A college student falls asleep after a party and doesn’t wake up. Doctors are puzzled - and then more students are affected, and soon the college is closed, the students put under quarantine. Professors fall ill, a janitor at the school and his daughter, neighbors and others who live in the college town. A previously unknown virus is identified, and eventually the entire town is barricaded, no one allowed to leave or enter. As the cases add up and panic sets in, some of the victims begin to wake, and describe vivid dreams that linger, leaving them uncertain about what is dream and what is reality.
In The Dreamers, the story of a mysterious outbreak and its effects on the population is told in a fascinating style - not as a thriller or a news report, but by dropping briefly into the lives of the many people affected by the illness. In a few short scenes the author of this engrossing novel fleshes out these characters and the larger world that watches the crisis unfold, creating powerful, insightful and heartbreaking moments. - Michelle (Sunset)