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65th out of 1,969 books
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9,093 voters
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Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel)
For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivri...more
Paperback, 578 pages
Published
January 5th 2011
by Bantam Spectra
(first published January 1st 1992)
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Joel
rated it
Somehow, by the year 2053, we'll have invented time travel but lost the use of cell phone technology. You'd think that was a pretty good trade-off, right? Well, if you've read a few of Connie Willis' "future historian" time travel books, you know that we're probably better off as we are, because without cell phones, it seems humanity would spend most of its days in fevered attempts to place calls by landline video phone, narrowly missing one another, encountering busy circuits, unable...more
What I find most objectionable about this book is its apparent lack of editing. Half the novel consists of people panicking over the phone about other phone conversations other people have had about people getting on and off trains who are the children of WHO CARES. Willis has no sense of perspective, no skill for inventing the suggestive detail; consequently, this novel is a monument to the gods of boredom. This on top of the implausible premise that if time travel were available as a technolog...more
From my blog:
If you haven't read anything by Connie Willis, I highly suggest that you stop whatever you're doing and go out and get one of her books.
Willis is sort of a giant in the science fiction world -- she's won Hugo and Nebula awards, among many others. This is the third book I've read by her (in addition to To Say Nothing of the Dog and Bellwether), and I must say, the woman can write. Her plots are engaging and funny and heartbreaking and her books are nearly impo...more
If you haven't read anything by Connie Willis, I highly suggest that you stop whatever you're doing and go out and get one of her books.
Willis is sort of a giant in the science fiction world -- she's won Hugo and Nebula awards, among many others. This is the third book I've read by her (in addition to To Say Nothing of the Dog and Bellwether), and I must say, the woman can write. Her plots are engaging and funny and heartbreaking and her books are nearly impo...more
Ian
rated it
I finished Doomsday Book this morning and immediately moved on to the next book on my to-read list, which happens to be Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Doomsday Book left me a little messed up in the head and I wanted to replace the imagery and train of thought with something new. I figured I'd have to let Doomsday Book mull around in my head for a while before I could write an effective review. I figured the same about Iain Banks' Transition, another book I recently finished. So my plan was to read...more
Tracey
rated it
Recommends it for:
Anyone that wants to become a bell ringer
Shelves:
time-travel,
14th-century
OMG I am finally finished! What a travel down a monotonous road. I will not attempt to say once again what has been so eloquently said many times before. But one thing that I had to mention was a phrase that has stuck in my mind for days. I found myself last week picking up the book so that I might be able to put closure on it. So there I am reading (ok skimming) this book as some say “Best time-travel novel I've ever read!” or “a study of people's behavior” what behavior, all the characters ...more
Jennifer (aka EM)
rated it
Recommended to Jennifer (aka EM) by:
Ian Foster
Shelves:
the-missionary-position
Updated: 07/05/10
Connie Willis shows us that we do not need to look to the future for an apocalyptic setting suitable for exorcising whatever demons haunt us, testing whatever faith we may or may not have, revealing the height of humanity's capacity for compassion or the depth of its misery. We had the mid-14th Century for that.
These ain't Jesuits on a distant planet, or a man and a boy wandering down a road.
This shit really happened, people.
~ ~ ~...more
Connie Willis shows us that we do not need to look to the future for an apocalyptic setting suitable for exorcising whatever demons haunt us, testing whatever faith we may or may not have, revealing the height of humanity's capacity for compassion or the depth of its misery. We had the mid-14th Century for that.
These ain't Jesuits on a distant planet, or a man and a boy wandering down a road.
This shit really happened, people.
~ ~ ~...more
Connie Willis brings us a deeply affecting story of time travel gone wrong. While the "time travel" element might sounds really geeky, in an important way this science fiction aspect really isn't central to the story. Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots identifies the theme of "Voyage and Return" as one of the basic plots, and the fact that one of Willis' lead characters is traveling through time is merely a specific detail of interest. A similar story could be written...more
The Doomsday Book was, for me, one of those rare books that you pick up, start reading, and then, when you're done, seriously consider starting it over again.
