The Dream Millenium Author:James White The situation is an Earth that is technologically advanced but disintegrating socially. The absence of gun control and a custom of forceful civilian retaliation against violent crime has engendered a society divided into unarmed, peaceful "sheep" and gun-toting vigilantes who seek any excuse for an "affair" -- a duel or gunfight. — A kind of feud... more »al code of honor and etiquette has arisen. The consequence is urban life blighted by what amounts to ceaseless gang warfare with high-powered weapons.
A group of visionaries represented by a religious figure, Brother Howard, and a psychiatrist, Dr. Martin, prepare a "cold-sleep" starship with 200 colonists and a "crew" of two: a doctor, John Devlin, and his love interest, Patricia Morley. Their 1000-year mission is to fly a 250 light-year course to as many as ten star systems in search of an inhabitable planet.
The problem is that "cold sleep" enhances vivid dreams in the hibernating passengers. The dreams are so realistic and terrifying that one colonist is driven to suicide in one of the periodic awakenings. Devlin fears for his and everyone's sanity. Nor is that the crew's only worry: in the fifth system, hostile aliens launch nuclear missiles from a hopelessly polluted world eerily reminiscent of Earth.
The resolution involves a fascinating mystical interpretation of the cold-sleep dreams and a final encounter with alien colonists from the fifth system.« less