| Title | : | Dreamfall (Cat, #3) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0765303426 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780765303424 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 432 |
| Publication | : | First published June 1, 1996 |
The decimated Hydran population of Refuge is confined to a bleak "homeland," by a huge corporate state, Tau Biotech. Tau also controls Refuge's one unique natural resource, "Dreamfall." The tangible residue of cast-off thoughts from beautiful, enigmatic "cloud whales," dreamfall forms vast reefs, sacred to the Hydrans, but mere exploitable data to Tau.
Caught between Tau and desperate Hydrans who fight to reclaim their world, Cat must somehow forge the ruins of the past into a means to defeat Tau's brutality to save his people--and himself.
Dreamfall (Cat, #3) Reviews
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I feel like I'm coming out of dreamfall myself—a long waking dream that started when I began reading the Cat series. Book lovers know what I'm talking about: your non-reading time feels like a haze, because you're not aware of the here and now. You're still inside the novel.
While Psion was more of a coming-of-age/adventure and Catspaw more political intrigue, Dreamfall felt like a film noir, with Cat uncovering a mystery that leads him to the ghetto streets of Freaktown and eventually the corrupt and cold-blooded men that keep up the status quo. It's not as hard-bitten in style as something like The Big Sleep, though. Cat's longing for connection and forgiveness soften the tone, although he has some dark musings about human nature. Cat's thoughts added such texture to the story. He would often think with the delicacy of poetry, but switch to say something incredibly hard-as-nails out loud. Those reversals were so delightfully surprising.
There was an overall feeling of isolation in this book. The isolation of your own biology, of a community kept at arm's length. The isolation we impose upon ourselves. Of how another being, whether human or alien, is ultimately unknowable. That sense of being blocked in wasn't obvious, but kept the events tied together nicely.
Dreamfall is the third—and sadly, last—book in this series, and it feels more like an Empire Strikes Back than a Return of the Jedi; that soft minor chord before the music swells to a magnificent crescendo. It's ripe for a triumphant final installment in the series. I'll just have to hope that Joan Vinge recovers her health and finds the right spark that will set her hand to writing it.
Still, this book works well as a stand-alone, although readers will have a greater emotional connection if they read the series from the beginning. I hope those who pick it up have their own dreamfall. -
A good book with a bummer ending. Not surprising, I suppose, since the theme of this novel is the near impossibility of surviving as an outsider in a world governed by the corporate state.
Cat's a sweet character who somehow manages to be a bridge between peoples, but also manages to find himself alone & disregarded.
This is a book filled with longing - for community, for change, for love, for companionship, for a way to be whole. Vinge writes interesting characters & the plot here is nicely character driven, although she doesn't really do anything with the cloud whales and their dreamfall - odd to set up such a cool premise & then just sort of leave it there.
This is the third book of a trilogy and I think I like the second one, Catspaw, best. The characters, landscape, & ideas are more diverse - alien, but not alien all at once. -
I read the first two novels of Cat the Psion a long time ago, in the last century. I did not know there was a third novel in this series. I had a very strong memory of the first books, and the beginning of my reading reinforced my memories: a coherent SF universe, deep characters, a modern plot (dealing with racism, colonialism, difference and loss of a glorious past, whether from a personal point of view or that of a whole civilization).
However, I found the book's heart a bit long, a bit slow. But never to the point of letting go of the book, the bottom of the story being remarkable. And the end of the book is very successful, between triumph and tragedy.
I just have to re-read the first two volumes, now ... -
Dreamfall is the third book in the Cat series (so read
Psion and
Catspaw), and the least enjoyable in my opinion, which makes it about six times better than all books anyway. Dreamfall is the story of Cat's exploration of his heritage. While traveling to a distant planet with his university to study the "cloud whales," Cat goes to the "Homeland" (where the indigenous Hydran population lives, much like Native Americans were pushed off of their land to reservations) and ends up in a mess. His telepathic talent still doesn't work except maybe once in a while, so he finds he isn't really welcome over in the Hydran town because keeping his mind closed is offensive to them.