The book straddles an uncomfortable line--neither a full-on science fiction novel nor a historical, it manages to encompass the most interesting aspects of both. The plot is fairly simple: Kivrin, a student studying the Middle Ages, is traveling in time back to the 1320s. Dunworthy, her mentor, remains in the 2040s, and the sto...more
The book straddles an uncomfortable line--neither a full-on science fiction novel nor a historical, it manages to encompass the most interesting aspects of both. The plot is fairly simple: Kivrin, a student studying the Middle Ages, is traveling in time back to the 1320s. Dunworthy, her mentor, remains in the 2040s, and the sto...more
I'm erring on the side of charity and going with three stars for this 2.5 star book, because it was utterly gripping for the first 75 pages or so. Then nothing happened. Then the same nothing happened again. And *again*. By the time you get to the fourth or fifth scene where one of the protags is trying to call someone who may or may not be in Scotland but can't get through because the circuits are busy you want to scream (spoiler alert: we never actually find out where in Scotland that damn guy...more
Connie Willis' Doomsday Book might well be one of the best books I ever read, if not the best one, although it surely isn't an easy book leaving you unaffected.
Set in Willis' universe of the near future, in which a very plausible system of timetravelling is used by historians in order to research the past, the story develops in the there present and in 1348, the year the plague arrived in England.
Fast paced and very well researched, the Doomsday Book doesn't only shine through it's ...more
Set in Willis' universe of the near future, in which a very plausible system of timetravelling is used by historians in order to research the past, the story develops in the there present and in 1348, the year the plague arrived in England.
Fast paced and very well researched, the Doomsday Book doesn't only shine through it's ...more
I am very concerned. I read “The Doomsday Book” time travel saga, eagerly anticipating it based on the many Goodreads reviews that highly praise this story. Many reviewers whom I trust rave about this book. I just didn’t see it at all, not a bit. Not only was it supremely boring, but annoying. The first 120 pages can be summarized: “something is wrong”. During the next 180 pages, the rest of the characters realize there is “something wrong”. Yawn! I felt like slapping virtually every character...more
It took me quite a while to read Doomsday Book. I was intrigued to find it was about Kivrin, who was mentioned in Fire Watch, but it took so, so long to get off the ground. I figured most things out ages before any of the characters did. Following sick protagonists really is no fun at all, and it's frustrating for the same conversations to be repeated over and over again -- "Where is Basingame?" (who never appears), "Did you get the fix?", "I must speak to Gawyn"......more
Okay, I've been ignorant of Connie Willis for way, way too long. This is the second book of hers that I've read and the second of hers that I've adored. It wasn't nearly as funny as To Say Nothing of the Dog, but given that a large part of the book was set in the early 14th century in England rather than late 19th century, that is hardly surprising. We are back in the same world of Oxford with the struggling history department sending out historians to do on site work. I wasn't careful with ...more
I cannot remember how I stumbled on this book by Connie Willis--I just know that I'm grateful I did, because Willis has become one of my favorite authors based on this book.
The novel bounces back and forth between a "modern" time (set in the future in Oxford) and past times in Medieval England. When told from the perspective of Kivrin, the history student who unwittingly travels back to the Dark Ages to experience the Black Death, this is one of the most beautiful and hear...more
The novel bounces back and forth between a "modern" time (set in the future in Oxford) and past times in Medieval England. When told from the perspective of Kivrin, the history student who unwittingly travels back to the Dark Ages to experience the Black Death, this is one of the most beautiful and hear...more
I enjoyed this book very much. It is set in Oxford in the near-ish future, after time travel has been discovered by for-profit corporations, then abandoned because the laws of the time continuum prevent time travelers from bringing anything forward from the past, or from affecting events in the past in any significant way. With the lack of a profit motive, time-travel is now the exclusive purview of historians. A young history graduate student, Kivren, is preparing to go to the Middle Ages, t...more
This is one of the elite novels that won both Hugo and Nebula awards, there are not many of those and they are generally very good books though you and I can always find some titles to be undeserving, c'est la vie. Before starting on reading this novel I looked around Goodreads and Amazon for some consensus of opinion among other readers. I found the prevailing opinion to be on the positive side but it is always interesting to note the negatives also, in case the reviewers hate the same things I...more
Why I hated this book by Marc.
