The Fatal Dream is a speculative romantic drama and action thriller novel written by Ian Hastings. It tells the story of two young want-to-be scientists, Steven Stelth and Wendy Johnson, meeting in an Advanced Mathematics class at Boston University, how they fall in love and go on to share a life together, establishing their careers and life goals. Unfortunately, when it appears they are about to overcome even Death itself with their experiments, they are confronted with the spirit of Death itself. What follows is a chain of events that lead to violence, revenge, misery, grief and doubt.
The Fatal Dream contains examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Norman Gregson, a character featured in the early chapters of the novel, is obsessed with making Wendy his wife but he is overtly condescending and misogynistic towards her and her dreams of a career in chemistry. Naturally, Wendy does not return the sentiment.
- Abusive Parents: Wendy's father Donald sees his daughter as nothing but a tool to help him get higher in the world of finance.
- Action Dad:
- After the loss of his wife Jessica and the near-death of his daughter Sarah, Peter Stelth joins the effort in hunting the Pteranodon up along the Western Australian coastline not only to avenge his fallen loved ones but to also keep an eye on his remaining son Steven, whose mental health is gradually deteriorating.
- Gerald Kelly, for the few scenes he's in, is pretty much cut from the same cloth. After being informed of each and every loss in his family to the Pteranodon, including his daughter Jessica, his sole reaction when he encounters the murderous reptile himself is to leap upon it with rage and attempt to kill it with his bare hands.
- Action Duo:
- Daniel Nymph Junior and Trevor Lee are an experienced team of FBI agents and have been mission partners for years. Whenever there is a battle in the story, they always have each others' backs, in spite of the past and present frictions they have between them.
- Peter Stelth and Trevor Lee get some of this as well in the Battle at the Zuytdorp Cliffs. When the Pteranodon ambushes them during the conflict, they use a Back-to-Back Badasses approach to counter it.
- Affably Evil: As much as Death enjoys punishing Steven for what he considers to be transgressions against him, he is completely amenable when he gives Steven a way out.
- And the Adventure Continues: Unbeknownst to all but Steven, there is an anonymous threat left out there by the Pteranodon, which will one day attack them.
- Arch-Enemy:
- Trevor Lee and Kamo Pak came against each other in the past during Trevor's years in the CIA, with Trevor costing Pak much of his terrorist holdings in New York, and Pak wreaking bloody vengeance by having Trevor's wife Marlene tortured and brutally killed. When they meet again in the present day, the flames of their old enmity burn anew.
- Steven has two. First, there's the spirit of Death, who seeks to punish both Steven and Wendy for transgressing against the natural laws of life, death and fate and makes it his mission to ensure Steven suffers the worst of the two. Then there's the Pteranodon; although it kills Wendy first, it later targets every other member of Steven's family, proving early on that its enmity is for Steven and Steven alone.
- Asshole Victim: Following a lifetime of crime involving terrorist acts, serial killings, robberies, abductions and all other sorts of heinous acts against humanity all in the name of dismantling the infrastructure of the United States, Kamo Pak meets his end as Trevor slowly executes him with a gruesome yet methodical version of Multiple Gunshot Death.
- Batman Grabs a Gun: Originally a pacifist of sorts with his lifelong goal of creating new species of life, Steven is forced to wield a gun at the end of Chapter 14 when his brother Ben is abducted by Kamo Pak and his terrorists.
- Big Bad: Although the Pteranodon is doing the actual killing and is the one all the heroes are against, the main villain is actually Death.
- Bittersweet Ending: Steven does kill the Pteranodon in the end, but all but two of his family members are dead, Trevor has been killed, and the Pteranodon leaves a dying threat behind that one day his revenge on the Stelths would be completed.
- Cycle of Revenge: The Pteranodon sets out to kill the Stelth family. Anyone it leaves alive for the moment becomes determined to avenge their fallen relatives and friends.
- The End... Or Is It?: A dying Pteranodon threatens that his revenge on the Stelths will continue in another form beyond his death. Whatever that form is still is yet to be known.
- Extremely Short Time Span: The first third of the book occurs over the space of nine years; the rest unfolds in less than two months.
- Final Battle: After two terrific showdowns, one at the Zuytdorp cliffs and the other at Sydney Harbour, the story concludes with a simplistic but nevertheless emotional one-on-one between Steven and the Pteranodon.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Steven's goal in life is to create new forms of animal life. Trying to complete said goal backfires in more than one way.
- I Will Wait for You: Wendy's spirit at the very end of the novel promises Steven that she will be waiting for him in heaven when his time comes.
- Last Villain Stand: Losing both the Pteranodon, his co-terrorists and his means of escape, Kamo Pak pits himself against his old nemesis Trevor Lee in one last bloodied gunfight.