As he is feeling hopeless about not fitting in with either the humans or the Hydrans, a woman smacks into him, running away from security, and drops a child's databand into his hand as she runs away. He helps her escape and ends up taken into custody himself. He is interrogated and briefly tortured, but since he knows nothing he is unable to help them catch the Hydran woman, who apparently kidnapped a human child.
It comes out that the child is Joby, a baby with neurological damage that makes him unable to control himself at all, and so his family had hired a Hydran companion for him to make him able to move and react the way he wanted to in an attempt to rehabilitate him. The woman, Miya, took off with their son for reasons unclear. Cat feels a connection to the woman, though, and ends up meeting her again very soon, when she explains herself to him. She takes him to the Hydran town and tries to help him get to know the people, though her sister, Naoh, takes an immediate aversion to him.
Miya and Cat become lovers, and Cat learns the Hydran language and attempts to act as a go-between for the humans and the Hydrans. But trouble is brewing (of course). The humans see the Hydrans as terrorists holding the child hostage, and the Hydrans--specifically a freedom-fighting radical group of them--see the humans as invaders. They are led by Naoh in a fight against the humans, and Cat is swept up in it, yet again, trying to find his feet. Cat thinks Naoh is wrong and very sick, and tries to stop the Hydrans from attacking the humans, but Naoh is too persuasive and ends up getting hundreds of people to riot. And the humans retaliate with a kind of gas that makes Hydrans unable to use their psionic abilities, rendering them helpless and confused. Cat, Miya, and Joby retreat to a quiet place to heal.
There are tons of details I've missed here, of course--Cat's attempts to expose Corporate Security's treatment of their bonded workers; Cat's friendship and relationship with Kissindre Perrymeade, his classmate who is somewhat entranced by him; his relationship with an old woman known as an oyasin who teaches him much about life and himself. But of course it all comes together in an ending that definitely isn't "happy" but just seems right. Cat is much more mature now and his exploration of the Hydran part of himself is fascinating; he always felt very human because of being raised thinking he was only human, and so it's great to see his acceptance of both halves. -
Given my love of Psion, this review is riddled with disappointment and someone else might give it another star out of some kind of misguided pity.
Shambling adolescent sulker stumbles through grindingly plodding narrative. In the debut novel "Psion", the behaviour matched the age, but now it drags. Despite this, two random women throw themselves at our hero and two more sexually assault him (much less exciting than it sounds, no really). Psion has a wonderful spirit of magic and mystery, of a tense combative foe in a cruel uncaring world. Dreamfall has dreams crushed underfoot by mechanical processors.
In a wonderfully backhanded review on the back cover of my edition a reviewer says "The cloud-reef backdrop is spectacular". True and desperate all at the same time...
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Oh Joan D. Vinge. Why did you revive a series I enjoyed years after? I loved Catspaw and thought the ending satisfied Cat's tale quite well. Enter Dreamfall, which is just a mess of a novel. I'm giving it a 2 because I think Vinge's writing is still solid, I just truthfully think that there was no reason for us to go back and see how Cat's doing when his story felt complete prior. I wanted to enjoy this one, but I was just so frusrated with what the story was doing and how it moved, and that essentially killed what little enjoyment I had.
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This book wasn't quite as good as the first two, but it is still an very excellent sci-fi book, and the story is unique enough to not feel like some boring rehash as some sequels are. Cat goes to his mother's home planet and learns a lot there. Joan D. Vinge writes the story with a masterful pen as she describes the struggles between the Hydrans and Tau, a greedy corporation.
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Tangible residue of cast-off thoughts from beautiful, enigmatic cloud whales - I don't see how anybody could read that phrase and not want to go on and read the book about it. Of course it's not as good as you imagined - how could it be?
