I had a few problems with this book, but not because the American Civil War is an unfamilar subject (being British, I am far more familiar with the English Civil War which took place in the 17th century). The male protagonist is Jeff, an historical researcher who works for a somewhat eccentric novelist called Broun. Broun is currently reworking a novel about a young man called Ben who was a participant in a Civil War battle. Broun can't let the novel go and is reworking it despite it being set i...

Lincoln's DreamsThis is book with a divided fan base. On GoodReads most of the reviewers love Connie Willis but few seem to love Lincoln's Dreams. This review is the result of a second read for me. Like many others Connie Willis is one of my favorite writers. I've read six of her other novels, five of them part of the Oxford time travel series, and all were entertainingly brilliant. Part of Willis's great virtue as a writer, especially as a science fiction writer, is that her works are deeply hu...

I usually love Connie Willis, but this novel failed to click for me. I had several problems: first, Willis asks readers to sympathize with Robert E. Lee, a lot. But even though Americans of my generation are kind of trained, from elementary school on up, to think of Lee as not such a bad guy, my sympathy, frankly, cuts off after a certain point. (Totally different debate here, but: blah blah blah duty, yeah sure; but basic morality trumps duty, okay?) More significant, probably, was how underdev...

I read this book out on the strength of its Amazon reviews. I was sadly disappointed. Perhaps it's just that I don't find anything about the Civil War particularly compelling. Perhaps it's that the female character was too much of a shadow figure. Perhaps (and I favor this explanation) it's just that this book wasn't well written. The main character is a researcher for a man who writes novels about the Civil War. He meets a young woman who is having the dreams of Robert E. Lee and is immediately...

So this broke my heart. It has left me thinking of many things, of Robert E. Lee and Traveller and the horror of a war that ended 153 years ago and still eats away at the American psyche now. I read this many years ago, my copy is from 1992 and back then I didn’t have money to buy books and then never get around to reading them the way I do now. Or maybe I just had more time. I don’t think that first reading left me as emotionally wrung out as reading it now did. I’m not sure why it did, althoug...

Stands up to rereading, and interesting to compare with her later novels -- similar themes and approach, but far more stream-lined.

I have a few issues with this book. I enjoyed it but it is probably my least favorite Willis. Things she did right:The historical research, as always, was top notch. The Civil War scenes felt real and immediate and personal. Of all of the characters in the novel, it was Robert E Lee that resonated with me the most. And Traveller, of course.The book is well written and has a fascinating semblance of action despite the presence of the usual Willis running-back-and-forth business and the usual ship...

This book is incredibly frustrating. All the things Connie Willis gets right in her later books - the comedy of miscommunication, the tragedy of details, gradual romances - she gets completely wrong here. I don't care about Jeff and his weird ideas, I don't care about Annie, a non-entity vessel for the dreams of someone else I don't really care about, Robert E. Lee. Forgive me for not feeling very sympathetic toward Lee, but that's the entire emotional drive of Lincoln's Dreams and I just. Don't...

3,5 starsIt’s always problematic to go back to the earlier novels of a writer after have read some of the later masterpieces.This is one of Willis’s first books from 87, 5 years before doomsday book. The style is unmistakable, the hectic narrative with a lot of crossing storylines, people constantly missing each other and in the background a major theme which is painstakingly researched.In this novel the theme is the civil war with all it’s gruesome, horrific and meaningless bloodshed.It’s easy

This is the first solo Willis novel, but is so polished and fine-tuned that one would never know that without being told. The historical research seems impeccable and the characters are quite convincing though perhaps not as engaging as the ones from her later, longer novels. There isn't as much light-heartedness either. The American Civil War, for some reason, has always been a popular and successful setting for modern science fiction, and this is one of the better examples.

