Dreamfall

by Joan D. Vinge

Book Overview

The acclaimed author of The Summer Queen delivers her first novel in five years--the third book in the Cat series. Telepahtic, tough and cool, half-human Cat is an outcast on his home planet because of his mental abilities. Desperate to find a place where he can live in peace, Cat plunges his energies into a research project that soon places him squarely in the center of an ecological disaster.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446516279
• ISBN13: 9780446516273
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Warner Books (NY)
• Length: 447 Pages
• Weight: 1.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Weaker than the others in the trilogy

If you love Cat and rooting for the underdog, you’ll want to add this to your collection. I don’t think the author was well as she wrote this one because it was pretty disjointed and ended very abruptly. I think she’d been in some kind of accident (I could be wrong though) and wasn’t able to focus on the storyline. The overarching story fell flat, and it was a big letdown from Catspaw. But if you love Cat, Jule and the Hydrans, you’ll read it.

Best of the 3

I liked Psion and Catspaw very much, but I enjoyed Dreamfall the best of the 3. It is true that the end was disappointing, as one reviewer here points out. But that's the author's prerogative.Perhaps I enjoyed the 3rd book the most, because it builds on, and transforms, the character and world of the earlier books.Perhaps it is because I am starting to get older myself, just like Cat is...

The saga continues!

I got my copy of Dreamfall on reserve and waited on pins and needles, and I wasn't disapointed. Another fine chapter in the dramatic life of Vinge's amazing character Cat. I was very curious to see how he would fare among Hydrans. Now the burning question - how would he react if he ever met another halfbreed like himself? (hint, hint, Ms Vinge) :-)

A lovely end to a thought-provoking series.

A work of art... written almost as if she were writing for herself rather than for her readers, as if she were concentrating on creating a good book as opposed to just a popular one...

_Dreamfall_ is a must-read!

Well, she's done it again! Joan Vinge, author of the first two Cat novels, Psion & Catspaw, has produced another gripping, heart-felt masterpiece. Cat once again finds himself the pawn of an ultra-powerful corporate-state. However, _Dreamfall_ delves more into psycho-social emotional issues, dealing with Cat's heritage as a hydran/human halfbreed, how this effects his life and his views, and the psychological and emotional damage he lives with due to the loss of his psi (read _Psion_ for more details), and the consequences of using drugs to reactivate it. Here, Cat comes to a point of self-realization, of having to decide what he believes and how he wants to live his life--as a human, or a hydran? Eventually, he realizes that both have their good points, and perhaps he should accept the gifts of each. And of course, *he falls in love*. _Dreamfall_ yet again (as with the previous Cat novels) leads the reader to ponder the nature of his or her own values and world view. This is a truly beautiful, moving novel, and I've come to expect no less from this very talented woman.

Intriguing, with a dash of unusual spice!

Dreamfall, the last one so far written of the "Cat" series, has left me desiring a quick fourth helping. Psion, the first book was good; Catspaw, the second, was intriguing. But - Dreamfall was so outstandingly entertaining yet so different... Being a telepath (who has somehow supressed his gift, without wanting to) and a halfbreed on his home planet was bad enough, but being on his non-human parents' planet and falling into "Murphy's Law" was excellent, add the uniqueness of the "cloudwhales" - now you have the spice! Ms. Vinge will be added to the special place in my library where I keep all the greats - McCaffery, Lackey, Bujold, Asimov, Hambley and Zimmerman-Bradley; and now Vinge. To be read and reread for years to come