This Shared Dream - Hardcover

Goonan, Kathleen Ann

3.63

101 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765313545 ISBN 13: 9780765313546

Publisher: Tor Books, 2011

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Kathleen Ann Goonan introduced Sam Dance and his wife, Bette, and their quest to alter our present reality for the better in her novel In War Times (winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Novel and ALA’s Best Science Fiction Novel of 2008). Now, in This Shared Dream, she tells the story of the next generation.

The three Dance kids, seemingly abandoned by both parents when they were younger, are now adults and are all disturbed by memories of a reality that existed in place of their world. The older girl, Jill, even remembers the disappearance of their mother while preventing the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Goonan has created a new kind of utopian SF novel, in which the changes in history have created a present world that is in many ways superior to our own, while in other worlds people strive to prevent their own erasure by restoring the ills to ours. This Shared Dream is certainly the most provocative SF speculation of the year, and perhaps the decade.

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From the Back Cover:

"What if you could travel through time to fix what is wrong with the world? The world would resist, and the very act of trying would create parallel worlds with their own problems. This wondrous book, the story of a handful of people who seek to alter the twentieth century to create a better future, acknowledges the inhumanity of war and yet celebrates the joys of music, art, friendship, and family. And it reminds us that the future is made by the children of the present. I loved this book, and I heartily recommend it." --Eileen Gunn, author of STABLE STRATEGIES FOR MIDDLE MANAGEMENT

"IN WAR TIMES is an engaging and elegant piece of extrapolation." -- Kelly Link

"Not only does Goonan know that Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie changed the world, she understands that every vision of the future conceals a deep yearning for one's own specific past. That's real wisdom." -- Peter Straub

"Only Kathleen Goonn could have created this complex interweaving of jazz, physics, love, and war." --Joe Haldeman

From the Inside Flap:

"A complex . . . thoughtful and often dazzling journey through worlds that might, and perhaps should, have been." -- Kirkus Review (starred review) on In War Times

"Kathleen An Goonan goes against the grain of a lot of twenty-first-century SF by using sci-fi tools to create serious novels of ideas, and she's done it again: this is a truly humanist, and feminist, take on what's important for our future." --Gwynneth Jones
"In War Times is an intense labor of love. The historical elements are beautifully researhed, the characters unfold with well-timed eagerness, and everything dovetails with comments on the developing art of jazz. Although adventurous, this isn't a cold shower of testosterone. In War Times is a warm glass of fine, intoxicating whiskey that should be savored as thoroughly as possible." -- Starlog

"A wild ride through alternate histories. Brilliant." --Jack McDevitt

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