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Summary: Simply delightful...your laughs and smiles will be plentiful
Review: Picked up this book while on vacation when I ran out of reading material. I knew nothing about the book and knew nothing about Connie Willis. Grabbed it based upon the endorsements on the cover and back...always a dangerous thing.Well, it was the best out-of-the-blue purchase I've ever made. To Say Nothing of the Dog is a delightful book, high in entertainment, laughs and just plain fun. It is a combination time-travel adventure and Victorian romance, with plenty of slapstick and enjoyable twists and turns to not really fit into either of those genres. My best analogy would be that it is a cross between Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and a Victorian era novel. The characters are all memorable and quirky, and the pages drip with humor. I loved the book. Try it!
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Summary: Delightfully mind-bending!
Review: This is a wonderful book: a time-travel-mystery in which the fate of the universe and the outcome of World War II hinge upon the right folks falling in love 60 years earlier, assisted (or perhaps impeded) by meddling historians from 2057. OK, it sounds silly but it's an awful lot of fun. Highly recommeded for anyone who enjoyed Bull & Brust's "Freedom and Necessity", or (for very different reasons) Poul Anderson's stories of the Time Patrol. Four stars because it doesn't reach the pinnacles of perfection (there *are* a few books I'd rate higher), but I'd give it 4 and a half if I could.
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Summary: Drop that Bird Stump!
Review: While, I've been a fan of her short stories for a while now, this is the first Connie Willis novel I've read. In fact, it wasn't Willis' name or the fact the this book won both the prestigious Huga AND Nebula Award that drew me to it. It was the intriguing combination of a science fiction time travel set in Jerome K. Jerome's Victorian England. And Willis is true to both the comic nature of Three Men..., as well as to the complex and paradoxical nature of a well written time travel story. This novel is funny, charming, AND riveting all at the same time. And don't be concerned if you can't quite figure out what a bishop's bird stump is supposed to be.. neither can they...
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Summary: Keep Reading!
Review: The biggest problem with this novel is that you have to stop laughing long enough to think. Having read all of Connie Willis's solo novels, I unquestionably consider _To Say Nothing of the Dog_ her masterwork thus far. She has fully developed her endearing style, using the very tone of her writing to advance the story. All the disparate "details" harmonize in unimaginable combinations, flung from one end to the other, united in spite of their oddity. Please note that you CANNOT glean everything this book contains in a single reading. Its nonlinear chronology guarantees that fact. Even so, the balance between the narrator's ordinary motion forward in time, his and other characters' jumping about through history, and the mind-numbing ramifications of entering the past make for the most carefully designed "theory" of time travel I have seen in science fiction. Enjoy this novel thoroughly, but be watchful for its staggering yet subtle message.
Rating: 
Summary: I'd really give it 3 1/2 stars...
Review: I bought this book based on the fact that it won the Hugo and Nebula awards and the rave reviews written here. Although I found the book entertaining, I think that the over the top accolades this book seems to be receiving are indicative of the large numbers of below average novels that regularly appear on the sci-fi shelves. I say this not as a naysayer of science fiction novels, but rather as a fustrated fan. It can be difficult wading through all the "really bad sci fi books" and finding a gem. "To Say Nothing of the Dog" is impressive for the details about Victorian and WWII era England. It almost got a bit annoying after a while because it seemed that Willis was throwing in minute details to demonstrate her research and not really adding to the story. I ran into the same problems years ago when I read Willis' Doomsday Book. I would characterize the novel as more of a mystery/period piece/romance rather than a science fiction novel. Entertaining.... but calm down people!