I read a lot. The number of books I list on my read list here is a fraction of what I read. And for the most part, none have reviews, just ratings, because I have little time to write reviews. But I just had to comment on "The Doomsday Book". I fell into a trap. I read reviews of the book before I bought it, and those reviews help convince me to give it a try. That is something I usually do not do. I usually read the back cover, and if i...more
I read a lot. The number of books I list on my read list here is a fraction of what I read. And for the most part, none have reviews, just ratings, because I have little time to write reviews. But I just had to comment on "The Doomsday Book". I fell into a trap. I read reviews of the book before I bought it, and those reviews help convince me to give it a try. That is something I usually do not do. I usually read the back cover, and if i...more
This is one of my favorite books - I read it years ago, when Willis won the Hugo Award for it -- but, speaking as a historian, I've rarely come across any other book with such meticulously accurate research behind it.
The protagonist is a young woman who wishes to travel (this is in the future - time travel is now possible, though extremely fraught with difficulty) all the way back to the Middle Ages - but BEFORE the advent of the Black Plague, which decimated Europe and Asia. In order...more
The protagonist is a young woman who wishes to travel (this is in the future - time travel is now possible, though extremely fraught with difficulty) all the way back to the Middle Ages - but BEFORE the advent of the Black Plague, which decimated Europe and Asia. In order...more
I'll read any book about time travel, and the concept of this book was certainly interesting, but it did not inspire me as much as other time travel books have. What I liked best was that it put a human face on what it meant for a third to half of the population to succumb to the plague. It's so easy to have this be just a line in a book and not ponder too much of what that meant in people's lives.
It bothered me greatly, though, that it is the year 2054 and no one has a cell phone o...more
It bothered me greatly, though, that it is the year 2054 and no one has a cell phone o...more
I fell in love with Willis' conception of time travel upon reading "To Say Nothing Of The Dog" several years ago, and that story remains my favorite of her novels.
I found Doomsday Book captivating. I could barely put it down and stayed up way too late for a few nights in the reading of it. The novel intertwines a past story that, in some aspects, is well-known to any student of history and a "present" set in a believable near-future. Both stories are full of well-ro...more
I found Doomsday Book captivating. I could barely put it down and stayed up way too late for a few nights in the reading of it. The novel intertwines a past story that, in some aspects, is well-known to any student of history and a "present" set in a believable near-future. Both stories are full of well-ro...more
Among the best novels I've ever read for the unique blend of science fiction and history. I've just read Connie Willis' new additions to the Oxford time travelers series (Blackout and All Clear)--and they were delicious. But Doomsday is a classic that will stand the test of time. And it gets better with every re-read.
In a word turgid. It two words unbelievably turgid. I have rarely encountered a novel over 350 pages that wasn't over written. 350 appears to be the magic number for me.
I think many writers just like to read, their own writing. They can't get over their genius, and they have to ramble on and on. Ms. Willis may fit in this category.
Her follow up novel “To Say Nothing of the Dog” was much shorter, and a lot more fun to read.
I think many writers just like to read, their own writing. They can't get over their genius, and they have to ramble on and on. Ms. Willis may fit in this category.
Her follow up novel “To Say Nothing of the Dog” was much shorter, and a lot more fun to read.
