She was a great lover of jazz[5][9] and music in general, and peppered her tales with references to (and reincarnations of) the likes of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and Sun Ra.

Goonan's first novel, Queen City Jazz (Tor), was published in 1994 to critical acclaim including from cyberpunk SF writer William Gibson who described it as "An unforgettable vision of America transfigured by a new and utterly apocalyptic technology."

However, she deals little with computers in her novels, and her characters, such as Verity, the protagonist of Queen City Jazz, are positive and sometimes heroic, while cyberpunk concerns itself with anti-heroes.

This novel won the Hall of Fame Darrel Award[10] in conjunction with her short story "The Bride of Elvis" for their contribution to speculative fiction set in the Mid-South of America.

It was a finalist for the Nebula Award, and received high praise from her peers including such genre authors as Joe Haldeman, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, and Stephen R. Donaldson.

This novel looks at the further evolution of humanity under the influence of "bionan", and ties it in with an alien presence apparently responsible for "El Silencio", the great radio silence of Crescent City Rhapsody that paved the way for the nanotech takeover.

Once more, other science fiction authors spoke highly of her work including Kim Stanley Robinson, David Brin, and, again, William Gibson.

Without ever using the specific term, Goonan clearly considers the concept of the multiverse first postulated by American philosopher and psychologist William James in 1895 and now a serious theory within physics.

Key characters from In War Times make appearances in This Shared Dream while trying to thwart the machinations of an unseen enemy bent on using the Hadntz Device to alter history for their ends.