I was really looking forward to reading Doomsday Book. I had read the summary somewhere and I just had to add it to my wish list. It intrigued me, and there were a lot of people saying a lot of positive things about it. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed by it.

At it's core, this is a great novel. The setting is fascinating, the plot is well-developed and addicting, and the characters are rich and interesting. There is a lot to be enjoyed here. With a little work, this could easily have been a 5-star book. But there were just too many nagging little things that made the book nearly unbearable. One of the worst of which is the repetition. The author repeats herself over and over, to the point where I just wanted to strangle some of the characters. If I ever here someone say "But Badri said the slippage was minimal" one more time I'm going to explode. And then I'm going to send whoever said it back to the Dark Ages, and to hell with parameter checks!

The bulk of the novel drags a bit, probably because it feels like the author copy/pasted entire chapters over and over again. It was a confusing situation. On one hand, I was fully engrossed in the plot. On the other, I was getting page after page of "But Badri said the Slippage was minimal" Badri said the Slippage was minimal, Badri said the Slippage was minimal, Badri said the Slippage was minimal. And just when you think the plot is going to advance, guess what!? Bardi says the slippage was minimal!

Fortunately the author finally decides to end the novel. The final 100 pages were somewhat well-written and I found my interest in the novel rejuvenated.. Unfortunately, it only leads up to a VERY unsatisfying ending.

If your a fan of historical fiction set during the Middle Ages/The Black Death, or a science fiction fan who likes Time Travel, you may very well like this. There seems to be a lot of fans of the book and author, so I may just be missing something. ( )

It's been about 10 years since I read the Doomsday Book, and after rereading it I had to drop my rating by a star, to 4 from 5. The last third of the book is absolutely terrific, not to mention terrifying. But to get to that, Willis takes hundreds of pages to set up two parallel storylines, one in the past, one in the near future. The one in the past is compelling, introducing a village in 14th century Britain and the major characters. But the one in the future is a deadly drag, with enormous amounts of repetition, not-too-effective comedy, and too many uninteresting characters. In retrospect, 100 pages or more could have been cut to good effect. Still, highly worth reading.

(It's also amusing to see a book published in 1993 predicting videophones and time travel in the 2020s, but not cell phones! Half of the book involves people desperately trying to get ahold of other people on clogged land lines! How ridiculous!) ( )

This first of Connie Willis' time travel books is incredibly well-written, remarkably researched, and absolutely wrenching in its visceral detail. What would really happen if a time traveler revisited a key turning point in the Middle Ages? Willis leaves you in no doubt. Excellent read.

In summary, a graduate level history student travels back in time to do research on the Middle Ages. Pandemic occurs in both time lines. Chaos ensues as efforts are made, amid the current day crisis to rescue the student.

This dual Hugo and Nebula Award winning science fiction novel certainly generates opinions all over the spectrum. Having recently completed the work, I can verify every negative comment contained in the dozens of “one star” reviews. Without question, the book is extremely frustrating in its repetition and refusal to resolve simple matters. As a result, what could have been a well crafted 400 page novel becomes a 550 page slog.

In addition, fans of “hard” science fiction will be extremely disappointed in what is essentially historical fiction with time travel thrown in as an afterthought. There is very little explanation or “science” involved, beyond the simple declarations of what occurs. Many others have documented very well the “plot holes”, inconsistencies and nonsensical threads that detract from a “hard” science fiction reader’s enjoyment of the story. Readers of Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein or Philip Dick will not stand quietly by.

In fact, with few exceptions, there is very little to differentiate 2050 Oxford from 1970 Oxford. Tossing a “time machine” into the history lab and putting video screens on the rotary phones hardly elevates a novel into the realm of science fiction. Did this novel truly win both the Hugo and Nebula Awards? Really???

That said, this novel has many ardent fans. Those readers simply enjoy a good story and don’t need everything to make sense or fall neatly into place. I enjoyed some of the work, but am simply too anal to look past many of the problems cited above and by others. Too many fine writers have penned outstanding stories AND gotten the science and the plot lines correct to label this work anything close to a masterpiece. The idea that the Dean of an Oxford College would be completely incommunicado in the year 2050 for nearly a month is too absurd to consider.

