The Dream Millennium

by James White

With corruption and pollution destroying Earth, John Devlin is sent on a one-thousand-year mission to find a new planet for mankind

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

217 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 1, 1976

About the author

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

James White was a Northern Irish author of science fiction novellas, short stories and novels. He was born in Belfast and returned there after spending some early years in Canada. He became a fan of science fiction in 1941 and co-wrote two fan magazines, from 1948 to 1953 and 1952 to 1965. Encouraged by other fans, White began publishing short stories in 1953, and his first novel was published in 1957. His best-known novels were the twelve of the Sector General series, the first published in 1962 and the last after his death. White also published nine other novels, two of which were nominated for major awards, unsuccessfully.

White abhorred violence, and medical and other emergencies were the sources of dramatic tension in his stories. The "Sector General" series is regarded as defining the genre of medical science fiction, and as introducing a memorable crew of aliens. Although missing winning the most prestigious honours four times, White gained other awards for specific works and for contributions to science fiction. He was also Guest-of-Honour of several conventions.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good but slow-paced novel about a starship sent on an exploratory mission because Earth has become a polluted, over-populated wasteland. The crew spend the voyage induced in cryogenic cold sleep from which they are awakened periodically and realize they've spent all their time dreaming, nightmares which they remember when they're awakened. I didn't care for the ending, but it presents some interesting thoughts about genetic memory. The Ballantine first edition from June 1974 (with a good John Berkey cover that looks like Vincent DiFate's work) proclaimed "First time in print" on the cover, which was inaccurate since it was first serialized in the Ejler Jakobsson-edited Galaxy magazine from October - December in 1973. (The October issue also had the concluding installment of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, a poem by Ray Bradbury, and stories by Theodore Sturgeon, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Harlan Ellison.... Wow!) I preferred White's Sector General stories, but this is a good example of his work outside that arena.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Earth is dying, and some people are sent to find a new planet. They all have nightmares and start dropping from exhaustion.

Dreaming is the big thing, so there's way too many dream sequences.

[Graham P · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinatingly rich (and fascinatingly obtuse) novel penned by the prolific SF Belfastian writer, James White. In essence, this novel is about hope amidst an overcrowded pigpen of violence, disillusion, and biased earthbound law (note that White wrote this in Belfast, Ireland in the mid-1970s). The focus is not on alien invasion or technological wonders, but on the subconscious -- the precarious genetic codes that lay the groundwork between sleep and dream. Yes, this is about a journey of the hivemind, the collective 'seed' of human history pollinating another universe. Well, that's the plan.

If you don't like novels that focus on dreams and dream logic, then this one isn't for you. Not only do our two main characters, Devlin and Patricia, dream continuously and in great detail, they pontificate these dreams in turgid dialogue that embody the core weakness of the novel. When characters talk like info-dumps, you lose authenticity and fumble through the vernacular as if in quicksand. Or at least I do as a reader.

Still, the dreams themselves are the core of this novel: of being a trilobite in prehistoric oceans, a brontosaurus in a Jurassic swamp, a Neanderthal pushed off the evolutionary ladder, a corrupt king on the fields of old England, and even as far into the future as a grizzled revolutionary unwilling to join 'the cause', only to have his fate sealed in the doom-kissed sunblast from a nuclear bomb. White is surely laying it on thick (and yes, this is a fix-up), but he weaves a memorable story highlighted by its unhinged ideas. And kudos to the astral priest, Brother Howard, for being the voice of conviction in this novel. I would love a novel about him and his journey from starry-eyed explorer to a cynical priest amidst the ruins of Earth.

'The Dream Millennium' is an important book in the SF canon, despite its overabundance in explanation. However, I appreciate SF novels not steeped in hype and the usual must-read lists, but those lingering in obscurity, waiting to be discovered in the dusty shelves of the paperback collector. Cheers to Joachim Boaz for writing about this novel on his essential site:
https://sciencefictionruminations.com/

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

"'The thought of the vast, utterly silent ship stretching away on all sides of his cubicle, guarded and guided by silent computers, was paralyzing his own ability to make sounds […]' (3)

The crew of a seed ship sent to find a new habitable planet dream the same dreams, dreams of unnatural clarity plagued by pain and death. As a young woman lies dying in her cold cubicle, her final meal at her lips and unaware of her [...]"

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story centers on a spaceship traveling at a fraction of the speed of light. It's taking colonists in suspended animation on a trip designed to pass through 10 star systems which may have habitable planets. When the ship passes by a star system, the ship's computer may make the determination it's not habitable, or it may wake a crew member to make the decision.

Every so many years, each person is woken for a short time to exercise physically and mentally. When this happens, they are disturbed by extremely vivid dreams of the life of some person or prehistoric animal. This is taking a toll on the people.

Trying to understand what is happening, they consider various possibilities: Is this just a simulation (not really a spacehip) with scientists using drugs or other means to influence people's minds? Is this a spaceship on which something has gone wrong? Etc.



Towards the end of the book, the main character manages to remember what he had been told in preparation for the journey, but had been hypnotized to forget. Based on the experiences of the first person in long-term suspended animation, it was found that under those conditions, a person has dreams based on "racial memory" and prehistoric animals' memories which were "radiated" into the surrounding environment. To me, this is mumbo-jumbo, which was disappointing to me.

There are chapters which include episodes of three star systems the ship checks out. There is also some discussion on matters such as what traits should be considered in choosing colonists to settle other planets. The book also pictures an affluent but violent Earth which many people would like to leave.

