• The Killer Angels

  • The Classic Novel of the Civil War
  • By: Michael Shaara
  • Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
  • Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (6,316 ratings)

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The Killer Angels  By  cover art

The Killer Angels

By: Michael Shaara
Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
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Publisher's summary

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • After more than a quarter of a century and three million copies in print, Michael Shaara’s Civil War classic, The Killer Angels, remains as vivid and powerful as the day it was originally published.

July 1863. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia is invading the North. General Robert E. Lee has made this daring and massive move with seventy thousand men in a determined effort to draw out the Union Army of the Potomac and mortally wound it. His right hand is General James Longstreet, a brooding man who is loyal to Lee but stubbornly argues against his plan. Opposing them is an unknown factor: General George Meade, who has taken command of the Army only two days before what will be perhaps the crucial battle of the Civil War.

In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fight for two conflicting dreams. One dreams of freedom, the other of a way of life. More than rifles and bullets are carried into battle. The soldiers carry memories. Promises. Love. And more than men fall on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty are also the casualties of war.

The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable–a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America’s destiny.

©1974 Michael Shaara, copyright renewed 2002 Jeffrey M. Shaara & Lila E. Shaara (P)2004 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

  • Pulitzer Prize winner, Fiction 1975

“My favorite historical novel . . . A superb re-creation of the Battle of Gettysburg, but its real importance is its insight into what the war was about, and what it meant.”—James M. McPherson

“Remarkable . . . A book that changed my life . . . I had never visited Gettysburg, knew almost nothing about that battle before I read the book, but here it all came alive.”—Ken Burns, filmmaker

“Shaara carries [the reader] swiftly and dramatically to a climax as exciting as if it were being heard for the first time.”—The Seattle Times

What listeners say about The Killer Angels

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Favorite book of all time

Incredible. You feel like you are on the battlefield with them. The unique personal voices of each soldier brings a better understanding of the ego and sense of duty, bravery, that allows war to go on. Have read and listened to this book as well as watched the movie Gettysburg. The Audible version was by far the most enthralling.

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Good Ready

I was fortunate to teach history and the best way to help students learn and understand the concepts of history is through stories. I learned a lot from this story of the battle of Gettysburg.

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A Great Book Beautifully Read

Hoye's rendition of The Killer Angels brings all the humanity and drama of the Civil War to the surface. If you love history or historical novels, this is a book for you, specially well rendered by Stephen Hoye's ability to read with Irish, yankee and different southern accents throughout the book. Two thumbs up!

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Tiring

I’ve loved this book for years, and was excited to hear an audiobook version. The narrator is clearly proficient at his craft but i didn’t like many of the choices he made. In particular Robert E Lee was way too breathy and whiny for my taste. That he’s exhausted I get, but it became very one-note and irritating. This book would be difficult for anybody to do, with the tremendous amount of exposition and “awe” the author obviously has for the subject. That being said, the sheer amount of descriptions and philosophizing became very annoying about halfway through the book and i just wanted it to finish.

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Gettysburg the making of America

A true masterpiece about the most important three days in the civil war. You begin to truly see both the heroism of soldiers in this war along with the true horror as friends and family are forced to fight against each other in one of the most violent and deadly battles that the United States has ever fought. And yet through everything you see how this one battle these seventy two hours of fighting changed our country and ultimately helped form this great country into what we are today. A must read for any true history fan or anyone interested in America or it’s civil war.

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One sided

The first thing was speed one should not be an option. It is way too slow and it paints Lee and his army as depressed and defeated before they ever get to Gettysburg. It is obvious from the narrators tone and inflection that the story is partial to the north. I read the book years ago and found it much better as a read. I believe that was because of the narration.

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War is Hell on Earth

I don't think this is a book that one enjoys, but rather learns from. I study wars because I want to understand them. I can see that the Civil War had to happen when it did and all that, but the more I study war, the more I hate it, despise it and wish it did not exist. The biggest lesson learned from this book, which is written, btw, from the point of view of the South, is that whichever side you are on in a war, you generally believe you are in the right. Why would you risk the lives of so many people, not to mention your own, if you did not believe in why you were doing it? I understand that the men fighting for the South loved their leaders and their comrades in arms as much as those fighting for the North. They thought their cause was just. So did the North. It is a sticky situation. Gettysburg was a slaughter of many good and honest men on both sides. It breaks my heart to think of all the loss of good lives and the heartache it brought to so many families. I am grateful my sons did not have to go to war.

