Rating: 
Summary: time-travel & The middle ages
Review: The premise of the Doomsday Book by Connie Willis is a world in the near future in which historians can travel through time to discover more about the history of a period. While the technology is there it is not perfected so errors may occur. Kivrin an eager young scholar want to travel to the fourteenth century in the pre-plague era. Through unforeseen circumstances prevents her easy return as planned. The book transitions from the past to the future each of which are having their problems. The reader is able to follow Kivrin through the harrowing aspects of the time. Willis effectively describes the period and the people. She explains points which Kivrin will have to be aware of to fit in to the society. While in the middle ages Kivrin befriends two children and a local priest. Through these friendships we are able to learn about fashions, values and mores of the society. Characters in the book are interesting and entertaining although all are not fully fleshed out. None the less the reader grows to care for both the characters of the past and future. Some of the scientific details and technicalities seemed a little overdone. The description of the translator which allowed Kivrin to understand medieval English was lengthy and tedious. This book provides two of my very favorite elements time travel and the medieval period. For fans of either this is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Longer than necessary but very interesting (& scary)
Review: I'd have to say that this is one of the most interesting books I've ever read. I felt like I was actually taking a trip back in time. The book was engrossing before it got creepy. I had a nightmare about catching the black plague the night after I finished the book. My entire family came down with the disease and it was horrifying. I was actually able to see the effects of the plague as it killed my family members as Connie Willis described in her book. Now I feel that I've had an actual experience of the past and not just from reading the book. Doomsday Book made me think about the aspects of human nature and how it plays into our history. I would have found the book even more interest had it not been so long. Connie Willis wasted a lot of time talking about things that are irrelevant (to me). I would have preferred a movie or the abridged version instead.
Rating:
Summary: VERY good, if you can get past the anachronisms
Review: Whew. I just finished reading the Doomsday Book, and it left me breathless. Perhaps the best thing about the book is not about time travel, but character development in the Middle Ages, and an aura of mystery right out of Doyle and Poe. You get to know the characters of a 14th-century English village intimately well, and you feel as if they are part of your family. This is what makes the impact of the Black Death so harrowing -- you feel as if you are losing a part of yourself every time a villager succumbs to the symptoms of the great plague. Soon enough, the village you've come to know so well becomes a ghost of itself, until what is left of it is an unmilked cow mooing for attention among the freshly dug graves and abandoned huts. Granted, this book is not perfect. It suffers from some rather obvious anachronisms and a focus on certain annoying characters (mostly those in the 21st century). Although Willis wrote this book in 1992 during the current Information Revolution, her Oxford of 2054 is still a community overly dependent on paper forms (yes, real paper) and wired phones that frequently break down. This is not the Internet- and wireless-dependent world that we are just beginning to see developing right now in 2001. Oxford in 2054 is still dominated by bureaucratic red tape that gets in the way of the intentions of our protagonists -- something the author could have done without because this is simply unnecessary. Plus, there are some 21st century characters that, in my opinion, do little to enhance the plotline other than to drive Mr. Dunworthy batty and throw unnecessary obstacles into the plotline. There's also a character in the 14th century who is similarly annoying, but I think she is more central to the plotline and thus a more useful part of the story. Yet, for all these shortcomings, this book does develop into something worthy of a mystery novel that masquerades as time travel. The parallel protagonists of this book, Kivrin Engle and James Dunworthy, are trying to understand what is happening to a time-travel journey that has gone wrong. When they run into various dead ends in their quest to understand the real truth, this adds spice and mystery to the story. You eventually start to figure out what's happening before the main characters do, and it is as if you're trying to will Kivrin and James toward the truth, and getting frustrated in the process. That's part of the beauty of this novel. I can understand that some reviewers find this book's plotline rather frustratingly dense and slow, but I guess I just liked the suspense of knowing whether or not we're in the Black Death of medieval legend.