[Tina · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn't bad until the last twenty pages when it went off the rails. The novel was slow but gradually grew more interesting. The dreams Devlin experienced were written in great detail and were full of action, but this made the future-gone-insane real world seem dull in comparison. The future world reminded me of one of the futures in The Forever War, and it was a pretty cool concept, though White kept his characters away from the most interesting parts of it.

Up until page 200 or so I would likely have given this book a 3.5, but then

{SPOILER ALERT}

White brought in racial memory and the "hypersensitive recorder." Apparently, this means that all the "awful" dreams the crew had been experiencing were the result of the ENTIRE history of humanity as little particles from our bodies transmit our memories into a subconscious "recorder" in our brains that then carries all the memories it ever encounters from itself or others. And these all get shared around any time you breathe another person's breath (or whatever). Oh, and for some UNEXPLAINED reason, this memory is gender-selective. That just doesn't... argh! It makes no sense! Also, Devlin had dreams where he was a dinosaur too. I don't recall there being any humans around when the dinos existed, so I'm not sure how they managed to transmit their memories. And wait, if dinos did it, why couldn't animals? Or bugs? Devlin didn't have any dreams about being a cat! Also, why were all the dreams bad? It didn't really explain that either...

Anyways, the revelation at the end was so goddamn stupid that it made me scoff, laugh, and then shake my head in disbelief.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great SF read that contains both hope and darkness, confusion, social commentary (from the early 70s that is even more so relevant in today's gun & violence culture) and just solid writing. I absolutely love this addition to my 70s New Wave SF collection. (Plus, you can't beat a John Berkey cover!)

[Deb Omnivorous Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really very readable book: Our main protagonist wakes on a spaceship from suspended animation, or, what he calls 'Anaesthetic sleep' to exercise and 'remember'.

In increments we learn that he -and the other crew and colonists travelling asleep on the ship- come from an overcrowded, violent, polluted Earth where people are beyond hop.

They are travelling on this ship which is fully automated and has instructions to analyse planets and systems along the way and only awaken people if a human decision needs to be made. As we follow our protagonist through multiple awakenings, he and we start to get the feeling that something is wrong, or being concealed and it has something to do with the ships insistence on remembering and something to do with the vivid, but very strange dreams he dreams while asleep.

Now, I really loved the pacing, the slow reveal and generally everything about the reading experience. I especially loved the first dream he has where he is an marine invertebrate crawling along the seafloor of what is called a Silurian sea (though it still sounds Pre-Cambrian to me, and I would suspect our character was an Anomilocarius if not for the Ammonite.) ah well.

Really go book, the only reason that I have not given t a five star is because the story has faded so fast from my memory: it just did not stay, despite having a great plot and some interesting questions for the reader and the characters.
Ah well, maybe this review will help me remember it.

[Vinothraj · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd give this one a 3.5.
Deals with the psychological effects of a deep sleep state, which is activated (I assume as the body is cryogenically frozen) during interstellar travel.
Concept-wise pretty interesting, and something that I've never seen being dealt with in space-travel scifi.
Writing style is good, but at times I had to skim through it.

[Vinothraj · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd give this one a 3.5 rating.
Deals with the psychological effects of a deep sleep state when the body is cryogenically frozen for interstellar travel.
Concept-wise something interesting, and not seen in scifi.
But it felt like a drag in parts, and I had to skim through it.

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

A spaceship filled with colonists in suspended animation leaves earth in search for a habitable planet. During their travels the colonists suffer from very vivid, violent dreams.

This is an entertaining story by Welsh SF-writer James White. No classic but better than I expected.

3,5 stars.

[Sean Randall · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of whites more peculiar divergences, this was interesting, especially with the Belts giving a heinlein-style Beyond This Horizon feel. The memory idea is just bananas.

[Andy Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was kind of boring.

[Dustin · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting idea told in an uninteresting way

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/160970.html[return][return]Rather an interesting little novel by this unjustly neglected Irish sf writer; central character (as so often with White) is a doctor, but this time in charge of a crew in cold-sleep on a colonisation starship. Through his dreams during the centuries in cold sleep he (and as it turns out the rest of the crew also) recapitulate evolution, in a way that reminded me of both Stephen Baxter's Evolution and Roger Zelazny's little-known novel Bridge of Ashes, except that I think White pulls it off better than either. His bleak near future from which hero is escaping sounds awfully like only a slight exaggeration of early-70s Belfast (book published in 1973). One other odd bit of writing ahead of its time - hero meets his love interest while treating her as a patient for self-harm. This is unfortunately balanced by a very weird jibe at homosexuals (which looks as if it may have been mangled from something more sensible by an editor).

[Valerie]

My copy of this is missing the bottom half of the last page--which if you've read the book will make you realize why I'm trying to find another copy.

No luck so far--that's the problem with prolific authors: few people have all their books for sale.

Ashleigh Brilliant one said that if you make one or two ridiculous assumptions, everything he did and said made perfect sense. This is a book that follows that rule. The basic premise is absurd--but if you can get past that, it's a fair story. Not one of White's best, though.

[Mamercus · Rating 4 out of 5]

James White's The Dream Millennium is a workmanlike encapsulation of 70s science-fiction, absent contemporary feminism. Fundamentally it is a mystery set during an exodus whose clues lie and dreams of the protagonists. If you enjoy other stories by James White, you should read this, but it is not a starter book for either James white or 70s science-fiction.

[Sunwyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is excellent

Converting the book to an ebook was done in a really shitty fashion. There are hundreds of typos. The formatting is a complete mess. Whoever is responsible for this travesty should be flogged.

[Ralph McEwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. A good story with interesting concepts of cold sleep and genetic memory. This book has been registered on bookcrossing.com and released at a rest stop north of Tonopah Nevada.

[SciFiOne · Rating 3 out of 5]

1986 grade C-