Willis' first novel; won the John W. Campbell award.Jeff is a research assistant to an historical novelist. The novelist, Broun, has just barely finished a book on the Civil War, and thinks his next book will be about Abraham Lincoln. He is somewhat fixated on analyzing Lincoln's dreams to try to gain insight into the man. So he invites Jeff's old college roommate, Richard, a dream researcher and physician, to a reception. Reluctantly, Richard shows up... with a young woman, Annie, in tow. Jeff

One of my favorite authors. Her first book. How significant are our dreams? Is there such a thing as true dreaming? Or are they manifestations of society's collective unconscious, or mere chemical impulses or imbalances in the myriad pathways of our brain. How about all are possible answers. "There are more possibilities in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophies. " A background in Civil War history is useful. How much psychic impulse and influence could be generated by the dea...

I enjoyed this one (as I do all Connie Willis' work), but not as much as usual. A few things really bugged me:1. I'm sure Robert E. Lee was a great guy and fantastic leader who was well-loved by all, etc., but he was still the leader of an army fighting for the right to keep people enslaved. And for a book on the Civil War, Willis doesn't mention ANY Black people - doesn't even acknowledge what the Confederates were fighting for and why. She just treats the Union and the Confederates as two side...

I found the premise of this novel to be incredibly fascinating, and dove right into the book. Dreams have always been fascinating to me, and reading about what others think they mean, and why they have them is also - if you'll pardon the overuse of a single word - fascinating.I enjoyed this book throughout it; and I liked the characters and the storyline just enough to keep reading through the night, until it was finished. And while the characters were pale imitations of others that Willis has w...

I genuinely have no idea what this book was about. First of all, there was a baffling assumption throughout that I, the reader, knew a lot about the American Civil War. Given that many Americans think former slave plantation houses are a great place to have a wedding (which would be like a European getting married in Auschwitz), it's a big leap to assume that, and an even bigger one for non-American readers. I had to stop halfway through to google Robert E. Lee. I assumed any self-aware book wri...

I had just come from "To Say Nothing of the Dog" as was vastly dissapointed. Too many bland characters. Too many unexplained motives or actions---what was the deal with Richard? Why did he do what he did? And Annie had no life at all. Very flat. Jeff was good. He redeemed the book. Well, Traveller actually redeemed the book. I caught on to the sentiment and shed a brief tear at the end, but it could have been told much better. I think the concept would have been better portrayed in a poem. I und...

I didn't realize this was Connie Willis' first novel until I read the afterward! It is immediately clear that a lot of research went into this novel. The mystery of the dreams bleeding through and trying to decide what they meant was very interesting, interwoven as it was with the events of Robert E. Lee's life during the Civil War and after. That's right, Robert E. Lee. To me the Lincoln's Dream part was a little misleading, as it was really a lesser part of the story and to me felt like it was...

This is not a book I would have chosen as recently as a month ago. I am not a civil war buff. I recently became interested in the work of Connie Willis, and I found this and another of her novels at a library book sale in Newport News, so I snagged them, along with a bag full of other books.The following evening I was feeling ill. I grabbed this book out of the bag for temporary distraction from my pain, nausea, and alternating hot and cold sweats, and it drew me in immediately. Nine pages…then

I have really enjoyed every Connie Willis I've read in the past (okay, the two I've read), and so I was disappointed that Lincoln's Dreams was just not as good. It lacked the emotional punch of the stories in Fire Watch, and is far too similar to Passage, which is simply a better book.But Passage really does seem to be a reworking of the same ideas - dreams/near-death experiences take people to historical places (The Civil War/the Titanic) where they struggle with the meaning of their experience...

It’s odd. Every other Connie Willis’s book that I’ve read is emotional and thrilling with a central mystery that propels the reader through hundreds of pages in a blink of an eye. Sometime there are moments of tedious struggles. People never seem to be there when called. Messages always seem to be delayed. Mazes always need to be navigated. And while these things help to build tension, sometime they’re used too often, dragging down the momentum. Regardless, by the second half, I have always been...