Rating: 
Summary: Wretched
Review: Although Brad from Denver has already summed up the problems with this book quite nicely, I can't help but take a few jabs of my own. The concept of "character development" completely escapes the author, hence my lack of caring about who died, who is in trouble, etc. Why care? Another problem is the pace of the book. It is, to my knowledge, the slowest book you will ever read. Painfully, remove-your-own-teeth-with-a-screwdriver painful. I tried to bravely make it at least half way, but alas, my mind shut down at one-third. Wretched. This book inexplicably won a prestigious award for science fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: A real tour de farce
Review: The cover of the book, calls itself a tour de force. I could think of less polite ways of saying it, but the best I can do is tour de farce. The book is simply poorly written. The genre is science fiction. However, to be effective, the story needs to be credible. This is not. A real must miss for any lover of SF.
Rating:
Summary: An incredibly disappointing read
Review: I had heard so many good things about this author that after I finally read it I was frankly dumbstruck at how bad I thought this book was. Initially I enjoyed the historical part of the book but there was absolutely no dramatic tension to be found anywhere. It often felt as though I were reading two stories, one in the "present" and the other in the past that were related by nothing more than the attempts to bring the girl back. I didn't understand what the point was of the emergency in the present and what it had to with what was happening during the black plague. The whole read was ultimately boring and left me with a rather bad taste in my mouth. I cannot recommend this book and though I may try another of her books this certainly didn't make me want to try one anytime soon. Blech!
Rating:
Summary: Deceptive... It Stays With You...
Review: Like a few other readers who reviewed this book, I ended up reading it shortly before Christmas, which was an odd experience. I think Connie Willis' basic premise for this book is ingenious--time travel with technology that is still dependent on humble human beings to operate it, parallels between the Middle Ages and our supposedly non-superstitious, logical world, and the ageless power of human love. On the surface it is also written in simple language and the "modern" parts of the story sometimes stuck me as simplistic and silly, although I think that may be part of her intention. The "time travel" sections were almost painful to read. The inexorable progress of the plague through the village and its devestation of human live, civilization, and culture was harrowing. There were times when I wanted to stop reading, which rarely happens for me, but I stuck with it because it felt important to stay with the characters. In a culture that thinks itself impervious to disaster but is currently threatened by AIDS and mad cow disease, which are just as sinister and potentially devastating as the plague for the Middle Ages, this book brings the fragility of human being to the forefront.
Rating: 
Summary: Thought provoking and emotionally intense
Review: I have to admit I was awed by the scope and depth of this book. The ideas and themes presented kept me in their grip for days. And though the setting and period are tragic, the tone of the book is hopeful. It doesn't leave you dispairing. Highly recommended. If you like this one, try Lincoln's dreams.
Rating:
Summary: Truly awful
Review: Absolutely ridiculous ham-handed nonsense. Poorly written, with terrible research. It simply irritated me. I think that she visited the UK in the 50's and uses that as the basis for her characterizations. The science is scant and holds little water. I would not recommend this book to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: I think Connie Willis has just become my favorite author
Review: Having found "To Say Nothing of the Dog" to be one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read, I decided to try another of Connie Willis' books. This turned out to be "Doomsday Book". All I can say is "Wow!" This is an incredible book. Much darker and more serious than "To Say Nothing...", the book is gut-wrenching, thrilling, thought-provoking, and ultimately quite touching (and at times, there's even a little humor). The basic plot: time travel puts a young researcher in the Middle Ages, perhaps on the eve of the Plague. Willis gives us two parallel stories, both involving epidemics, and the reader races toward a finale that I found sobering and uplifting at the same time. The characters are well-defined (a couple of them even reappear in "To Say Nothing..."), with some you are truly rooting for and some who you would like to slap across the face. You gotta love the Finch character! Willis does a great job making the 1300s come alive. How much did I like this book? I finished it on a roundtrip flight between Seattle and WDC. I almost always fall asleep on airplanes, if even just for an hour. I didn't fall asleep at all while reading this book.
| 
