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