This Shared Dream

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.

  

WASHINGTON POST REVIEW

  

While This Shared Dream is plenty exciting and expertly paced, there's a quietness, a gentleness, throughout. Its characters talk far more than they act. They aren't just action figures; they're real people, damaged yet striving, and we come to care deeply about them. Such is the power of art—the real, not imaginary, empathy-creating device. Living up to its title, This Shared Dream is ultimately a novel about connectedness, in every sense, and the possibility of greater harmony in what used to be called the family of man.

 - Michael Dirda

  

PRAISE FOR THIS SHARED DREAM:

  

 “A tough-minded, kind-hearted, fiercely intelligent novel.” --Ursula K. Le Guin 

  

"THIS SHARED DREAM is an intensely rich, original and provocative novel that is worth checking out."--Book Zone review   11th Jul, 2011  (Interzone 235)

  

“Kathleen Ann Goonan’s THIS SHARED DREAM is a richly imagined tale of  gypsies and jazz, Nazis and nanotechnology, war and assassination and  the Summer of Love. As elegant and complicated as the ever-changing time streams that wind through it, THIS SHARED DREAM is a must-read in this or any world.” --Connie Willis

  

“A wild ride through alternate histories. Brilliant.” --Jack McDevitt 

  

“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: Kathleen Ann Goonan burst into prominence with QUEEN CITY JAZZ. "Spectacular," said Locus. "The most important debut novel I've seen this year." . THE BONES OF TIME, her widely acclaimed second novel, became a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2000. Her third novel MISSISSIPPI BLUES won immediate praise from Publisher's Weekly and made her "...a major voice in the field." CRESCENT CITY RHAPSODY, a Nebula finalist, according to Publisher's Weekly's starred review is "...as intellectually demanding yet emotionally satisfying as Duke Ellington's best..." In another starred review Publisher's Weekly calls LIGHT MUSIC, also a Nebula finalist, "Exuberant... "   Peter Straub writes “IN WAR TIMES is a novel of great historical reach -- from the Battle of the Bulge to the Kennedy assassination and beyond -- and profound ambition, expressed with an unmistakable ease of execution and a master's sureness of touch.” 


Kathleen is a visiting professor at Georgia Tech, School of Literature, Communication and Culture