Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) in SciFi and Fantasy Book Club

Jan 11, 2011 Kerry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2007, sf, ebooks, 10-out-of-10, 2011

ORIGINAL READ: 4 October, 2007 to 10 October, 2007 (10/10)

Doomsday Book - Connie Willis (10/10)
Science fiction/Historical fiction.
I read this with a reading group and I'm very glad I did, as I probably never would have picked it up otherwise. It features a slightly future Oxford University where the history department has a time machine and sends scholars back in time to study their subject first hand. The book neatly parallels events in the "present" and the fourteenth century as a student is s ...more

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Dec 04, 2008 Amy rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, science-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. In this time travel novel, a historian (Kivrin) is inadvertently sent back in time to a medieval English village at the beginning of the black plague. A modern pandemic occurs just as her time travel commences, making Kivrin's return to modern times uncertain.

This is my second Connie Willis book - the other one, To Say Nothing of the Dog, was also set in a futuristic Oxford University where time travel "drops" to the past are established methods of historical research.

I had the same difficulties In this time travel novel, a historian (Kivrin) is inadvertently sent back in time to a medieval English village at the beginning of the black plague. A modern pandemic occurs just as her time travel commences, making Kivrin's return to modern times uncertain.

This is my second Connie Willis book - the other one, To Say Nothing of the Dog, was also set in a futuristic Oxford University where time travel "drops" to the past are established methods of historical research.

I had the same difficulties with suspending my disbelief with the time travel concept in this book that I had in To Say Nothing of the Dog. For me, the time travel was just a vehicle for the author to explore the modern pandemic and the ancient epidemic. Both would be horrible.

Some random thoughts inspired by the Doomsday Book:
1. Putting a modern character in the middle of the Black Death inspires some really serious questions about caregiving. Kivrin, having been vaccinated, is not in danger of dying from the plague....and she doesn't have any ability to go anywhere else, so her role in tending to the dying is plausible. Her role is roughly parallel to the role of Father Roche, the medieval priest who provides physical and spiritual care for the ill and dying. There are emotional and physical risks to all caregivers. They are magnified by an epidemic, but how is Kivrin's role that different from a nurse on a cancer or geriatric ward today?
2. It was horrible for me as a reader to have so many characters die...how hard must that be for an author to write? There's that balance between making a character real and believable and yet still not making the death too horrible to bear for the reader. In the scope of the tragedy, this book resembles The Book Thief.
3. There were effectively orphaned children in both time periods...Kivrin becomes a parental figure to the two young girls in the Middle Ages, and Dunworthy and Mary are poor substitute parents for Colin in the future Oxford.
4. People are people..some are selfish, some are heroic, no matter what time period they live in.

For me, this read was not as enjoyable as To Say Nothing of the Dog. The Doomsday Book was a very bleak, very serious, and sad book, despite the moments of humor. I also read To Say Nothing of the Dog just after reading Three Men in a Boat, so I really enjoyed the literary parallels between the two books. ...more

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May 02, 2011 Adrienne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: characters-that-feel-real, owned, post-book-withdrawl, favorites, science-fiction, borrowed, historical, time-travel, winter, owned-ebook

And to think I probably would not have read this book if one of my friends hadn't handed it to me and said, "Here. Read this."

I'd heard many people talk about their love for Connie Willis (or maybe it was just a few people with lots of love?) over the past few years, but for some reason I didn't think the premise looked all that interesting. Now I look back on my initial misconception with skepticism. Really, self? It was super interesting!

I can't really say what it was that drew me in so strong ...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Katherine Coble rated it it was ok

Shelves: animal-dies, library-checkout

What a dreadful book.

What would have been a fine novella has been ridiculously stuffed with improbable filler in order to create a book-length story.

For some reason I'm supposed to believe that a world which has systemized time travel and eliminated the common cold cannot have a functioning telephone system. ...more

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Jan 15, 2014 Kristen rated it really liked it

Shelves: england, sci-fi, historical-fiction, 2014, black-plague

I had thought I'd read this back in high school or college, but I think I was wrong. It was awesome. I have a morbid fascination with the Black Death and its ramifications on culture and society. But this book showed daily life during the plague, and how it impacted individuals.

The only thing I didn't care for was that I felt story line with the virus in 2054 dragged on too much. ...more

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