I must be one the few that did not read Killer Angels before reading Gods and Generals. So what I'm about to say has nothing to do with any comparison to a work by this author's father.

The Civil War should be a very rich backdrop for any historical fiction book. It has everything that an author would need to write a compelling novel. However, I must agree with the other criticisms of this work. Without knowing the names of the Generals, and there were what seemed like hundreds of them, there is no way to determine who is talking. I have never read a book where the characters were so intermixable. Not one character had any charisma or even a distinguishing trait. I couldn't tell Lee from Jackson or Jackson from Hancock. Not one of the starring Generals has any personality that manifests throughout the book. The tone was constant, droning without excitement. There was no interest to get back to the book in any hurry. I've read nonfiction with much more movement and pizzazz. This was downright disappointing. With all of the hype and potential, the author has failed to attract me to another of his works.

It might be that this is the author's first book and maybe he didn't receive the better editors and such, but my recommendation is to skip this book and move on to something else.

This is primarily the story of 4 generals of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, Winfield Scott Hancock and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Shaara closely follows the history of the Civil War, but from much research reading diaries and other documents he assumes the dialogue of the generals and other men and women and this part of his writing is fiction. He does a masterful job and you feel like the dialogue is what really took place. It is though he recorded the conversations. His accounts of the battles of Williamsburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville pick up the feeling of how it really was. You feel like you are there.

Let's face it, "The Killer Angels" was a great book and you'd have to be crazy to try and follow an act like that. I would like to thank Jeff Shaara for trying to follow his father's book. "Gods and Generals" is worthy of being a prequal to "The Killer Angels." Jeff has the same style as his father and if you loved the feeling you got when reading Mike's book, then you need to buy this book. This book primarily follows Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Winfeild Scott Hancock, and Joshua Chamberlain. "Gods and Generals" begins in 1858 when war is looming and the four above mentioned must make sacrifices that bring them to the armies. You get the feeling that you're a participant in the Peninsula Campaign, Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and the march leading up to Gettysburg. You feel the frustration at failed oppurtunities, the difficult decisions they're forced to make, and the courage that you find in the midst of battle. To sum it up, if you were a fan of "The Killer Angels", then you need to buy this book.

Jeff Shaara's book brings much more historical accuracy to life in the easy to read and easy to follow book. It is known that Jeff Shaara's father wrote "The Killer Angels" the bases for the Movie Gettysburg --
Mr. Jeff Shaara, not a professional writer, used his father's 'example' in telling the story of pre determined characters--mostly, the little known and or little recognized characters and presents them in a manner to bring more to light then so many previous books. Though a 'novel,' in reading Official Records of the Rebellion, Mr. Shaara's book is not for want of correction--he really is using factual resources and then adds the characters in a life like manner.

I bought the book after I saw the movie--and, the book brings many things to the front which the Movie "Gods and Generals" had difficulty in expressing due to time/length of the DVD. I think it should have been a series, as to permit a better digestion of the intense amount of information through the DVD movie -- However, Robert Duvall as General Robert E. Lee is none better --as, he really is a relative of General Lee and scary how close his face represents the death mask of General Lee.

I recommend both the book and the movie.

Usually I restrict myself to non-fiction regarding historical events, since the traditional sources of historical knowledge themselves often contain a fair amount of fiction. But alas, this book was recommended by an associate of mine as a great book on the civil war, and of course the author's father is highly regarded. So I read it.

What a mistake. I must admit I was unimpressed by this book. The characters were lifeless and uninteresting. In fact they appeared cut from the same cloth, and, as opposed to some other glowing reviews, were simplistic and lacking depth. Throughout the reading I kept thinking 'Lee wouldn't act this way' or 'Hancock would NEVER have said this' et cet. The fictional thoughts and statements of these actual historical people are ludicrous in many instances. I think it a disservice to them, and to American history, to accept these characterizations as somehow 'realistic'-- students may confuse this nonsense with real history. In particular Shaara has made 'Stonewall' Jackson into a rather saintly figure when in fact he may have been severely mentally ill.

Go read a history book, or a biography (or better yet an 'autobiography'!) if you want to find out what these people did and what they thought. You will have a clearer understanding.

As a final note: I have been a Civil War 'buff' all my life and I have a Master's degree in U.S. History. Believe me, reading Shelby Foote and Bruce Catton would be a far greater use of your time, both for knowledge and entertainment. This book was very disappointing.

Loved the book from front to back. I know some people poopoo some of the historical accuracy, but that is why it is called historical fiction folks. Very entertaining. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about historical figures, but can't quite stomach a non-fiction book.

