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To Build a Dream: A Psychological SciFi Novel Kindle Edition

4.4 out of 5 stars 24 ratings

He could be dead, dreaming, or painfully alive. Does he really want to find out which?

Timothy Smit is sick. He’s stuck in middle management at a second-rate news aggregator when an intense coughing fit causes him to pass out at his desk. Tim wakes up in the ICU to a diagnosis of a rare and aggressive form of lung cancer and the news that he likely has no more than a few months left to live.

Confined to a hospital bed with his health deteriorating, Tim finds himself immersed in a series of vivid dreams. As he becomes increasingly captivated by this enigmatic fantasy world, he realizes his dreams just might be keeping him alive.

But can Tim discover a real life worth living before it’s too late?

To Build a Dream is a mesmerizing psychological sci-fi novel that blurs the line between dreams and reality. If you like lone heroes fighting to survive, visionary quests, and a race against time, then you’ll love Greg Hickey’s enthralling dream world.

Buy To Build a Dream and let your imagination take over today!
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CGQ6DQSY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ (October 25, 2023)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 25, 2023
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2.0 MB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 246 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1733093737
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 24 ratings

About the author

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Greg Hickey
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Author of entertaining stories for smart readers. Download the short novel The Theory of Anything for free on the author's website.

Greg Hickey wrote his first novel, Our Dried Voices, while spending a year in Sundsvall, Sweden and Cape Town, South Africa, playing and coaching for local baseball teams. That novel was published in 2014 and was a finalist for Foreword Reviews’ INDIES Science Fiction Book of the Year Award.

Today, he still loves sharing stories while staying busy with the other facets of his life. Following twelve-plus years of work as a forensic scientist, he is now a full-time author. After his post-college travels, he once again lives in his hometown of Chicago with his wife and daughter.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
24 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2024
    Timothy Smit is an unremarkable person. As a middle management executive, he works long hours with not much to show for it. After falling ill, he returns to work seemingly on the mend but after blacking out during a violent coughing fit in his office he wakes up in the hospital to devastating news. What he initially thought was just a bout of the flu has been diagnosed as an aggressive form of lung cancer. Given mere months to live, Smit is confined to a hospital bed in ICU and drifts in an out of consciousness. When he is asleep, he enters a fantastical dream world with an unlikely guide. Finding himself navigating a hostile beach and then an unending cavern Tim and his dream state companion encounter and overcome challenges. But as he overcomes challenges in his dream state, the doctors notice that his physical state also begins to improve. Harnessing this newfound knowledge, Tim begins to take a more active role in his dreamtime hoping that if he can find his way to freedom in his dream state, he may also gain recovery from his cancer.

    To Build A Dream is the third book that I have read by author Greg Hickey and while each book has been vastly different, they have all been impactful stories that left me thinking long after the final chapter. While the majority of To Build A Dream takes place in one location (the hospital room), the addition of Tim’s dream state and all of the challenges and visuals of that world really grabbed and kept my interest. It was fascinating to read the events of of the dream knowing that this is coming from the mind of a person who was barely hanging on with a death sentence over his head. When Tim wakes up and discovers that there has been an improvement in his health I rejoiced with him and I eagerly awaited the next dream sequence… not only for the dream itself, but to see what new developments that would facilitate in the natural world.

    If you like a story that is mysterious, intriguing and will have you invested in the main character from the opening pages this is an excellent choice. If you are already a fan of Greg Hickey, this title will not disappoint.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2023
    This is the third book I've read by Greg Hickey and I've been impressed by the growth in his writing skills with each one. To Build a Dream is an imaginative, medical-heavy sci-fi tale in which the technical details contribute strongly to the believability and depth of the story without distracting from the flow of the plot. Although a lot of nonsense has been written elsewhere about dream interpretation, the reality is that our brains are extremely complex electro-chemical machines and there are deep connections between what happens in your brain and what happens elsewhere in your body. Dreams are especially interesting to think about in light of the hallucinations of Large Language Models as next token prediction takes them down creative but entirely fictional paths. In many ways, we are not that far off from next token prediction machines ourselves when we speak and maybe our dreaming state is the rough equivalent of turning the temperature way, way up on an LLM.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2024
    Rarely do we have the pleasure of discovering a book that is both profound and captivating. To Build a Dream by Greg Hickey is these things and more. Unique. Perceptive. Richly detailed. Compelling. Emotional. My head’s still spinning. Anyone who’s ever faced a health crisis, loved someone in crisis, or had any kind of dream is sure to devour every page. One of the finest books I’ve read in a long, long time.
    --Chris Coward, author of award-winning, five-star Perpendicular Women: Adventures in the Multiverse
  • Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2025
    I adore the way description is used throughout this novel. Greg has such an endearing manner of bringing scenes to life, and his use of humor is so brilliantly placed.

    This book has a heavy topic, and I was anticipating some emotions with the diagnosis of cancer. I was thoroughly immersed in the dream sequences, and found that a clever way of moving the plot along.

    Greg is quickly becoming an author I will read without a book description because I know I will be held captive from start to finish. The way this story ebbs and flows and brings you along for every word is delicious.

    I highly recommend picking up To Build a Dream if you are looking for an experience unlike anything you’ve had before.
    One person found this helpful
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