A Hugo award winning novel.
Time travel is being used for historical research, and one female scientist is planning to travel to medieval Britain, a few decades before the plague. After she has gone there, the technical in charge of the ”net” used from time ”drops” collapses from an unknown disease. It shouldn't have possible for diseases to travel upwards in the time stream. Just before he collapses he seems to indicate that something has gone wrong in the time jump. And the person who went back in time, Kivrin, starts to feel very ill very soon after arriving to the past. A severe, sometimes deadly disease starts to spread in modern times, and at the same time Kivrin is struggling for her life in middle ages with the same(?) disease. The idea is pretty good, but execution is less so. The book is overtly talky and overlong. Every characters seems engage in smalltalk with every other character talking about idle things. Also, many of the characters seem to be very stupid. And many events in the store are depending on some pretty unlikely coincidences. Also, the technology seems to be extremely poorly thought about. There are no mobile phones. The are hardly any computers, and those there are seems to be pretty ineffectual. The calculation of the time drop is apparently something computers can't handle, as it demands certain technical, and when he falls ill, no-one can use the the net, or even check the results of the former drop. The book was written in about 1992, and cell phones were not so rare then (I checked, there were hundreds of thousands them for example in Finland at that time), and when some plot points involve badly functioning phones in the future of 2050, when there were better functioning phones in 1992, it gives an impression of one pretty lazy, and not very well informed author. Laziness of the author can be also seen in the writing. It is extremely loose with a lot of repetition, especially in the beginning where very little happens. One of the more baffling Hugo wins. ( )

This is fast becoming an all-time favorite. After all this time of picking it up, putting it down, picking it up, etc., I feel like I've lived with Kivrin and Agnes and the other characters. (Although hopefully I smell rather better.) I am impressed by Willis' command of both history (in the as-lived sense) and the language of flu experts during a pandemic. Seriously considering making this one of my go-to recommendations when a friend needs something to read. So detailed, so realistic, such a lot to think about. ( )

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.