Customer Reviews

Dreamland: A Novel of the Ufo Cover-Up

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MJ-12, Roswell, alien abductions, missing time, hypnotic therapy, extraterrestrial/human hybrids, captured aliens, conspiracies to left and right; all this and more can be found in "Dreamland", written by Ernest Hemingway's niece and her husband and published in 1995.

The heritage from Hemingway is very apparent from the first to the last page, even though Hilary and her husband never are even close to Ernest's literary achievements. The sentences are often short, descriptions of the environment are few and insufficient, and more than once the text feels extremely unrealistic when the most spectacular events imaginable are met with not much more than a shrug of the shoulders from the main characters. Writing fiction about the supernatural and the paranormal is a difficult art to master, and Hemingway and Lindsay fail miserably from page one.

Any reader with basic knowledge in UFO history will recognize much from the story. The excitement is therefore somewhat killed, since it's often not very hard to figure what will happen next. At the end the story is twisted quite interestingly, however, that doesn't take away the fact that the rest of the story has been extremely dull.

But this is, again, if the reader has previous knowledge of UFO history. For the "normal" reader, who has never heard of things taken for granted by sceptical ufologists, the book is sure to offer several interesting moments. Hemingway and Lindsay have used more or less everything offered by lesser sceptical ufologists and added a story about a man and his wife who are caught in the line of fire between the American military and peaceful extraterrestrials.

But, the main problem with the book is that is just feels uninspired. The sections about alien abductions feels as if they were taken right out of any Budd Hopkins book, and the argumentation regarding the Roswell incident is just plain awful. The credibility is reduced, and thus the entire reading experience is ruined. This is too bad, because a skilled author is very likely to have been able to make something good out of the whole mess.

MJ-12, Roswell, alien abductions, missing time, hypnotic therapy, extraterrestrial/human hybrids, captured aliens, conspiracies to left and right; all this and more can be found in "Dreamland", written by Ernest Hemingway's niece and her husband and published in 1995.

The heritage from Hemingway is very apparent from the first to the last page, even though Hilary and her husband never are even close to Ernest's literary achievements. The sentences are often short, descriptions of the environment are few and insufficient, and more than once the text feels extremely unrealistic when the most spectacular events imaginable are met with not much more than a shrug of the shoulders from the main characters. Writing fiction about the supernatural and the paranormal is a difficult art to master, and Hemingway and Lindsay fail miserably from page one.

Any reader with basic knowledge in UFO history will recognize much from the story. The excitement is therefore somewhat killed, since it's often not very hard to figure what will happen next. At the end the story is twisted quite interestingly, however, that doesn't take away the fact that the rest of the story has been extremely dull.

But this is, again, if the reader has previous knowledge of UFO history. For the "normal" reader, who has never heard of things taken for granted by sceptical ufologists, the book is sure to offer several interesting moments. Hemingway and Lindsay have used more or less everything offered by lesser sceptical ufologists and added a story about a man and his wife who are caught in the line of fire between the American military and peaceful extraterrestrials.

But, the main problem with the book is that is just feels uninspired. The sections about alien abductions feels as if they were taken right out of any Budd Hopkins book, and the argumentation regarding the Roswell incident is just plain awful. The credibility is reduced, and thus the entire reading experience is ruined. This is too bad, because a skilled author is very likely to have been able to make something good out of the whole mess.

As has been noted, this novel cranks up the intensity level straight out of the gate. There's quite a bit of familiarity with the UFO/Abduction scenarios as reported and the authors initially make good use of the lore.

Still, some things nag at the reader: The characters are not developed beyond that of two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs to varying degrees. Most egregious example is that of the Noo Yawker psychiatrist Carol Blum, relocated to Los Alamos for some unknown reason.

She's a real pain in the neck, a complete caricature of a fast-talking, obnoxious and smarmy Manhattanite. You can forgive yourself for feeling glad when she's murdered near the end. With her abundant "'tude," you'll wonder why someone didn't off her previously.

The lead characters, Stan and Annie Katz are similar smarmy transplanted Noo Yawkers, the authors having seen fit to outfit them with a de rigueur Volvo wagon. Completely unbelievable is how Annie goes from hardened UFO skeptic to full-on True Believer after just one meeting and hypnosis session with a MUFON investigator.

