What Dreams May Come

What Dreams May Come is billed as a 'novel', one adapted into an award winning Robin Williams movie in the '90's, and there is indeed a whiff of a storyline. But let's cut to the chase: in reality this is as much a novel as I am a Samoan hockey player.

The book is told in the first person by Chris Nielsen, a recently deceased father and husband who channels his words via a medium. He dies, is lost in a fog for a minute, then moves on to 'Summerland', a here-after created by thought. In Summerland humans still hold jobs and deal with the issues of their lives - a sort of non-denominational Purgatory if you will.

Lo and behold his wife Anne cannot live without him, as they are, naturally, just the most romantic and in-tune couple in history dontcha know, and she commits suicide. For this act she is sent to the equivalent of hell, and Chris sets out to find her and bring her back into Summerland.

I don't feel right reviewing this book because it isn't a novel, it's a thinly disguised religious tract for whatever combination of beliefs Matheson holds dear.

True, I think the beliefs pushed by the book are by and large bunk, but that's me; I don't care what others believe and it wouldn't necessarily ruin the book for me. Even if this book were detailing Catholic dogma blow for blow I'd have been irritated and bored.

It reads like one of those little Evangelical comic books you find left behind in public places. As with those tracts, the goal isn't to entertain, it's to dryly hit you over the head with someone else's beliefs.

"How is it made?"

"By the imposition of mental imagery on the
ideoplastic medium of your aura."
-pg 92

According to the afterward, people have been known to weep after reading this book. I'd imagine so. After all, it is quite a chore to plow through.

An awful waste of time; avoid this drivel.