I did not care for the narrator, Stephen Hoye, at first, but after a couple of hours of listening, he grew on me, and I ended up enjoying his narration a lot. He just never quite got the southern accent down in my opinion.

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If Man is an Angel...

The Killer Angels is often mentioned as one of the greatest Civil War novels ever written, right along side The Red Badge of Courage. It was also mentioned by Joss Whedon as an inspiration for Firefly. The later was the reason I picked this novel up; I am not disappointed.

Michael Shaara's depiction of the battle of Gettysburg, from both the Union and Confederate sides, is very complex and grounded in a remarkable amount of historical research. Also, Shaara does a remarkable job with Robert E. Lee, describing The General as a tragic hero fighting for his soldiers, yet destined to be on the wrong side of history. I could talk about this novel all day, but really just read it for yourself. Very highly recommended!

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Oh, crud, am I giving this five stars?

What did you like best about this story?

I don't like to give anything five stars but this was a darned good experience for me on many levels - the history, the entertainment, and the example of good writing - moving tales engaging characters on both sides, a well-architected story in which the characters remained amazingly distinct and clear, plus some great American English prose. Hearing the history presented this way brings it to life and makes these characters and events recognizable when I see them in other venues - much more than simply reading a dry paragraph in a textbook. An enjoyable, expanding, and worthwhile investment.

What does Stephen Hoye bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Good voices that helped keep the large cast of characters clear in my head. Enough accent to provide color and atmosphere to the reading. Not overacted, which is appreciated, but enough.

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History Channel Meets Game of Thrones

What aspect of Stephen Hoye’s performance would you have changed?

He has a terrific voice and varies it well for the different characters, but it's just too slow. There's a kind of anchorman quality to it, an "every word has to weigh something" quality to it. I "fixed" the issue by listening to the book at double-speed on my iPod, and I enjoyed his performance after that.

Any additional comments?

In his introduction to the edition I read, Shaara’s son Jeff says that the novel’s origins date to a family trip they took to Gettysburg in 1964 for the centennial of the battle. The book grew out of Shaara’s impulse to tell the story to his family that day from the perspective of the different figures who lived it, and it gave birth to what may well be a new way of recounting history. It’s now been a half century since that family trip, and I have to hand it to Shaara – the method he developed is still effective, still capable of bringing some of the power of that history to life.

I’d go so far as to argue that Shaara, in effect, created the template for the fantastic history that underlies George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. That is, by carving a huge war story into smaller pieces – pieces framed by the perspective of a single participant – he gives the impression of a story larger than any one person could see and yet always connected to a human perspective.

There are probably some slow parts to all of this. It takes a while to establish some of the characters, and, since the novel presumes greater familiarity with the details of Gettysburg than most of us educated in the last 40 years have, some of the foreshadowing either misses the mark or seems heavy-handed.

But none of those age spots really dim the accomplishment here. There really is something thrilling about the combat. No one is ever allowed to be a true villain, and few of the heroes on either side escape without some blemishes. It celebrates the men who fought in the war more than it champions any particular cause and, in a small way, it serves as a belated effort at Reconstruction – a way of imagining a past usable by both the North and the South to make sense of a united future.

I’m not quite sure that each of these characters assumes the dimensions of a fully realized character, but there’s no question that Shaara gives us different ways of thinking about the same conflict. Whether it’s a matter of States Rights as an extension of the original Revolutionary impulse or the notion that freedom for any depends on freedom for all, it is always a matter of recognizing the importance of courage and level-headedness in impossible circumstances.

And it’s also at times a dramatic, even riveting story. The account of Chamberlain’s defense of Little Round Top had me at the edge of my seat. It was action as thrilling as anything you’ll find in Game of Thrones but it was even more rewarding for being a reflection of genuine history.

I know there have been some well-regarded films to grow out of Shaara’s work (and that his son has continued the family tradition, applying the same literary method to other periods of American military history), and I intend to explore them. This seems a terrific place to start with all of that, though, with a new way to see history that Shaara came up with 50 years ago himself.

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