Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) in Around the World in 80 Books

May 17, 2010 Julie Rose rated it really liked it

Fantastic. The story is better than the writing, but oh, what a story! I do feel like it was about 150 pages too long, and the first 50 were a hot mess, but the characters were fantastic, and the sense of place and time were very well rendered. Had the book been less choppy, and the opening less of mess, I would have given this an enthusiastic 5 stars. As it is, I still loved it and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys timeslip or historical fiction. It's one of those books that, when you're ...more

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May 15, 2020 Tony rated it really liked it

Shelves: speculative-fiction, setting-england, own-loanable, historical-fiction, novels

Time-travel is its own subgenre of science fiction, and pretty much anyone who reads sci-fi has their own take on it. Willis adopts an unusual and refreshingly simple approach to time-travel in this lengthy award-winner. Instead of the usual questions about paradoxes or nefarious schemes to profit from time-travel, she sets it up as a smart system that protects itself from any paradox and abuse. Simply put, nothing that will cause a paradox or severely influence events can travel through "the ne Time-travel is its own subgenre of science fiction, and pretty much anyone who reads sci-fi has their own take on it. Willis adopts an unusual and refreshingly simple approach to time-travel in this lengthy award-winner. Instead of the usual questions about paradoxes or nefarious schemes to profit from time-travel, she sets it up as a smart system that protects itself from any paradox and abuse. Simply put, nothing that will cause a paradox or severely influence events can travel through "the net", as the system simply doesn't allow it in either direction. And since one can only go back in time, and one can't bring stuff back from the past, there's not much utility to it other than for scholarly research. Some reviewers have complained that "the net" would never be put to such a routine purpose as observing daily life in the Dark Ages, but they forget that the system basically doesn't allow one to travel back to critical events or to meet major historical figures. Fortunately, Willis doesn't waste much time trying to cobble together a technical or philosophical basis for any of this, it's just the way it works, and that's all one needs to get along with the story. Of course, readers who prefer more science in their science-fiction are likely to be a bit disappointed.

The story is set in Oxford around Christmastime in 2054, and it's a future that's awfully - indeed implausibly - similar to our present. Even though mobile phones were in existence at the time of the book's writing, they don't exist in Willis' 2054 (much less pagers, PDAs, or any other wireless communication), which is either strangely short-sighted, or a very weak contrivance. A great deal of the story is propelled and/or prolonged by the inability of characters to communicate in a timely manner, and had the protagonist had a simple cell phone at hand, many problems would have been averted. Indeed, much of the plot has a kind of "comedy of errors" aspect to it that the reader will either go along with or be driven crazy by. It more or less works in the context of Willis' whole approach, which is a kind of affectionate mimicry of an old-fashioned British formalism.

The gist of the story is pretty simple, since time travel is basically so useless, it's become a sort of historical archaeological tool. The acting head of history at Oxford has decided to use the absence of the dean to launch a female graduate student back to pre-plague 14th-century England. Her advisor is all against this, but she proceeds, and lo and behold, something goes awry and she is stuck there. Not only is she stuck in the past, she's stuck in the wrong past! A technician error has dropped her into the middle of the Black Death! But it's even worse than that, 'cause the technician falls ill with a mysterious virus before he can tell anyone what has happened! (The book is a compendium of missed connections, misinformation, and general confusion, which can get a bit tiresome.)

The book then unfolds over several hundred pages to tell parallel stories. One is about the grad student stuck in the midst of the plague, and how she handles life in the 14th-century amongst a small village of "contemps". Meanwhile, in Oxford, the mysterious virus is striking down people left and right, impeding the advisor's attempt to figure out what went wrong and how to get the student back. The 14th-century story is clearly more compelling, as Willis uses it to dispense five years of her research into life during Medieval times. The social life, customs, costumes, and details are remarkable, as we see the plague devastate a small community. It's not a pretty sight, and gets rather grim at times. The story at the other end of time is quite different in tone, attempting to even the tone with a more comic approach. I use the word "comic" very loosely here, since much of Willis' attempt to lighten the proceedings are lame. For example, the nagging Mrs. Gadson, or the nasty Mr. Gilchrist, or the sly stud William.

The book is strong is showing the effects of an epidemic, both historical, and in a semi-contemporary setting. Willis is clearly trying to say a little something about human nature, and how we act in such crises and breakdowns of social order, but it's nothing particularly striking (This topic has been perhaps most ably handled by Nobel-winner Jose Saramago in his brilliant work Blindness). Similarly, there is a none-to-subtle critique of organized religion at work, again, both in the past and the present. The book isn't helped by occasionally placid pacing, and a whimper of an ending which leaves at least two major plot points unresolved and fails to provide the satisfying denouement such a lengthy work deserves. And yet despite these various weaknesses, the book is a mostly enjoyable page-turner as long as one isn't searching for epic quests or adventuresome escapades. ...more

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May 31, 2017 Anie rated it liked it

Shelves: sff, fiction, female-author, male-protagonist, female-protagonist, 2017, library

There's a lot to like in here: well-researched medieval setting, interesting near-future academic setting, wry British humor (Willis clearly has comedic chops)...

...and there needed to be about 100 pages less of it. As much as there were things I really liked, this book dragged. It took me over 200 pages to get into it, and that's a LONG time to spend reading a book before it starts feeling like it's going. This is especially true for this book, which deals with pandemics; Willis's particular co ...more

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Sep 26, 2013 Madeleine rated it liked it

Shelves: speculative-fiction, smart-nonannoying-entertaining, series

Hmm. Has it occurred to these intrepid historians that there may be some "historiography" going on? Like, if I was a "historian" in 2110 (and the world was still in once piece), I would *totally* go back to Oxford 2050s and watch this all happen. And study it.

Willis had the misfortune (? it's actually sort of endearing) of writing these on the eve of the Internet age. Thus, it's 2055 but it's possible to completely lose the head of the history department if he goes salmon fishing somewhere in Br ...more

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Mar 15, 2014 Katie rated it liked it

Shelves: female-author, kindle, science-fiction

Doomsday Book takes place in the future at a time when historians study history by traveling back in time. In this book, Kivran travels back to the Middle Ages where she immediately falls ill. Simultaneously, an epidemic begins to spread among her colleagues in the time from which she came. Mayhem follows.

Like other reviewers said, this book would have benefited from quite a bit of editing. The beginning drags on and on. About halfway through the book, things finally started happening, and I re ...more

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Mar 29, 2008 Jana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: scifi

This was a really good book! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Even more than "To Say Nothing of the Dog"! I like the time travel and the way the two stories paralleled each other throughout the novel. Very well done. ...more

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