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Dreamfall is (at least while this review is being written) the last book in the Cat saga, and despite not being as good as the previous book I still found plenty of things to enjoy. Such as the meta-narrative about racism, the characters, and the writing. Joan D. Vinge has clearly spent a good amount of time developing the story and how it would affect the characters, their choices, and how the story would change depending on that. Point being that nothing in the story felt unnatural.
Dreamfall suffers from some of the pitfalls of Catspawn, where the story acts as a mystery, but keeps adding things to make the story make sense, making it impossible to predict the end. Not a bad thing in most fiction, but in mystery stories, it is a problem as half the fun is seeing someone manage to either put together a puzzle or see someone put together a puzzle you couldn't finish. It also suffers from the use of destiny by another name, snuffing out a lot of the tension of the story. I will say that the use of destiny isn't all negative, as people are manipulated by it in clever ways.
When the chips are down I'll say that I definitely had fun with this book, and the series for that matter, and would recommend it to fans of young adult fans who wants something aimed at them, but with a bit of a bite to it. -
I'll admit that I'm currently stalled out a bit short of the halfway point, and I don't see myself finishing unless a Cat #4 book ever shows up (because let's be honestly, this series isn't a trilogy. it only "looks" like a trilogy because there's only 3 books... lol).
I feel like Vinge thinks it's going to be SO INCREDIBLY SATISFYING for the reader to watch Cat finally stand up against the System that has damned him since birth. Except... it's just this random third party conflict that Cat has no actual stake in other than, idk, a college research paper. It feels like Vinge was trying to make a big point about the treatment of native americans, the suppression of their culture, forced to live on reservations, etc... except I don't think she realized that Cat (both the book and the character) didn't really have anything to do with it. Cat wasnt raised by Hydrans and as a half-breed has truly no connection to his heritage or his people. Which would have been a more interesting book subject than the plot forcing him to care about something that doesn't make any difference to him other than the fact that he accidentally stumbled across some coincidental plot.
Anyway, this book feels a bit silly and awkward, and I think I'm done. -
The book seemed like just a reason for the author to pile more abuse on Cat.
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Loved this series as a teen and early 20-something. It might be time for a re-read. Joan Vinge is a favorite sci-fi author.
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I really enjoyed the story of this one. Enough to start looking for the rest of the books!
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Recommendation: If you insist on completing the trilogy. Otherwise, Catspaw (#2) is the must-read while Psion (#1) is solid.
Rating: 2-2 ½ stars I read it, enjoyed parts of it but it has problematic tropes and nonsensical premises I can’t accept with a unsatisfying ending.
Pros
Get up close and personal with Hydreans…
Cons
...Who are a classic example of Magical Native Americans, with Noble tokens
Insta-love
Sucktastic ending
It’s basically Psion redux with insta-love only it’s open ending isn’t the beginning of a trilogy, it’s the dissatisfying result of one. It’s not all bad but I love Cat, he’s what I read for, found pleasure in when others didn’t. His ending SUCKS. It pisses me off. Sure, I can imagine how things will go after the last sentence but I don’t want headcannon, I want closure.
Maybe it’s more fitting with the theme and it take another book to make it right but still. Vinge made me care, connect with him and I’m left to drift among the stars asking questions without answers…Okay, so it definitely fits with the tone and message of the Cat books but that doesn’t change my discontentment.
I’ll gladly take and read more of Cat’s life and to leave it hanging so precariously is disappointing.
Before Hydreans were described vaguely with little information on daily life and culture but in Dreamfall we get up close and personal, which initially convinced me to read it. However, it’s obvious they’re Magical Noble Native Americans, which is hardly acceptable. Toss in how people keep bringing up how their civilization was declining when Humans popped up and how their welfare is tied to the land and it becomes enraging.