Of course ... there are the evil shadow government types after Annie and her husband, led by the malevolent Colonel Wesley. All through the book I was really hoping that Wesley'd finally get those particle beam weapons up and running and vaporize the aliens to their own Kingdom Come, but it's not to be. The ending takes a left turn into New Age Twinkie John Mack/Richard Boylan territory. The aliens you see, are here, I guess to help us somehow? They have to take fetuses for some strange reason from pregnant women during abductions to preserve their own species it would seem. And all they want to do is return to their home planet, but they can't because of the evil US government and the machinations of career military types within MJ-12.

Now in my book, if something comes out of the skies like a thief in the night and prods and pokes and removes ovum, fetuses, other genetic material, etc. without consent, I'd say they'd be a pretty good candidate for aiming particle beams at 'em. But no... The aliens are *nice* and are led by the doll-like "Mr. Boojum" whom, like E.T. only wants to go home. Awwww...

How do they do it? Well, Mr. Boojum is from a collectivist space hive society that is like some super-Stalinist galactic gulag: Individual aliens are bred for specific tasks and cannot or are not permitted to know information outside their own school-to-work programming. So for some strange reason, this civilization beams information to Annie so that the aliens can manipulate Stan to build this weapon, which could be transformed into a propulsion device by means not explained. Why they can beam information, but not just send another ship is not explained.

So finally at the end, Annie gets her baby back, Mr. Boojum gets his propulsion system and all that are still alive are happy. It's like a regular "We Are The Off-World" singalong... As the other reviewer wrote, perhaps it'd be best to come up with your own ending. Mine has the aliens disappearing in a flash of light, never to return...

I just finished reading a new book entitled DREAMLAND by Hilary Hemingway (Niece of Ernest) and Jeffrey P. Lindsay. The cover labels the book as a Novel of the UFO Cover-up. As such it involves Area 51 and the events at Roswell some forty years ago.

Some forty years ago a spacecraft crashed on a small farm in Roswell. The government moved in and confiscated everything. The wreck and the surviving crew were held by the Government. Aliens and humans worked together with the aliens providing new technology and the humans helping to repair the ship. Much of the non-linear developments of the last forty years are a result of this cooperation. But now things are coming to an end. The ship is almost complete and the military does not want to lose this source of technology. Hidden agendas abound among the main players in a chess-match like series of moves and countermoves, all leading to the book's conclusion.

A well-written tale that manages to bring in just about all of the serious UFO research. We learn very little about how the aliens think (a plus as they remain more alien) except for dream sequences where a character observes through an alien's eyes. If you like UFO stories that don't get all hokey but stay in the realm of known science, then you will probably enjoy this book.

I was prepared for this to be a pulpy mish-mash of Area 51/Roswell lore, accessible only to True Believers of the Alien Subculture. I was surprised that it actually was a pretty good read. no skeptic is going to be turned around by the stuff that is put forward as fact in here, but hey, suspend belief for the duration and go along for the ride. It's fun without being campy. Logic does fly out the window when one character talks about the millions of earthlings who have been abducted by the aliens, but then later we learn that there is a small core of aliens left alive after the Roswell crash. The mother ship is nonworking, but they manage to build scout ships. Now, if millions are being abducted, these creatures must be round-the-clock busy little gray men! they need a union, because they are overworked! Anyhow, I took the book for what it was and enjoyed it. It is a fast-paced read, well-written aside from the contradictions. It does confuse actual Area 51 lore, like saying the hangar is actually labelled Area 51. But this is nit-picky stuff that only true Dreamland buffs would care about.

If you like the X-Files, you will probably like this book! When I first started reading it, I could not put it down! It was purely movie material, however, towards the end I found it to be sort of a let down. A good plot but the end was lame. Everything wrapped up in 2 chapters. They spent alot of time building characters you could visualize and then just ended it. I also think they should have referred more to the abductions of the main character when she was younger. It would have made the ending more dramatic. Kudos to the weapon development though. I would recommend reading it but create your own ending.

A novelized version of what conspiracy theorists have long said about the goings on at Area 51. Its a well thought out, dramatic story. The authors did their research on the subject and it shows. It's a bit in the style of Whitley Strieber's "Majestic".

It was a good book. Great Imagery!