Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: Plot? What Plot?

As a history and Civil War buff, I looked for to reading Doctorow's novel for more than a year. Disappointment doesn't adequately describe my reaction to this book. The characters are without personality, the battle scenes are dismissed in paragraphs, not pages or chapters, and Doctorow's stream-of-consciousness is his apparent excuse for a plot. In summary...save your money and your time.