Rating: 
Summary: A surprising delight
Review: I'll admit it right away, I am not a fan of history-type books. I am usually bored to death by them. However, I recently read this after an eighth-grade trip to Gettysburg on the recommendation of a friend, and I was pleasantly surprised. It reads more like a good novel than a history textbook, while at the same time being very informative as to what went on. Very well written!
Rating:
Summary: A great, enjoyable novel.
Review: I am in the 10th grade, and I first read The Killer Angels in the 8th. I have since read it twice more, and it is one of the best novels I have ever read, and THE best historical and civil war novel I have read. Shaara moves from character to character so you can see the minds of the men on both sides, and you are torn between wanting one side or the other to win. I highly recommend this book, and when you're done with it, watch the movie Gettysburg, based on this book.
Rating: 
Summary: The Killer Angels
Review: Good story. Fascinating characters. Very good job of describing the strategies involved and the action of battle.
Rating:
Summary: Great!
Review: I read this book for my 8th grade advanced English class. The Killer Angels is one of the few books that I actually liked even though it was required. I really enjoyed the manner in which Shaara tells the story, in everyone's perspective. It's awesome!!!
Rating: 
Summary: The Killer Angels
Review: The Killer Angels is a detailed recreation of one of the bloodiest battles of American history. The Killer Angels won the Pulizer Prize and printed more then two million copies. Author of Battle Cry Freedom, James M. McPherson, said it was, "My favorite historical novel... A superb recreation of the Battle of Gettsburg." The Seattle Times claims, "Shaara carries [the reader] swiftly and dramatically to a climax as exciting as if it were being heard for the first time."
The dialogues are very detailed and recreates the manner of which one of the 1800s would address another. The novel includes detailed maps for the reader to fully understand the situation of the warring parties. The book includes true stories and actual accounts. Such as Chamberlain's regiment, the 20th of Maine and their heroic stand.
I enjoyed reading the dialogues between the officers of both the Union and the Confederates. Shaara gave realistic reasons for the concerns expressed by the officers. I reccomend this book for those interested in American history and war novels.
Rating:
Summary: A Killer Book!
Review: Michael Shaara's "Killer Angels" is a great book. It one the Pulitzer Prize, sold over 2.5 million copies, and spent weeks on the bestseller lists. Ken Burns credits the book as bringing the battle of Gettysburg alive. Norman Schwarzkopf says it is the best and most historic novel of war he has ever read. It is just great.I read the book myself in 1 day, it is that captivating. This is just after watching Burns' Civil War, and then the movie Gettysburg (which is based on Killer Angles). The book is that rich with details and insight. When you finish the book you'll surely want to read the other books in the trilogy -- "Gods and Generals", and "The Last Full Measure" so you might as well buy all 3 at once. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Best book on Gettysburg, fiction or nonfiction
Review: Michael Shaara begins this historical novel with a letter to the reader: "Stephen Crane once said that he wrote THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE because reading the cold history was not enough; he wanted to know what it was like to be there, what the weather was like, what men's faces looked like. In order to live it he had to write it. This book was written for much the same reason."
Shaara uses shifting viewpoints to introduce us to some of the more well-known characters, to take us inside their heads. There's Lee, of course, and James Longstreet, who'd disapproved of the invasion of the North. George Pickett, George Meade, Winfield Scott Hancock, they're all here, but Shaara also takes the time to focus on the lesser knowns, such as General John Buford, who chose the high ground on which the battle was to be fought and the most compelling character, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. A professor of rhetoric prior to the war, he seems the least likely hero, but at Little Roundtop, with his troops about to be overrun by Longstreet's troops, he directs his troops to "Fix bayonets" and orders a right wheel forward of the whole regiment, routing the confederates.
Another engaging story is that of Confederate General Lewis Armistead, whose friendship with Union General Winfield Scott Hancock is dramatized when Armistead dies during Pickett's charge.
Shaara's ending ties a neat ribbon on things as it lists all of the surviving characters and what became of them after the battle. Ironically, Chamberlain dies of his wounds. At the age of eighty-three.
You can't go wrong with this one; it's the best book on Gettysburg I've read, fiction or nonfiction.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Very Best
Review: The Killer Angels is a moving and dramatic historical novel. You will taste the hot July dust in your mouth, smell the gunpowder and blood, and feel the tremor of the artillery and the terror of battle in Sharra's very personal portrait of both West Point-trained officers (fighting on opposite sides) and farm boy soldiers. You should visit the battlefield at Gettysburg after reading this incredibly vivid true story. This is a book you'll read, re-read, and give to your friends.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: What can be said about this book that hasn't already been said? It has to rate as one of the best accounts of historical fiction ever printed. Michael Shaara successfully gets into the minds of some of the principle characters of the battle of Gettysburg and displays their thoughts and fears. This is a great book certain to stimulate your interest in the Civil War.
Rating:
Summary: Brings Our Deadliest War to Life
Review: To citizens of these United States, the Civil War was the defining event in our nation. It was a war of battles with evocative names: Bull Run, Antietam, Vicksburg, Gettysburg... Perhaps the war was about slavery, perhaps it was about the clash between an industrial democracy and a planting autocracy. But what was it really like? Even the best historians fail to make compelling their descriptions of battle. It all starts to sound like business prose. We know there were real issues on the ground, real death and fear and dreadful mistakes. We know, too, that some battles were decisive, and perhaps we are given numbers - numbers dead, and so on. But unless you know how read those numbers and descriptions of troop movements (unless you yourself have toiled in the mud and trenches, or had to make choices that meant death for somebody), it all comes to seem like a company's annual report does to most of us, like figures with no blood in them. The Killer Angels tells us things about the battle of Gettysburg that a history book cannot. It puts us into the minds of a few key people in the Union and Confederate armies, and it puts us on the ground during those murderous three days. We learn to look from eye level, we get some feel for the constant presence of death. We see devout soldiers, and soldiers who are willing to die without any hope of a heaven. We learn what it was like at Gettysburg, and why failures of character mattered. Michael Shaara's method was to go back to the original sources - the letters and memoirs and diaries of those who were there - to find a more personal truth about the war. This is a targeted book without the pretensions of a "great" novel. It is focused in intent and rather simple in structure. It shows those days of the battle (and the agonizing nights) through the eyes of a few of the key officers of the Confederacy and a couple of junior officers of the Union. This was an interesting decision but, I think, appropriate: to a great extent, the South lost the fight because of Lee's decisions, and the North held because of those junior officers. But read this book, and draw your own conclusions. You will never think of the Civil War as mere "history" again.
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