audio cd, 1 pages
Published June 9, 2000 by Recorded Books, Inc. and Blackstone Publishing.
Somewhere in the future, ordinary history students must travel back in time as part of their university degree. An award-winning best-seller in the United States, this is the first of Connie Willis' brilliant Oxford trilogy.Kivrin knows everything about the Middle Ages - she's read all the books. She knows it's dangerous: cutthroats in the woods, witch hunts, cholera, and millions dying in the plague. For a young historian, it's fascinating.When Kivrin's tutors in Oxford's history lab finally agree to send her on an on-site study trip, she jumps at the chance to observe medieval life first-hand. But a crisis that strangely links the past and future leaves her stranded in the most deadly and terrifying era in human history, face to face with the heart-rending reality behind the statistics. And while she fights for her own life, Kivrin finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope in this dark …
Somewhere in the future, ordinary history students must travel back in time as part of their university degree. An award-winning best-seller in the United States, this is the first of Connie Willis' brilliant Oxford trilogy.Kivrin knows everything about the Middle Ages - she's read all the books. She knows it's dangerous: cutthroats in the woods, witch hunts, cholera, and millions dying in the plague. For a young historian, it's fascinating.When Kivrin's tutors in Oxford's history lab finally agree to send her on an on-site study trip, she jumps at the chance to observe medieval life first-hand. But a crisis that strangely links the past and future leaves her stranded in the most deadly and terrifying era in human history, face to face with the heart-rending reality behind the statistics. And while she fights for her own life, Kivrin finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope in this dark time.Five years in the writing, Doomsday Book is a storytelling triumph. Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the timeless issues of evil, suffering and the indomitable will of the human spirit.
I was not prepared for the grief and stress and loss in this! Sorry to say that her characterization in 1991 of how Americans would behave when confronted with health quarantines is exactly spot on.
I loved it. It was no surprise that I enjoyed a winner of both the Nebula and the Hugo awards. I was surprised that I connected with the characters and the world in this story more than any fiction I've read in the last couple of years.
In this world, the history department of Oxford has access to a time machine that they use to study the past. The way the machine works, they cannot make any significant changes to the path of time or the people they interact with.
Both the "present" day timeline, in the near-future 21st century, and the 14th century timeline, experience epidemics. I didn't realize I was reading a plague book when I started. I'm not sure I would have sought it out had I known, because COVID is enough plague for right now.
I'm looking forward to continuing the series ("The Oxford Time Travel") …
I loved it. It was no surprise that I enjoyed a winner of both the Nebula and the Hugo awards. I was surprised that I connected with the characters and the world in this story more than any fiction I've read in the last couple of years.
In this world, the history department of Oxford has access to a time machine that they use to study the past. The way the machine works, they cannot make any significant changes to the path of time or the people they interact with.
Both the "present" day timeline, in the near-future 21st century, and the 14th century timeline, experience epidemics. I didn't realize I was reading a plague book when I started. I'm not sure I would have sought it out had I known, because COVID is enough plague for right now.
I'm looking forward to continuing the series ("The Oxford Time Travel") with To Say Nothing of the Dog.
– originally written 2021-06-30
This could have been, should have been, a much shorter book. I do like books with a languorous pace but this one was just too repetitive and it was too repetitive. Nothing would have suffered if a third had been excised.
Time travelers from our future competently deal with a pandemic in their time while people from our past deal horribly with one.
першу половину (аудіо)книжки вагався, чи не покинути... другу — ковтав сльози. в підсумку — добра класична фантастична проза; не кожному «зайде», але дайте шанс, не полишайте на половині.
3.25 This book was a bit of a slog fo me and not only because of its length. It builds up momentum very slowly and spends a lot of time on university infighting / medieval family drama in its first half of parallel plots. Both of those feel realistic, but at the same time more than a little tedious.
The depiction of the epidemic striking 2050ies Oxford is very realistic in its social repercussions, but incredibly quaint and unbelievable in its technological features. It's a new virus, but the vaccine is available within weeks, but the (picture) telephone system breaks down almost immediately. It does feel more like 1950ies at times. The author does manage to convey a properly British feel most of the times, but I cannot help think it was an outdated feel even at publication.
The medieval setting is a bit more ambiguous. While the characters feel …
3.25 This book was a bit of a slog fo me and not only because of its length. It builds up momentum very slowly and spends a lot of time on university infighting / medieval family drama in its first half of parallel plots. Both of those feel realistic, but at the same time more than a little tedious.
The depiction of the epidemic striking 2050ies Oxford is very realistic in its social repercussions, but incredibly quaint and unbelievable in its technological features. It's a new virus, but the vaccine is available within weeks, but the (picture) telephone system breaks down almost immediately. It does feel more like 1950ies at times. The author does manage to convey a properly British feel most of the times, but I cannot help think it was an outdated feel even at publication.
The medieval setting is a bit more ambiguous. While the characters feel real, the constant fear of being burnt at the stake doesn't - though that might be a case of really stupid historians, even if it does beggar belief. Not all details feel appropriate, but overall there is some real effort at verisimillitude.
