SOURCE: A review of Gods and Generals, in Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 1996, p. 633.

[In the following review, Shaara is lauded for his character depiction and attention to detail in his "impressive debut." However, the reviewer considers Gods and Generals somewhat lacking when compared to Shaara's father's Civil War novel, The Killer Angels.]

First-time author Shaara comes of a distinguished lineage: His father, Michael (who died in 1988), wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels (1974) about the Civil War battle of Gettysburg.

It's some testament to the younger Shaara's skills that his own debut [Gods and Generals], meant to be a prequel to that earlier book, can often hold its own with that work. Like Killer Angels, this new novel focuses mostly on actual figures swept up in that immense conflict: Robert E. Lee and Thomas ("Stonewall") Jackson on the Confederate side, Joshua Chamberlain and Winfield Scott Hancock on the...