- Moment Killer:
- Norman Gregson, in all his appearances, takes the opportunity to either dissuade Wendy from her dreams and act condescendingly toward her when she is unreceptive, or to attempt futilely to break up the relationship between her and Steven.
- Whenever it seems that Steven is about to start some much-needed emotional recovery, the Pteranodon always reappears.
- Death, having been watching Steven the whole time since they came into conflict, knows exactly when to inflict this on him.
- Monumental Battle: Late in the novel, a trap is set for the Pteranodon at the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Pteranodon, having anticipated that, managed to turn it into a full-on battle as it used the bridge to its advantage to avoid gunfire and surprise Daniel, Trevor and Charles on the walkway.
- Murder, Inc.: The Agarrah is a highly-equipped and feared terrorist organisation that doubles as mercenaries for hire, and whatever the operation or job they take, there will always be casualties.
- My Secret Pregnancy: Nancy hid the conception and later birth of Ken from his father Ben, believing that the notoriety of their affair had already damaged the prospects of his future enough and that her pregnancy would just bring him further down.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
- When the Pteranodon kills Brianna Brask, it gets her husband, the Premier of Western Australia, so infuriated that he breaks regulations to get the resources he wants to hunt it down. Both matters are brought to the attention of the Federal Government, who later devote whatever resources to bring the reptile down.
- The spirit of Death's excessive determination for revenge on Steven forces other divine powers to intercede against him.
- Nightmare Sequence: The spirit of Death inflicts a living nightmare on Steven every time the Pteranodon kills one of his family as his continued means of punishment, usually consisting of his dead loved ones blaming him for their deaths. Also doubles as That Was Not a Dream.
- One Bullet Left: Literal example. At the end of the novel, Steven considers using the last bullet in his gun to kill himself.
- Only I Can Kill Him: Because of a deal he makes with Death, Steven has to kill the Pteranodon himself in order to save the surviving members of his family.
- Psycho for Hire: Kamo Pak is an infamous terrorist and murderer who, in addition to carrying out his own operations, sells himself and the members of his organisation to anyone for any price, as long as the mission involves both murdering innocent people and spreading fear throughout the population.
- Psychological Horror: Every time a member of the Stelth family is killed, Death induces Steven into a nightmare state where the victims blame him in turn to further his punishment (or revenge) of him.
- The Purge: As revealed at the end of the novel, this has been the Pteranodon's objective all along in hunting down and murdering every member of Stelth family. Upon its resurrection, it grew incensed that lifeforms it considers inferior both to itself and the forces of nature had the power of life and death in their hands, and deigned to kill every last one of them to prevent that from continuing.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The Pteranodon is killed, but Steven's life is lying in ruins. He has given up his life and career in America. All but two of his family have been slain. He has severed ties with his friends back in Boston. And then there's the Pteranodon's last words.
- Save the Villain: A minor example. A group of terrorists capture the Pteranodon and because the heroes are outnumbered, Trevor sees no choice but to set the creature free in the hope that it will take on the terrorists. It works.
- Tragic Hero:
- Steven Stelth, one of the two main protagonists of the novel, started off as a wide-eyed idealist, but from Chapter 9 onwards, he gradually loses everything and nearly everyone in his life to the Pteranodon, the spirit of Death, or his own decisions over the course of the narrative. He is well and truly broken longe before the story even comes to its end.
- Trevor Lee was this before the story even began. Before he was an FBI agent, he worked in the CIA, often pitting himself against terrorist threats troubling the United States, but a long campaign against an organisation known as the Agarrah brought him into conflict with its leader, Kamo Pak. That conflict ended tragically with his wife Marlene's murder and Trevor going so off the rails that it cut his career short. By the time he appears in The Fatal Dream, he initially appears to have moved on, but it soon becomes clear that the emotional scars of that time are still there.
- Daniel Nymph Junior, Trevor's partner, may seem the more cool-headed of the two, but he has his own share of past traumas and scars, to the point that he has often considered an early retirement from the FBI after meeting and falling in love with Sarah Stelth. After an attack from the Pteranodon leaves Sarah near-dead, Daniel loses whatever control he has and sets himself relentlessly upon revenge for the remainder of the story.
- Unstoppable Rage:
- Trevor in Chapter 15, when he is brought face-to-face with his old archnemesis and murderer of his wife, Kamo Pak. Though he initially brings his enemy down non-fatally, he is so overcome with his fury that he shoots Pak repeatedly, leading to the terrorist's brutal death, with Steven's attempts to intercede falling on deaf ears.
- Steven in the final fight. When he gets the upper hand over a wounded Pteranodon, he empties nearly two full cartridges of pistol bullets into the reptile's body.
- What Does She See in Him?: The sexist and egotistical Norman Gregson genuinely questions to himself at times why Wendy would choose Steven as a romantic partner instead of him, never understanding that Steven fully supports Wendy and her goals when Norman himself doesn't.
