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Doomsday Book
Awsome book. One of the best time travel books I have ever read. I immediately bought every one of her books after reading this one and I have not been disapointed yet.
Doomsday Book
In all, a good read. The medieval parts, especially, seemed pretty realistic. I enjoyed Kivrin's struggles with Middle English before the translating device finally kicked in. The characters in the 2ist Century were mostly meant to be droll, I know, but I didn't find them all that amusing. Yeah, the ending was sad. Too bad Kivrin's rescuers couldm't have gotten there in time to save one or two of her friends. Actually, for a while I thought Father Roche was going to turn out to be a time traveler, too. The way he prayed was similar to the way Kivrin talked into her 'corder. Moreover, we have to suppose that the art of time travel was pursued and refined way past the 21st Century--in fact, into the indefinite future. So why could Roche not have been a traveller from, say, the 25th Century? It would have made for a more interesting book....
Doomsday Book
Interesting concept.The story started too slowly, and the ending gave me that warm, fuzzy feeling.The historical perspective was interesting, but hardly worth a novel. Perhaps this story should have stayed a novella?I don't think this is as good as the hype.
Doomsday Book
I greatly looked forwarding to reading this one because I had heard good things about it. Like the ultimately disappointing "Passages", I found this one fairly absorbing until the inevitable depressing conclusion. Part of the problem with the book is that the "twist" (ie, where or when did Kivrin actually end up) is not very well guarded. The little review blurbs on the first page of my paperback copy gave it away. And honestly, it wasn't that surprising a twist in the first place. And without that element of surprise, much of the buildup of this book is pointless.I was even confused as to why I found it absorbing, because I kept thinking "nothing has actually happened yet". And really, the plot doesn't involve much more than a whole lot of death. And if you aren't prepared for that, I don't think you'll like it.I think some of the plot devices are contrived, and like others have said, people kept fainting at inopportune moments, to drag things out even further. The characters were exceptionally slow at figuring things out that I had guessed early on in the book, which was annoying.There is some interesting symbolism (like the Virgin Mary statue in the bar that Dunworthy keeps knocking down - and ooh, Kivrin is wearing blue). Bells are another symbol - bells seem to signal transitions - through from past to present and present to past and from life to death and death to life. Which I did think was pretty cool, except that I couldn't help but feel that the American bell-ringers were there for the sole purpose of servicing that bit of symbolism. They had no other real purpose in the story.And has no one heard of cell-phones, email, or answering machines in the future?All and all, I was disappointed in this book - it's graphic, depressing and ultimately leaves one feeling heavy, not uplifted as the back cover promised.
Doomsday Book
Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis, is a futuristic book on history. It's the year 2054, and historians have the luxury of going back in time and immersing themselves in past events. A gung-ho student gets sent to the Middle Ages in England in the 14th century. Unfortunately, the timing is a bit off (time travel is an imperfect science) and she ends up in a village just days before the plague bacillus arrives.Bummer.In the meantime, in 2054, a viral epidemic is affecting the ability of anyone to come to her rescue.Double bummer.The book is called Doomsday Book because the student picks that title to chronicle her trip to the Middle Ages, and because one of her teachers is worried about her visit to this time period.She should have listened.The book plods along, and the repetitive nature of the 21st century laments, "What went wrong, what went wrong?" scenes got real old, real fast. The book is saved only through the detail Willis goes into regarding life in the 14th century.Life in the 14th century stinks, literally.Frankly, I'm surprised this book won any awards, let alone the Hugo and Nebula. It's not bad. It's just not... fine science fiction.
Doomsday Book
Willis is one of the very best writers of our generation and she has half a dozen each of Hugos and Nebulas to prove it. This is far and away her best book yet, and it won both awards. THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW called it a "tour de force", and they're not wrong. The setting is the university community in Oxford in the mid-21st century, which hasn't changed in its essentials since Victorian times. There are numerous casually mentioned technological gewgaws, but the academic world is still largely the same. The big change is that time travel is now available for historical research, which she first made use of in "Fire Watch." Kivrin is an bright undergraduate who's eager to travel back to the early 14th century; Mr. Dunworthy is a volunteer tutor from another college who has very grave reservations about the whole project, largely because the colleague in charge is pompous and arrogant and has no idea what he's doing. But Kivrin goes through the "net"a few days before Christmas (there are ingenious reasons for the timing) -- and there the story abruptly bifurcates to become two exciting and appalling parallel plotlines with numerous points and characters in common. Kivrin, though she's had all her inoculations, is very ill when she arrives and is nursed back to health by a priest and the family of a minor knight who is away on legal business. Back in Oxford, the same disease strikes down the technician who sent Kivrin on her way, and the people he was in contact with begin dropping like flies. The world has already barely survived one pandemic a generation or two before (thirty million deaths just in the U.S., someone mentions) and the quarantine barriers are up almost immediately. Dunworthy's good friend, Dr. Mary Ahrens, takes charge and quickly has her hands full; her visiting great-nephew, Colin, provides much of the comic relief in Willis's dry style. About those parallels: Kivrin in her time and Dr. Ahrens in hers provide the medical expertise, such as it is, while Dunworthy and Kivrin's friend, Father Roche, follow orders and lend a hand. Even Colin has a parallel in the two young girls whom Kivrin takes in charge. Even God has a role in both centuries -- and not to forget the ancient bell tower and the modern bell-ringers from America. Willis is extremely skilled at making you care about her characters and you'll feel a pang when things begin to happen to them. There's comedy here to leaven the tragedy, just like real life. This is a book to re-read every few years, more for the fiction than for the science.