Reading this made me realize what felt off about Psion’s villain. For someone proclaimed as so radical and dangerous, he hadn’t actually planned on harming anyone. He was just willing to fight back, cut off their valuable supply. Yet the good guys are being used and trying to convince humans that they’re valuable tools. Why is it always “Be a monster or be a useful tool”? The fight for the rights of people to be recognized is still being fought on the terms of the oppressors, which is something I’m not down with.
Not only that but the big drama of the book is this conflict between two sisters: one a radical terrorist willing to harm and the other subjugating herself to prove how harmless and useful Hydrean’s powers could be to their oppressors. In Psion there was much the same but instead both men on each side of Cat were irritating fucks who learned their lesson. Instead, the same dichotomy shows up wearing my patience and one woman is clearly the favored option. Cat praises her and is punished for how he bucks the status quo.
The feedback loop thing still gets me though. Before it had little enough impact in Catspaw to overlook while in Psion I took Cat’s damage as PTSD to rationalize it. However, in Dreamfall there’s a deadly altercation between a Human and a Hydrean.
It means you can’t defend yourself, which I have a huge problem with. It’s talked about how it evolved that way to help them manage and control their powers, but that sounds stupid unless the Hydraens themselves made it so because evolution isn’t guided or linear, you adapt to the environment and that feedback loop seems like the quick way to an evolutionary dead end. And the scene where “everyone’s fears about Hydraens and Humans fight were realized” is stupid because they wound up dead, like everyone knew they would. Where’s the threat to Humans, exactly? Even if there were a Hydra for every Human (there’s not), they’d all be dead. They’d have to outnumber them vastly to be able and willing to sacrifice one person for every human and survive to tell the tell. Sounds like “Yellow Peril” and its ilk bullshit. -
Cat has landed on a planet with a large indigenous population of Hydrans, and since he himself is half Hydran, he decides he wants to go see the Hydran town. Unfortunately, just like with full-blood humans, Cat finds himself feeling unwelcome--partially because he is telepathic like Hydrans are, but has brain damage that forces him to keep his mind closed. Just when he feels there's really no place that will accept him, Cat meets a strange Hydran woman on the run from law enforcement, and he finds her so compelling that he helps her escape without question. One complication, though: she's stolen a child. With that, Cat follows his connection to the woman--Miya--only to find that her kidnapping of the child is considered a terrorist action, and Miya's sister Naoh is indeed a freedom fighting leader who wants humans to get off their planet. When he learns why Miya thinks the child is better off in her care and why the humans' presence has been poisoning the Hydrans for so long, he can't help but sympathize, but still, he is half human too--which not only gives him a connection to the other half of his heritage, but makes him well aware of what horror they are capable of.
Cat not fitting in with humans was central to the previous two books--Psion and Catspaw--but his connection to the Hydrans wasn't explored really until now. I loved seeing him learn about his other people, explore a real romantic connection, acknowledge the depth of his wounds, and set about healing them. And of course, I love how right and wrong are not black and white in this book--how nobody's really the good guy and nobody stands for "the truth" (including the protagonist). It was also nice to see some Hydrans who were diverse--not painted as a spooky race of aliens that all have one mind--and I liked the themes of healing that permeated this novel after following Cat through so much pain. Vinge is a phenomenal character writer. Readers who like multilayered, three-dimensional characters with an intimate connection to the narration should read this. -
The first time I read Dreamfall, I did it not long after reading Psion and Catspaw. Dreamfall wasn’t the sequel to Catspaw I’d wanted, which affected my rating of the book.
Twenty years later, far less fresh with the material, I tackled it again and probably more objectively for itself as a single book. It’s not bad and I finished it pretty quickly out of wanting to see how things turned out, but for this book--and this series--the reader needs to be able to deal with the protagonist constantly being tormented physically, emotionally, and mentally, sometimes to the point of becoming ridiculous and nearly funny (to me at least), sometimes in ways that some readers might find triggery This book is especially thick with torment; even by the standards of the other books in the series I found it a bit extreme.
