Customer Reviews

The Hollow People (The Promises of Dr. Sigmundus, Book 1)

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The first installment in THE PROMISES OF DR. SIGMUNDUS trilogy, THE HOLLOW PEOPLE introduces readers to a kitchen boy and lowly servant. Dante is the least important of all the people on Tarnager, the fortress-like island where he was raised. Since his mom, a dangerously insane criminal, committed suicide when he was a baby, Dante has had no one to care for, and no one who cares for him. That is, until he crosses paths with Beatrice.

The daughter of two doctors on the island, Bea has never been allowed to question the teachings of Dr. Sigmundus, their reclusive leader. Like all young people on the island, she is expected to prepare for her coming-of-age ceremony, where she'll take Ichor for the first time and join the adults in their peaceful, dream-free lives. The problem is, Bea does have questions. Some people, like Dante, still have dreams even after they've taken Ichor. Are those people really insane, as everyone tells her? Bea wants to know why she dreams of a ruined city, and how Dante recognizes the city in her drawing.

Encounters with a notoriously dangerous new asylum patient land Dante and Bea in hot water with the island director. It isn't long before they're launched together on a new journey, where their many questions will no longer be ignored. But, are they ready for the answers?

The characters and storyline have remained with me weeks after reading THE HOLLOW PEOPLE. I enjoyed it enough to seek out the title of the second book in the series, THE GALLOWGLASS, and I can't wait to see how the story unfolds.

Reviewed by: Julie M. Prince

Reason for Reading: I love dystopian fiction and books that are set in asylums; this fitting both descriptions was a must read.


Tarnegar, is an island community that houses the insane from the rest of the population in this country where dreaming is forbidden, adults (14 and over) take a drug to make them stop dreaming and comply quietly to any authoritative figures. Questioning the wisdom of any part of this society could have you banded a lunatic and thrown into the asylum. Dante is an orphan whose mother was a lunatic and killed herself by jumping off the roof of the asylum. He now works as a kitchen boy, but the drug has never taken away his dreams. Bea Argenti is a middle-class girl, daughter of two junior doctors, who will be turning 14 soon but questions the use of the drug and does not want her dreams to go away as she has been dreaming for a long time about a strange ruined city. The two meet and start to figure out that their society is based on lies and perhaps the time has come for someone to stand up for the truth.

I loved this dystopian novel! The idea of controlling society with drugs has been done many times before, perhaps starting with Brave New world, but it is a realistic thought-provoking idea that is not beyond the realms of possibility. Dante is a wonderful character and I liked him from the beginning; his background and character are fleshed out as the story progresses. This is definitely his story. Bea on the other hand has not been as fully developed, and she felt more like a sidekick, a female element to satisfy the 'need' for one. Personally,l I don't think there is a need for a male/female partnership/relationship for a good story but perhaps she will have more of a point to the plot in the next book. I loved the asylum half of the story, very creepy! Then the story progresses far beyond that level, more character's are introduced and the plot takes on many more levels while remaining a very dark and atmospheric tale of a future controlled by a madman. There is a science fiction element to the story that at first seems more magical than scientific and I wondered where it was going. I like fantasy so that's not necessarily a bad thing, but the book did remain in the scientific world while having this quasi-science/magic element that had me stumped of whether the series was going to turn into fantasy. But at the end, the Author's Note qualifies that there really was, historically, a scientist who did many experiments in the field of the subject matter used in the story. This made me appreciate the story more when I had finished. I look forward to continuing the series but do hope that we see a return to the asylum at some point.

I very much enjoy young adult adventure novels that take place in alternate universes. To the guy who freaked on this book, uh, its for kids guy. Get a grip. Homeboy went on for days about how unoriginal it was but never mentioned that Dante and Beatrice are the main characters? This is an odd and interesting amalgam of Dante's Inferno, fantasy fiction and distopian fiction. It draws on and communicates with a tradition of post-apocalyptic and distopian fiction. I thought it a fun addition, and one of the better novels for youth that I'd read in some time. But like I said, I like young adult fiction of the fantasy and adventure variety, and this book is precisely that. Its fun, its heavily plot-based and its somewhat thoughtful, possibly the best thing I've seen since the windsinger series.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this book but I was pleased. Dante is a nobody; he's the lowest on the food chain you can get. Bea is a "noble" girl, if you will, who attends school and is not looking forward to her 14th birthday where she will become and adult and begin receiving Ichor. Dante works in the kitchen of the asylum where all the people that are deemed disturbed or crazy are brought. Bea dreams of a life not her own. These two will cross each other's path and soon become friends. When Dante approaches Bea at her school she loses her status and is shunned by the other students for interacting with a nobody of the lower class. Her parents are not happy either. When a new patient is brought to the asylum he tells Dante he knew his mother. They only have a few seconds to talk before the guard locks his back up. Soon Bea and Dante will hatch a plan together to get in and talk to this stranger. Dante wants to know of his mother; Bea wants to know of the Ruined city she's always dreaming of. The plan doesn't work as they hoped and soon Bea is in serious trouble and Dante finds himself hooked up to the shock treatment machine. With the help of the new patient the pair will escape the island they've grown up on to start a new life on the mainland. However, the powers that be on the island are at war with their new family.

This book is post-apolycpatic in a way, as the world is not what it used to be. People are given a drug to not dream or have hope making them hollow and weak. It's a very fast read and a page turner. I'm excited to read the next book. It's not a book I'll keep to re-read I don't think but I don't feel I wasted my time on it.

The thing is, if you're going to write a book that's been written before, you had better bring something new or exciting or improved to the idea. The funny thing I take away after reading Brian Keaney's The Hollow People is that it actually seemed to have potential. It was completely unoriginal, clichéd and flawed in several other ways--but still, you can tell the writing talent is there, the story moves along in a semi interesting fashion. I never once struggled to finish the book. Of course, it's not tough to do when a book is only about 200 pages and all the ideas contained in it were pre-stored in my memory somewhere.
Hollow People takes place in a sort of 1984-esque totalitarian-ruled dystopia where the populace is knowingly drugged to stop them from dreaming and make them into docile, pliable little worker bees. The Big Brother of this book is called Dr. Sigmundus (who also developed the drug). J.V. Jones would be interested to hear that the story's protagonist is an abused nobody kitchen boy who, despite all the forces against them, befriends the daughter of a semi rich and powerful doctor couple in their city of Tarnegar. Tarnegar is a self-contained mental hospital colony where dangerously insane prisoners, often those immune to the drug, are kept. The plot is set in motion when a dangerous criminal named Sirius comes to Azkaban...wait...I mean, a dangerous criminal named Ezekial comes to Tarnegar and changes everything that Dante, the kitchen boy, had believed in. Also, Dante carves little statues out of wood. Maybe he learned that talent from Richard Rahl or Jesus. It's a handy talent.

In addition to the fact that the basic storyline and all the characters are completely borrowed from other sources and the book offers absolutely nothing new or creative to the genre, it is also entirely too short, which is an odd thing to say about a book you ostensibly hated. But perhaps these two issues are related. Because Keaney had nothing new or interesting to add, he figured he should get on with his slog of a book as quickly as possible? Maybe he got tired of cutting and pasting? Whatever the case, it creates an incredibly choppy pace, and action moves entirely too quickly at many points. Extreme contrivances and convenient occurrences are all over the place--characters just happen to run into each other or discover a secret talent at the perfect moment--in order to keep things moving swiftly.

I'm sad to say that the second book does not show any improvement (yes I ordered it from England; yes I like to waste money on books.) In fact, this series only seems to get worse. My only advice is to stay far, far away.