Consider the matter of communications. Much of the book involves numerous unsuccessful efforts to reach others by telephone, the only difference between communications in 1950 and 2050 being a video screen. Now, some have excused the author’s failure to account for advanced communications technology (aka cell phones) by arguing that cell phones were not pervasive when this novel was written in 1992. However, I’m pretty sure bag phones and even clunky cell and satellite phones WERE in existence. Other science fiction writers have shown remarkable vision in forecasting the future. Their work, as a result, remains timeless. This novel, on the other hand, reads silly only 15 years after its publication. H.G. Wells was describing submarines and rocket ships 100 years ahead of his time. Connie Willis fails to recognize cell phones even after their introduction. That is the difference between classic science fiction and run of the mill two/three star work. ( )

Part "science fiction", part historical fiction, The Doomsday book is alternately rewarding and trying. Rewarding because the plight of the characters in the historical fiction parts are vividly portrayed and their situation is dire, trying because it is eternally repetitive and needlessly drawn out. So many times I just wanted to shout "get on with it!!" The intimate minutiae of certain events in both time frames was really dull and added nothing to the narrative, especially not anything like suspense or dread. Many of the characters just needed a good smack upside the head. Reading this doesn't make me want to rush out and buy more from Connie Willis.

There ought to be a screening process for those who want to attempt science fiction. If there were, dear Connie would have failed. Granted cell phones weren't ubiquitous in the early 1990s when this was written, but they did exist and Willis's failure to grasp their significance is shocking. Countless pages are dedicated to Dunworthy's phone and message escapades, all of which could have been eliminated with the invention of the cellphone. But in this curious near-future, we have video phones, not portable phones. Doh! There's also precious little science in the fiction. There are large swaths of text devoted to viruses and their study and control, but all of it is anecdotal. Oh how I missed Greg Bear. And with regard to time travel, there is no explanation there either, just the fact of it. Oh how I miss Michael Crichton. I understand the lure of the novel's construction and I'm sure she thought it was a good idea, but she had almost no vision or ability to make it work. A technical advisor would have helped. It's clear that Willis has no interest in technology or else she would have had more success.

The back and forth with the frigging phones combined with a fever-victim's ability to say almost anything except the one vital piece of information sought made for a very frustrating experience. It did not keep me on the edge of my seat, worrying about the characters as I'm sure was meant. It bored the hell out of me. I was very tempted to fast forward through these bits. Alas, I stuck with them with a vain hope that something new and interesting might happen. Instead I got silly and unimportant vignettes featuring horny students, stern ward sisters, flailing underlings and lavatory paper shortages.

Maybe it's because I'm an American and we don't have a subcutaneous layer of passivity like the Brits in this book, but I really wanted to shake people until they frothed. The amount of obstructing bullshit that the characters put up with in the name of politeness is unreal. I mean, how dire did things have to get before someone told someone else to get the hell out of the way so things could get fixed/solved/done? Honestly, man, no American would put up with half as much. The bell-ringers, over protective mother and prideful, pig-headed acting boss would have all been told where to get off.

The medieval parts were marginally more interesting and had more forward motion, albeit at a glacial pace. Kivrin is also struck with the fever from her present time, despite all the injections and prescriptive against viruses. Her first hours and eventually days in her time trip are spent in a fever haze. When she recovers her senses, she finds herself with a family on the run from something (it turns out to most likely be plague) and living in a strange village. With no specific role and suspicion surfacing in a few, she thrusts herself into the role of nanny to two young girls. Her bond with one of them is very quick and strong and eventually by extension, she forms attachments to their mother. She is also very drawn to the plight of the village priest, an illiterate man much put upon by the lack of understanding from some in her adoptive family. It's touching and full of detail that makes me very glad to have been born in the latter half of the 20th century.

Of course because of her fever she has no idea where the "drop" is and it's vital that she get to it in order to be pulled back to her own time. She spends the majority of the novel trying to figure out how to get the one guy who knows where it is to tell her. Oy vey. In the end, he doesn't know where it is anyway and the one person who does is struck with the plague and cannot take her there. Everyone else in the village dies and she's on her own. Too bad she didn't have a locator like the little twerp at the end of the story was so smart to bring with him on the rescue mission.

Yes, naive Kivrin needs to be rescued by the manic Professor Dunworthy and a tagalong 12 year old. They fortuitously come upon a horse only half starved and still able to carry the both of them to the village. It's the wrong village, but the tolling of a nearby bell leads them to the right one. Because of the tagalong's rabbit out of a hat trick with the drop locator, they are able to find the spot easily and head on back to the 21st century. What a cheat. Again, Willis misses obvious technology for too long and thus when she thinks of it she pops it in like a magician. I half expected a cell phone or a GPS to show up, too.

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