The Killer Angels was written by Michael Shaara and published in 1974. He won the Pulitzer Prize with this novel about the Civil War’s famous Battle of Gettysburg. The scenes descripted are incredibly realistic, yet humane and intimate. The image of the generals and the Battle of Gettysburg provided me insight about the tragedy of war.
 
Though the description of the generals’ personality is relatively well-written, the battle scenes do not capture bloodiness, braveness, or grandeur. It seems more or less humorous and childish. Emotion is mostly presented as straight-forward to the audience, not overly challenging to read, and greatly diminishes any mysterious qualities about the characters. There is a great amount of unnecessary hogwash in the generals’ personal conversations which break up the continuous battle storyline. A writer indeed ought to include some conversation to release tension, but not to an excessive amount, as this book contains. As a historical novel, it does not cover many important aspects of the battle, the only event it depicts, for example, Culp’s Hill is never mentioned. In fact, the Union side was very much left out in this book, making it not fully historically accurate.
 
In all, the book wasn’t all I had expected: as informative and challenging. If a writer intends to describe a historical event from one perspective, then they should focus on that alone. For example, they could focus solely on a Confederate soldier or General Lee. On the contrary, if they want a comprehensive view, then they should cover almost every general and event. Therefore, this book disappointed me greatly.