Why then the rather low rating? Nothing to do with the work itself, but when the blurb spoils the central twist (occuring after more than two thirds of the book) it is hard to get excited in the first part. The second part not only picks up in pacing, but also feels far less scripted. It would be an easy 4.25, but with all that has gone on before (including the spoiler) I can't go further than 3.25.
Zeitreiseroman mit gleich ZWEI Seuchen, eine in jedem Strang der Geschichte! Obwohl das Buch schon 1992 erschienen ist, steht eigentlich alles über Corona drin: Klopapiermangel, Schutzkleidung wird knapp, idiotische Erklärungsversuche und so weiter. Die Zeitreiseerzählung wird dadurch verschönert, dass (wie auch schon in #2 der Serie) die Arbeitswelt voll ist mit Bürokratie, unerreichbar verreisten Kollegen, fehlenden Unterschriften auf den zahlreichen Formularen, immer müssen siebzehn Dinge gleichzeitig erledigt werden, von denen drei unmöglich und zehn sinnlos sind, das Telefon funktioniert schlecht, Backups werden vergessen, alles erfreulich realistisch. Niemand kann jemals einfach so von A nach B gehen, es kommen immer Scharen von Leuten dazwischen, die dringend irgendwas wollen.
As my first foray into books by Connie Willis, I am sold. This book was incredible and, in hindsight, well deserving of the awards it has earned. I like how real the characters were, including the ones I hated. The plot kept me glued to the story and there is some clever foreshadowing and misdirection going on that kept me guessing what was going to happen all the way to the end. I highly recommend this book and will look forward to reading her other time travel books.
Check out my blog for my full review: strakul.blogspot.com/2020/02/book-review-doomsday-book-by-connie.html
I wasn't expecting much from this book when I took it out of the library -- just wanting to make sure i had something light to read when the library is closed over the Christmas holidays. But I was very pleasantly surprised, and found I couldn't put it down.
The plot is a common trope in science fiction -- time-travelling historian goes back to the past to see what happened there and gets more than they bargained for. But in this case it grabs the reader's attention, and evokes sympathy for the characters, or some of them, anyway.
The year is 2054 and Kivrin, a history student at Oxford, gets permission to travel back to the 14th century to see what life was really like then. Things go wrong, however, and the technician handling the transfer is taken ill and cannot explain the problem. It's the Christmas vac, so all …
I wasn't expecting much from this book when I took it out of the library -- just wanting to make sure i had something light to read when the library is closed over the Christmas holidays. But I was very pleasantly surprised, and found I couldn't put it down.
The plot is a common trope in science fiction -- time-travelling historian goes back to the past to see what happened there and gets more than they bargained for. But in this case it grabs the reader's attention, and evokes sympathy for the characters, or some of them, anyway.
The year is 2054 and Kivrin, a history student at Oxford, gets permission to travel back to the 14th century to see what life was really like then. Things go wrong, however, and the technician handling the transfer is taken ill and cannot explain the problem. It's the Christmas vac, so all the other technicians who could deal with it are on holiday, and interdepartmental academic rivalries don't help. So the history student is in danger of being stranded 700 years away from home.
I might have given it five stars, but there are a few flaws. The pace flags a bit in the middle, and it could probably have been made about a hundred pages shorter without losing anything. There is also a strange mixture of British and American usage and spelling. Perhaps the author intended this to represent the way English had developed by 2054, but much of it feels more like 1954.
A lot of the visions of future technology are rather inaccurate. It was published in 1992, when car phones, if not cell phones, were becoming common, yet the author doesn't foresee them being used 60 years later. Personal computers and email were also becoming pretty common, especially in universities, by 1992, but people in Oxford in 2054 were spending a lot of time looking for public telephones.
But there is an interesting evocation of 14th-century English village life, and in many ways it seemed rather familiar. The parish priest is like many village priests and catechists I've met in rural Africa -- not very well educated, but faithful in performing his duties and in his care for his flock. And in a sense, he is the real hero of the story. And perhaps that is why I liked this story so much. It is people like him who have kept the Christian faith alive for 2000 years, and it is people like him who will keep it alive for the next 2000 years. We neglect and despise them ar our peril.
This was simply outstanding. Emotional, compassionate, insightful, intelligent, thoughtful... you get the point. If you have not read it, I recommend you do. For me, I will try another by this wonderful writer from Greeley, Colorado.
I totally get the people who think it was boring, but for me, the tension was so high that I raced through this book. I actually think Willis was really effective at creating the feeling of unending labor that would be life during an epidemic: the monotony of small, unglamorous tasks; then the terror of death; then repetition of it all. And I liked all of the characters and the style enough to care about them through it all. It's gutting, though. Definitely gutting. To me, definitely worth the ride.
But if you've read a ways into it and you find yourself bored, put the book down. It's not for you.
While it employs the same time travel mechanism and backstory as To Say Nothing Of The Dog, this book is still very different in almost every other way. Much less light-hearted, for one, and with a solid B plot in the present time. Thoroughly enjoyed it, again.
Ohhhh my god this was SUCH a good read. It got recommended to me by narrative muse and I'm so glad it did...
The writing is just so enthralling and I got so attached to so many characters and the last portion left me in so many tears, I'm so emotional but so happy to have read this at the same time
Not everybody dies, Superb ending!
PLEASE remind me to write a review!
