Review of Perchance to Dream

Jon P. Gunn

by Jim Bennett

Available from

A Fantasy both logical and compelling—a true otherself experience.

Jim Bennett

Poet and Amazon Reviewer

Perchance to Dream  – Jon P. Gunn

A Fantasy both logical and compelling – a true otherself experience.

Normally, star counts are the hardest part of a review. Not this time. (If you’ve seen Jon P. Gunn’s Apes of Eden, you’re in for something quite different, but also of outstanding quality.) This standalone story gently questions reality. It is exceptional.

I am reminded of The Ropes to Skip and the Ropes to Know, which teaches organizational behaviour through an entertaining, narrative style. Gunn probes our assumptions of existence, in an easy, entertaining style.  This is a pure pleasure read. Yet the book is not trivial.

It is hard not to give away the plot with hints. Let me say, you will experience interesting, well-invented, and consistent alternate reality.

Perchance to Dream could be seen as a type A science fiction story in the sense that a single idea is all that’s needed to enable the tale. There are other worlds, but they are backdrops to the human condition. The single idea is so nearly normal that you buy into it without thinking about it. This is a type A speculative fiction work. Instead of vampires or technology, we have a quasi-religious figure. A drawing.

Carps? Maybe a typo. Nothing. Back to the good stuff.

Characters are drawn well: this reader followed what protagonists wanted (and needed or feared or loved) and went into their world view with interest. While an author might deny having a moral (as Tolkien did in an introduction to the Lord of the Rings trilogy) it is legitimate for this reviewer to say one is there, if the reader chooses to think about it.

Now for my ‘Star Count Boilerplate’. My personal guidelines, when doing an ‘official’ KBR review, are as follows: five stars means, roughly equal to best in genre. Rarely given. Four stars means, extremely good. Three stars means, definitely recommendable. I am a tough reviewer. This work clearly rates five stars, on the level of Heinlein, Asimov, Silverberg. Or Eusebius Clay, Inge H. Borg, and James Zerndt, at their best: Character, motive, logic, plot – and entertainment. Extremely recommended.

Jim Bennett, Kindle Book Review Team member.

(Note: this reviewer received a free copy of this book for an independent review. He is not associated with the author or Amazon.)