I highly recommend reading "The City of Baraboo". It is the story of a circus that takes the star road. Never before has an author researched and captured the soul of the circus like this before. It makes me cry because the circus has died. All the big circuses have long since surrendered their souls to the devil of the almighty buck. Sacrificing the high art and the heart of the circus for no better reason then to make money. Longyear has captured the soul of the circus and brought it back to life.

Longyear has given us a funny and dramatic look into what a circus on the star road would have to face. All the troubles and all the fun a company of fools would have to deal with. For S/F fans, cicus fans and for the child inside of everyone don't miss this book. Write to the publisher and demand a reprinting. It's worth any effort one has to go through to read this book.

I read this book for a class, and while it was valuable simply for the insight it gave me into the nature of the Civil war and the things men went/go through, I had a few major complaints about this book.

Driscoll is a formor military man himself, and I believe his own experiances have strongly colored his image of what the 2nd Wisconsin (Baraboo guard) would have been like. Problem is, the Culture of the 1990's is not the same as the 1860's. Added to that was poor reasearch.

Wisconsin is a State with a strong German history (I live here and have German ancestors). A great many German (and scandanavian) Lutherans and protestants settled there, fleeing from turmoil in Europe. It was from these folk that the Baraboo guard would have been formed. Many of these people would have been very religous, and would have taken their faiths and their morallity seriously.

While I don't doubt that the stress of war would put preasures on men which would make them loosen a little on their morals, Driscoll didn't give them any morals to begin with. The whole bunch of them were a lot of loud-mouthed swearing heathans, from day one to the end of the book, an image that is grossly inconsistant with the reality of Wisconsin at this time.

Another thing that bothered me was the Guard's Leautenant, going and having sex so readily with his love interest, and then her father knowing and not caring at all about it. While this might be common in today's world, the world of the 1860's wasn't so forgiving to young society women who indulged in "Free Love."

Getting past the gross historical cultural problems in this book, it was pretty historically accurate, and not an awful read. I don't think I'd bother reading it again.

Worth reading as a portrayal of some aspects of Civil War soldier life. Driscoll does battle pretty well, and daily life better. He understands the community nature of a company.

He's not great at social mentalities, though. However earthy they may have been, I can't imagine 19th century people as promiscuous as this--particularly the well-bred judge's daughter, who would have ruined her entire life if she acted the way she does here.

Characters are fairly well-done with the above reservation, though I found Murphy as "wise Irishman" a bit too familiar. Sentence-level writing doesn't particularly shine.

A successful novel in my opinion, must first & foremost, create a desire in the reader to know the trials, tribulations & ultimate fate of the main characters. In this book the reader truly cares! The book enjoys a good number of larger than life characters who suffer unbelieveably cruel adventures, with varying degrees of fortitude, that enthrall the reader more & more as the book develops. One hundred innocent souls are cajoled by the jingoism of the local politicians in Sauk County, Wisconsin, to volunteer to go niaively off to a far-away war in which they had little idea of the motives for the same, & even less idea of the savagery they would ultimately be exposed to. Innocence is often the first casualty of war & the battle of First Bull Run quickly kills off the innocence of the Baraboo Guards. Their development from raw recruit to seasoned veteran is hard & wearisomely achieved. At each charnal house battle, characters who are dear to the readers' heart inexorably bite the dust. As battles commenced I found myself crossing my fingers to protect those I had become most endeared to. To no avail! The book is historically accurate in all aspects. The uniforms, equipment used, etc. The timing & circumstances of the civil war battles. Action is rousing & clearly related. Wounds are painfully described & deaths keenly felt. I found the slightly thin love affair that runs through the book, a little unsatisfactory, but I'm probably being too much of a nit-picker. This book moves along at a cracking pace. Whilst not exactly a joy to read, it is certainly a worthwhile & rewarding experience. I heartily congratulate the author & unhesitatingly recommend the book.

Since Richard Horan grew up in this area, he and Goose Music have been getting quite alot of press this spring/summer. All of it has been quite favorable, I might add. I was curious to read a rather scathing review on this web site from a book club in Baraboo. Since I am also a member of a book club, we decided to read Goose Music for ourselves, especially since it has been prominently displayed at our local bookstore. Out of eleven of us, nine read it in one day, unable to put it down. We collectively agreed that it was extremely well written and showed not only the intelligence of the author, but also his gift of humorous character description, laugh-out-loud dialectical rhetoric and imaginative(bizarre!)dream sequences. I would like to read it again, more slowly this time, and search for hints or clues that would indicate that there was more to this story than meets the eye (I don't want to give the ending away!). We gave it a 4 and a half.

Horan has once again crafted a poignant, insightful, masterful work. GOOSE MUSIC is an amazingly intellectual and beautiful account of family values, pre-destination, and, of course, the overwhelming battle between good and evil. GOOSE MUSIC is heartily recommended for any reader looking for an entertaining, inspiring work guaranteed to make you look at your surroundings a little differently.

Let me first say that I hate the circus. I'm not a big fan of Native American culture nor any kind of mythology. I've been to Baraboo, Wisconsin, and (being a life-long city boy), didn't really like it. So the fact that I gave a book about these vary subjects five stars should say something about the author's talent. It was very difficult to put this book down.

Horan wrote from the outset that, "things are not what they seem," preparing the reader for a surprise ending. This really engaged me as I looked for various hints and clues. The great majority of the book is written in the form of a letter from Leslie Siconski to his sister and brother-in-law concerning the final few years of their recluse brother, Charlie. As Charlie's life and untimely death are slowly reavealed, this reader could not help think of it as a prelude to some greater story. Charlie's life tells of several conflicts which the reader assumes will be resolved by Leslie, even as he approaches the end of this 264 page work.

If I were to offer a couple items that I disliked about the book, one would be the vocabulary. I consider myself to have an excellent vocabulary (at least that's what Reader's Digest tells me in their vocabulary quizes). However, Horan's vocabulary dwarfs mine considerably. There were more than a few times I had to grab my trusty dictionary to figure out what he was trying to tell me. Also, many of the chapters end in a poem written by the late Charlie Siconski. While I understand the poem exists to give the reader insight into Charlie's mind and add to his "spirituality," I'm not a poetry fan and was slightly frustrated when a good chapter ended with a poem. However, this is more a fault of the reader than the author. Horan has written an excellent book and I highly recommend it to you.