been slipping behind schedule. The paranoid and insular group around the local Duke has mirrors in his own past.

This book feels like a political thriller, a plot of ambitions and intrigues, but that is a surface of stucco and paint rather than stone. The writing is dreamlike and lyrical, gorgeous word-paintings that capture those moments of memory that hold like snapshots, against which everything else seems false. Shea and the other narrators of the book, Lena and Brielle, tread water in a vast and stormy sea of memory and illusion, where air is foam and what purchase their feet can find is rotting driftwood. I'm reminded of Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, though a labyrinth and a tower have complete different vibes.

(disclosure: I received an ARC from the author and no other compensation)