Rating: 
Summary: Dissapointed
Review: 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 understand though that she needed to give a lot of historical background and explain the importance of Traveller and what he eventually represented, but truthfully? By the end I didn't care at all about Annie. I felt no love there. If maybe Jeff had been married for 20 years...that would have made more sense. Annie just wasn't real.
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting theory
Review: I read Ms. Willis' "Doomsday Book" and loved it. So I picked up "Lincoln's Dreams" hoping for the same experience. However, I was slightly disappointed. I thought it was a good book, but not nearly as well done as "Doomsday."Jeff and his employer, Mr. Broun, are working on a book about the Civil War, when Jeff meets Annie. Annie is having these horrible dreams and doesn't know what they are about. Since she thinks they may be about the Civil War, she goes to Mr. Broun and meets Jeff. The book is about Jeff & Annie's experiences in trying to figure out what the dreams are about, while Broun is obsessed with finding out what Lincoln's dreams signify. I thought the book was well written, and it was just the right length--not too long it was boring and not too short that a lot was left unexplained. If you really like Ms. Willis' books, you will probably enjoy this one.
Rating: 
Summary: The best book I've ever read, "Lincoln's Dreams"
Review: I read the book when it first came out. It haunted me for years. I hunted it up and read it again. I just finished my third reading. It has the power to change you. Connie Willis is a brilliant writer. All her books are worth the time.
Rating: 
Summary: When you least expect it
Review: I read this book several years ago and still think about it. It is a gem where time is a major character, and the nature of time and history the topic. I found it haunting and thoughtful and lovely.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely depressing an pointless.
Review: I was sorely dissapointed in this book after reading _To Say Nothing of the Dog_ I had to check and make sure it was the same lady who wrote that wonderful book. I found the characters to be fairly well developed but they were just so /stupid/ that I couldn't bring myself to feel anything for them at all. The ending was just depressing. Overall I found it to be written well enough but just not all that interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Not this author's best
Review: I've become quite fond of Connie Willis recently, and decided to try this book out. However, it never really worked for me. "Lincoln's Dreams" has many of Connie Willis' trademarks, but for some reason it wasn't as good. The story and characters weren't convincing enough to make me really believe in the story line. I appreciate solid looks at difficult or emotional topics, but in this book I couldn't feel myself caring. I reached the end and thought indifferently, "Oh, so that's what happened." Connie Willis also has the habit of taking several plot twists and characters and winding them around each other in such a way that until you finish you don't know what's going to happen. Normally I enjoy that about her writing -- I appreciate trying to figure out how different elements will come together, and rereading the book (which I always do!) to see how things work now that I know the ending. With this book, though, I didn't feel like the various elements came together well; it was like looking at a 3-D movie without the proper glasses, and seeing two images that ought to match up but don't. I definitely recommend this author ("The Doomsday Book", "To Say Nothing of the Dog", and "Bellwether" are my 3 favorites, in that order), but not this particular book. The only reason it gets even 2 stars is that Willis is a good enough author that the book still had some merit.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best from one of the best . . .
Review: I've enjoyed everything by Connie Willis that I've ever read . . . so how did I miss ever reading her first novel? I dunno, but I'm glad I noticed. This is a beautifully conceived, quietly lyrical story of love and loyalty. Jeff Johnston is a young Civil War researcher working for an historical novelist, who meets Annie, who has been having Robert E. Lee's dreams (so the general can get some rest), and he becomes her protector and facilitator. And he eventually finds out just how he himself figures in her dreams. The anxiety and tension build so slowly, you won't notice at first, but by the time you're three-quarters through the book, you won't be able to put it down, not for a minute. And the tragic closing line is the most literally stunning I've ever read. Her grasp of the relevant minutiae of the War is flawless, too. There's a reason Connie has won six Hugos and six Nebulas, as well as the Campbell Award for this very book.
Rating:
Summary: What a scary "little" mystery!
Review: In Lincoln's Dreams Willis draws us to question the nature of time, place, and the interconnectedness of all living things. By the end I had alternately accepted and rejected the reincarnation theme several times. Reincarnation alone doesn't account for the interplay between the hero and heroine--they are definitely more than manifistations of a dead horse and master. Willis implies that souls are constantly traveling through time together and replaying a type of predestination that they can never escape until what? Is a resolution even possible for these characters? Or are their love and loyalty the only reality? The possibilities for exploring the existence of the soul and its nature that Willis opens the mental door to provide the same sort of nagging haunting that James' Turn of the Screw offers whenever you take the view that the narrator IS reliable and therefore the book really becomes an effective horror story. So much for free will and choice.
Rating:
Summary: A powerful drama, not a character-less science fiction book.
Review: In Lincoln's Dreams, Connie Willis does not portray the world of science fiction so much as the world of perceived reality. Her protagonist is Jeff, a historian, and through him the book explains the strange attraction between people and history. In seems that in some way Jeff wishes to understand himself and his relationships as being parallel to the characters and relationships which exist during the time period he is studying, the Civil War. Willis makes this interesting and usually hidden character trait visible by adding an ironic twist to the story: there really does seem to be a fantastic connection between the Civil War and Jeff (and his romantic interest, Annie's) lives. As Jeff and Annie try to figure out if they are Robert E. Lee, Abraham Lincoln, or one of a half dozen other Civil War characters, Willis beautifully and subtely explores how people define and order the murkier aspects of their lives. As a result, the book is both haunting and uplifting, deep and entertaining, and utterly real.
Rating:
Summary: A Magnificent Achievement
Review: It's hard to figure on how to write a review for this book without giving anything away. Suffice it to say, for the short hook, that this is a book that no reader should go without. Connie Willis takes a hard theme and makes it relatable, understandable, and devastatingly personal for any reader who's willing to accept the book to start with. I'm honestly amazed by some of the negative reviews that the novel gets. I can understand them, to a point--if you've read Connie Willis before, you may be somewhat distressed by the almost unbroken seriousness of tone and story in Lincoln's Dreams. This is not funny or amusing in the way that her better accepted stories are (Doomsday Book, for example, manages to maintain a sense of humor throughout the middle of its several hundred pages). Before you pick up this book, you need to understand that Connie doesn't go out of her way to make the story she's telling easy for you. Nor should she, if you ask me. I'm willing to go along with everything that Willis lays before me in this story, including the sometimes difficult to understand characters. You need to know, though, that they are difficult to understand not because they are flat, but because they are decidedly human (and real people can sometimes be some of the most two dimensional you will ever meet, and I'm including literary figures in that analysis). There are a couple of points in the story where you have to grant Willis some liberties, but for the most part the characters are internally consistent and understandable. The biggest obstacle that this story has is probably its theme--the destructive power of love. However, I was amazed to find when I took some time to sit back and think about the book that the author had managed not only to relate this fundamental theme to me, but that she had done so without the vitriolic hatred of the emotion that many who would try to address it seem to fall into. Indeed--the story shows the terrible destruction that love in all its forms can bring upon a person while still maintaining its desirability and its essential goodness. At the end of the story, you feel the loneliness that the lack of love brings, and I believe that this loneliness is the ultimate expression of the theme that Willis is trying to examine. And the fact that she was able to evoke this in me and show these things to me is what ultimately marks this novel as a triumph for me. I'm not normally one to be emotionally affected by a story, but Connie Willis has always managed to pull my strings, and nowhere more than in this story. This is not a happy story (though it is not without wit, as some would have you believe) but it is an important one, and a lesson that any person can draw. In short, it is a transcendant work that may very well be looked back on as one of the best novels of the last half of the century, and I don't throw that praise around lightly. At the very least, you should at least give the book a try.
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