Jeff Shaara's "Gods and Generals" is the prequel to his father's (Michael) Pulitzer Prize winning Civil War novel "The Killer Angels". This novel begins a few years before hostilities begin, and we are introduced to the principal soldiers and their views on the succession of the southern states from the Union. Soon after John Brown's arrest and hanging Abraham Lincoln is elected president, and then Fort Sumner, SC is fired on are the sparks that set off the war. After the Federal Army's brightest officers have taken sides the fight starts in earnest as the book goes through the first two and a half years of the war, leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg in the next book.

I have read the other books in the series ("The Killer Angels" and "The Last Full Measure") and have really enjoyed them. So I was very surprised (and not pleasently) to find that "Gods and Generals" was just mediocre. By far the best part was the first part of the book, when it was dealing with all the historic figures and their pondering just exactly where their loyalties lie. The most interesting characters were by far Federal General Winfield Scott Hancock and Confederate General Robert E. Lee. They were by far the most complete and fully realized people to populate the book. There is a problem with all the characters though; as devoutly religious as they are, they are mostly extremely pessimistic. I found the melancholy of everyone to be a huge downer.

It is when the novel starts into the battles that it gets bogged down in so much strategy and detail that really the only people interested in tactics and painstaking detail of the fights will be interested enough to finish. I managed to read it all and not skip, as tempting as it was, and I do feel like I have a good working knowledge of the order of the battles. Though it was very difficult reading. The grand showcase of the novel were it's epic battles from the Eastern Campaign; Second Bull Run (or Battle of Second Manassas), Antietam (though it is just touched on here), Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville (where `Stonewall' Jackson met his ironic and sad fate).

So the skinny is that "Gods and Generals" is at it's best setting up the events leading up to the war. The action was too long and actually quiet dull and the characters were too sour for me. I know that Shaara has improved because his later books (most especially "Gone for Soldier: A Novel of the Mexican War") are exceptional.

I just picked this book up at random at a book sale with Killer Angels and started reading it and I couldn't put it down. I'm not a Civil War buff but I did see the movie, Gettysburg, based on the book Killer Angels and watched the Ken Burns civil war documentary. This novel brought some of the most famous civil war generals to life and gave them a human perspective. Names we see at the post office or vaguely remember from high school history class. It creates the mood of a nation in horrible strife through the convergent paths of four individuals who became the military leaders in a horrible war. It paints the different Generals thoughts and the four different points of view drive the narrative.

I liked his depiction of Robert E. Lee with his pragmatic thought processes and his deep morality. This famous general was portrayed as a lonely man, a stranger to his family, who as a career soldier was driven by his duty but torn by his loyalties. Although the battle sequences all seem similar with the armies dug in and unable to run each other over, they bring to life some of the utter confusion, panic , horror of modern warfare. The novel does justice to Lee's military genius as he outmaneuvers the powerful Union Army which outnumbers him 3 to 1.

There is a deeply humanistic aspect to the characterizations of the various generals-Shaara does a good job breathing life into them. Toward the end of the book I was almost moved to tears as Stonewall Jackson dies after receiving wounds on the battlefield at Chancerllorsville. His dying vision is that of his happy young mother,who died in the pious and scholarly general's youth, calling out to him in the field hospital, saying, " Let us cross over the river, and rest beneath the shade of the trees."

A dying vision for a terrible war. Jeff Shaara does justice to the horrors of the Civil War. This was the beginning of modern warfare and was amongst the bloodiest conflicts in human history. There was a terrible toll taken to unify this nation and free the slaves which most of us forget. To some extent I thought the book didn't completely do justice to describing the complexities of the events that drove this nation to war. At the same time the author works with a starkly minimalist prose that is at often times beautiful in describing the landscapes-both physical and mental of the Civil War and four of its main participants.

The book seems to gloss over what the war was really about -slavery and emancipation, but at the same time the men aren't cast as heroes or villains. Only men who bound by there circumstances and their loyalties. The Union Generals McClelland, Pope, and Hooker appear only as buffoons, fodder for Jackson and Lee who are talented leaders and battlefield tacticians. Chamberlain and Hancock rise through the Union ranks and are outsiders to the leadership. Chamberlain a man driven by honor to abandon his family and teaching job to go to war and Hancock the career military man, often at odds with his leadership. For four lonely men, a sense of helplessness prevails and divine providence and destiny are central to each of the four main characters thought processes. Four divergent yet convergent lives drawn together in a conflict where the nation took arms and men marched off to die with little training. A war where men shot their brothers. It gave me a new perspective on the conflict as only a good psycho-history could.

As this book depicts the events leading up to the confederate invasion of Pennsylvania and the subsequent battle of Gettysburg I think I read the books in the right order. Luckily I bought them both together. I am now delving into Killer Angels and this was great background although chronologically they were written in the other order:2000 and 1974 respectively.