I think I picked up the worldbuilding and cultures better this time than on my first read. -
Well, it was great to hear the end of the story for Cat. And although it did not end entirely happily for Cat, I felt like Vinge left enough unsaid to assume he'd figure out a way to enjoy a happy ending eventually.
My biggest criticism is regarding Cat's tattoo. It was mentioned several times in book two, and in this third book it was brought up every few chapters. I am somewhat irritated it was not used as a plot point. I mean, the tattoo was not even part of Cat's character--he cannot remember when or where he got it. It was a dead end character trait, that was referenced too many times to be ignored. Because it kept coming up, I assumed it was important; and I am most annoyed it was not.
Not my favourite installment of Cat's journey, but I do not regret finding out the next chapter of his life. -
This is the last book in the author's Cat series, and I really hope there is another one in the works considering the way it ended. While it's realistic and I can see Tau having their last ditch revenge on Cat for what he's done, it's just...I wasn't happy. He's definitely not happy.
I love this series, it has everything I like in it, psi powers, angst, whumping, a good storyline and characters and it's realistic in that it's not pat happy endings or solutions. I also love the way the Hydrans parallel TP in a lot of ways with their abilities, not being able to kill, and in this story, the love between Miya and Cat which forms a telepathic bond between them. It's definitely a series I'd recommend and one I'd added to my wish list for my own copies. -
Vinge is one of my favourite scfi authors. Not only because she is a excellent writer but because she reveals a compassionate soul. Probably it is in this book where she shows this in a beautiful and, at the same time, a crude narrative. The core of the it is world of horrific and icy oppression and the counterpart, the fight for human values: dignity, fair dealing, justice, etc. It is the second time I read it, but at that time, almost ten years ago, I didn't notice how powerful the message was. I should say that the world she describes is not very much different to the world we are living today, with almost untouchable worldwide secret services, powerful private corporations doing as it please their greed, extreme inequality, colonialism in its worst form (does exist a good form?.
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Poor, poor Cat. He's like the universe's personal chew-toy.
Also, I'm pretty sure "Namaste" is not an alien expression. I suppose it could just be symbolic?
I keep waiting for Cat to grow a pair and start taking some agency in his life instead of just reacting (often in the worst possible way) to the shit that constantly comes his way.
I mean, he has the potential to be a major player, but he's always too scared to live up to it unless someone's got his balls in a vice- which they usually do- and even then he never goes far enough.
I guess he's afraid to turn into another Quicksilver, but hey, Rubiy's ideas weren't ALL wrong. -
In a way I think this book has interesting new developments in Cat's character, but at the same time, it really rams home the point that being Cat is all about being isolated from almost everyone all of the time. And yes, that's sad. At the same time I definitely wish that Vinge's health problems hadn't prevented her from writing for several years. If this had not been the case, there would probably be at least one more Cat novel for interested readers, if not two.
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I didn't realize this was book 3 til I finished it. Maybe that's why the characters felt a little flat. Maybe it was just the thing to do in the 90's, but I'm a little tired of the combines/massive corporations that run the universe. The ending is sad, but since I don't know the story of the previous 2 books, maybe it works. Felt like a bit of a cliffhanger to me, but 15 years later, it still doesn't have a sequel.
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There were about 20 or 30 pages that weren't necessary here, mostly having to do with repetitive repetitions of the events happening in this book and the previous.
I was also bothered by the lack of development in the main character, Cat. He is still making the same mistakes and suffering the same disappointments...I wonder if that was intentional on the author's behalf, or a sign of a sophomoric writing talent? -
Fantastic book, though it seems to be the last in the series, thus far. It has been over a decade since it was published, but I sure wish to read the next installment, if one should ever be written. Some reviewers on Amazon complained that it was drawn out at the end. I could not disagree more. If you read this series, if you are like me, you will fall in love with the characters. You will laugh and cry with them, and when finished, you will want to linger in their lives a little longer.