A wonderful story from a mediocre writer. In parts boring and repetitive (very!...ok, we get it, you have run out of toilet roll...) and other parts quite devastating, I would recommend it if you can be bothered to stick with it until its end, which is much better than the first 2/3 of the book. Ms Willis could have done with a better editor. Incidentally, my edition of the book had hardly any full stops (periods) in it. I thought it was a device of the story, but no, just terrible, terrible edi...more
Gabe
added it
A stunning blend of sci-fi, historical fiction and medical treatise. In mid-21st century Oxford, scientists are able to send history majors to the era of their study, with designations of each century on a scale of (I presume) 1 to 10. Kivrin strives to visit the 14th century, where Europe was suffering under malnutrition, the Hundred Years' War, and something called the bubonic plague, which wiped out a third of the continent. Naturally, the century is designated a solid 10.
The "drops"...more
The "drops"...more
It has faults that in a lesser book would have been damning.[return]Time travel mechanics were far to obviously only there for dramatic effect. "The engines cannae take it Cap'n" or "Reverse the Polarity!" would have been just as convincing. The phone system firmly rooted in the 50's, People make trunk calls! a british term that died out in the 60's. The innability to access medical records, the ease with which people accessed anothers credit records, even the occasional awkw...more
I find it amusing that reviews of this book seem to be so deeply divided. I personally thoroughly enjoyed it; a lot of the stuff that others seemed to find boring (the bureaucracy of trying to reach inaccessible people, not being able to discern exactly what was wrong) I thought was quite funny or otherwise truthful to reality. Sometimes shit happens and you just can't figure out why, or get someone to explain or fix it in the right way, and those parts worked very well for me.
Th...more
Th...more
Rita
rated it
Spoilers: everyone dies.
Okay, well, no. But it's a book about the fucking Black Death; expect a high body count.
This book has an incredible story trapped inside 500 pages of sometimes bloated, repetitive writing. If it were 250 pages long, it would be perfect. As it is, it is very good, and deserves both its Hugo and its Nebula. I was tempted to give it five stars just for the emotional impact it does have when all of the plot's undirected frenetic energy tips over into a...more
Okay, well, no. But it's a book about the fucking Black Death; expect a high body count.
This book has an incredible story trapped inside 500 pages of sometimes bloated, repetitive writing. If it were 250 pages long, it would be perfect. As it is, it is very good, and deserves both its Hugo and its Nebula. I was tempted to give it five stars just for the emotional impact it does have when all of the plot's undirected frenetic energy tips over into a...more
I haven't read many time travel books, so I thought I would give Willis a try since she came recommended by the internet masses. The Doomsday Book is about a young time traveling historian named Kivrin who becomes the first historian to travel to the Middle Ages. Something goes wrong with the coordinates, and Kivrin ends up nearly 30 years off target--right in the middle of the Black Death. Meanwhile, overrun by a pandemic that breaks out just as they send Kivrin to the past, her advisors and...more
This book is not as good as it could have been, yet it was sufficiently good to keep me up most of the night reading it. Once the story got going, it was very suspenseful and fast-paced-- thus the lack of sleep. However, Connie Willis does not, in my opinion, have the writing skills to keep up with her imagination. The book has a tendency to over-describe, which can be rather annoying. It is clearly well-researched, but one gets the feeling that Willis was so desperate to include every little bi...more
Mel B.
rated it
This book was so gripping and grim. I had read To Say Nothing About the Dog first. I don't normally do that, read out of order, but it didn't matter. The tone of the books were completely different. To Say Nothing About the Dog was funny and entertaining. Doomsday Book was beautiful and haunting and switched between the present/future and the past, during the Black Death. [return][return]I'm normally not a fan of time travel or historical fiction mixed together, because it seems so trite, but I ...more
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Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis is an American science fiction writer. She is one of the most honored science fiction writers of the 1980s and 1990s.
She has won, among other awards, ten Hugo Awards and six Nebula Awards. Willis most recently won a Hugo Award for All Seated on the Ground (August 2008). She was the 2011 recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the S...more
More about Connie Willis...
She has won, among other awards, ten Hugo Awards and six Nebula Awards. Willis most recently won a Hugo Award for All Seated on the Ground (August 2008). She was the 2011 recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the S...more
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