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Summary: Screwball Comedy about Time Travel and History
Review: To Say Nothing of the Dog is one of Connie Willis' time travel stories, sharing a milieu with her award-winning novelette "Fire Watch" and her award-winning novel Doomsday Book. This current novel almost seems a response to some criticisms of Doomsday Book. If the former book was primarily a tragic story of the Plague, this book is a screwball comedy set in the time of Jerome K. Jerome's classic (and highly recommended) late Victorian comedy, Three Men in a Boat. (Indeed, the title of this book is the subtitle of Jerome's.) And, Willis seems to be saying, if this is a screwball comedy, darn it, I can have implausible plot points, and outrageous coincidences, and my tone can be as goofy as I want. But a funny thing (so to speak) happened on the way to Coventry, and this novel turns out to have a serious and moving center to it after all, albeit in the context of a generally very funny book. What's more, Willis' point derives nicely from her story's outrageous coincidences, almost too overtly so, as if the book points at its faults and says "I meant it that way". The protagonist and narrator, Ned Henry, a 30ish "historian" in 2057, has been trying to get to Coventry Cathedral just prior to the pivotal bombing in 1940 (which destroyed the Cathedral but which may have indirectly turned the Battle of Britain against Hitler) in order to rescue the Bishop's Bird Stump, a hideous item which the historians (read time travelers) need to help convincingly furnish a rebuilt Cathedral. Willis conveniently (for plot purposes) invents a syndrome she calls "time lag", which happens when people time travel too often, and results in confusion, difficulty hearing, excess emotionalism, and such like. The only cure is rest, and Henry's superior, Mr. Dunworthy of Doomsday Book, decides the only place he can rest is in the past (out of reach of the fearsome Lady Schrapnell). Unfortunately, Dunworthy decides to have Ned complete one little tiny task for him in the past, returning an anachronistic item from 1888 to it's proper time, before resting. But Ned is so time-lagged he doesn't quite realize what it is he needs to return, and there isn't enough time to properly brief him... I won't detail the rest of the plot, which is quite complicated, though in the end nothing much is really accomplished (which becomes part of the point). We are treated to a brief river journey (an hommage to the trip which makes up the action of Jerome's novel, indeed Willis cannot resist having her characters encounter Jerome and his friends Harris and George, to say nothing of their dog, Montmorency, which I found a bit over-indulgent of her), to a thematically central and also quite funny ongoing rant by an Oxford Don on the subject of the Great Man theory of History vs. his opponent's belief in Natural Forces, to the origination of the jumble sale, several nice love stories, and lots more. I ended up really enjoying this book, with a few reservations. At the surface level there is the shall I say typical good fun of Connie Willis in her screwball mode. Beyond this, the book engages in some Sfnal dialogue with earlier SF such as Asimov's The End of Eternity. And, finally, it all comes together to mean something, and I was quite moved by the final metaphors, which touch on the importance of details to history, and on the worth of grand indulgences like cathedrals.
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Summary: Penwipers, cats and the Luftwaffe
Review: I swear, Connie Willis must collect awards for fun and profit. I've loved everything of hers that I've read, but this was the first, and still one of my favorites. She's managed to write a historical novel/romance/comedy/mystery/scifi story in one impeccable volume. While trying to unravel the various paradoxes of time travel, you're treated to the inanities of Victorian England, which can (and probably will) have you laughing out loud. With the mystery of the drowned cat, and the atrocity that is the Bishop's Bird Stump, among other things, she keeps you tied to the book up until the end - just when you think everything is sorted out, we find that we're all wrong. Ms. Willis pays perfect homage to the great writers of the past as well, so opick up some Christie and Jerome K. Jerome while you're at it. Highly recommended....
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Summary: Echoes of Jerome K. Jerome and P.G. Wodehouse...
Review: ....blended with modern time-travel fantasy, a strong hint (well, more than a *hint*) of Dorothy Sayers, and a lot that doesn't come from anyone else combine to make up an inimitable Willis. There are serious themes beneath TSNotD -- it's not a complete Wodehousian farce -- but you may be having too much fun to notice.
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Summary: If you're even a little interested....
Review: You have to read this book. I considered this book a risk for two reasons: (1) I am not a fan of time travel books and (2) I am not a fan of comic novels (they often try too hard). But I took a chance. And now I STRONGLY recommend you take a chance. This book reads like Jane Austen on helium. It is silly, distorted and hilarious (just like a helium affected voice) But it is also intelligent, fully realized, and un-put-down-able. The literary and historical allusions also teach a bit along the way. Go for it!
Rating:
Summary: Nothing short of perfection!
Review: After seeing this book for a while, I finally purchased it. Now I wish I hadn't waited so long. I was first intrigued by the title, but the book far exceeded any of my expectations. This is the best book Connie Willis has written. It's a perfect blend of scifi, Victorian comedy of manners, and mystery. There are parts that are laugh out loud funny. Since purchasing this book, I have read it 5 times. I've also lent it to numerous friends who all thank me profusely for introducing them to this book assuring me that they are all going to go out and get their own copy. You could almost describe it as a cross between a Jane Austen novel and The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Two words: READ IT!
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