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| Gods and Generals | 
| Author: Jeff Shaara
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $7.98 (100%)
New (41) Collectible (4) from $3.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  235 reviews
Sales Rank: 13158
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 3.8 x 1.3
ISBN: 0345422473
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780345422477
ASIN: 0345422473
Publication Date: April 29, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy!
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Amazon.com Review
In a prequel of sorts to his father Michael Shaara's 1974 epic novel The Killer Angels, Jeff Shaara explores the lives of Generals Lee, Hancock, Jackson and Chamberlain as the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg approaches. Shaara captures the disillusionment of both Lee and Hancock early in their careers, Lee's conflict with loyalty, Jackson's overwhelming Christian ethic and Chamberlain's total lack of experience, while illustrating how each compensated for shortcomings and failures when put to the test. The perspectives of the four men, particularly concerning the battles at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, make vivid the realities of war.
Product Description
The heartbreaking saga of the years preceding The Killer Angels
"SHAARA'S BEAUTIFULLY SENSITIVE NOVEL DELVES DEEPLY in the empathetic realm of psycho-history, where enemies do not exist--just mortal men forced to make crucial decisions and survive on the same battlefield. . . . [He] succeeds with his historical novel through fully realized characters who were forced to decide their loyalties amid the horrors of their dividing nation."
--San Francisco Chronicle
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| Customer Reviews: Read 230 more reviews...
 Gods and Generals September 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
this book is awesome. non-stop carnage. the absolute worst thing that ever happened to America, 620,000 men died out of 13 million in the country at the time. senseless, pointless, merciless, and too many other -lesses to list here. author jeff shaara's father wrote the masterpiece "the killer angels". this book is almost as well written, with a lot more cheap thrills. the movie was so bad that i couldn't fall asleep and had to walk out during the intermission.
 Disappointing and flat August 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
God's and Generals August 15, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
Successfully following a Tough Act May 26, 2008
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.
The Book - Gods and Generals April 18, 2008
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.
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