Rating: 
Summary: So boring...
Review: Yeah, yeah. I know many people were amazed by the character-portraiting in this book. I wasn't, but that's not the point. The point is, if you want to write a book you have to think of a story. This book has none, only a "situation" that is made clear in the first pages. Read on the next 500 or so pages, but do not expect anything else (oh, yes, except more and more endless repetations of the same "comic" conversations taking place in the future - is this the part which is intended to be a comic relief? Jesus!)
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book
Review: This book was terific. I don't often read books like this that are so tragic. I finished it the night I bought it and sobbed through the end of it. thats not to say it was a bad book because it was one of the best I've read. It's a story of people doing their best to handle what life throws at them and the little things that make life so precious.
Rating:
Summary: Worthy of the awards it has won.
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read. The amount of detail and research that Ms. Willis must have done is staggering and yet the book is very readable and the people come alive. Rather than either idolizing or condeming the past or the future, Willis presents both in a very real, all-too-human light. Though the book is long, I plowed through it, and was never bored. I like all of her books, but this is one of Willis' best. I don't usually like time-travel books, especially ones to the past, but this was so well done, I barely noticed that it wasn't "my type of book". The book begins humorous and light and remains that way for the majority of the book, despite the heavy subject. The weightyness only hits you later and by then I was too immersed to toss it aside. This is not 600 pages of depression, it has all the ups and downs of any human story, and it has continued to touch me long after I put the book down. The sequel, "To Say Nothing of the Dog" is also wonderful, but not at all dark and gloomy if you would like to start there.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book I Have Ever Read
Review: I am an ardent reader and until yesterday my favorite book was The Wolf and the Crown by AA Attanasio. Yesterday, however, I finished the Doomsday Book. Science fiction or not (which it was, just a little more educated than most in that genre) it was a book with incredible ideas and a vivid imagining. All aspects were realistic, and the characters were perfect. The symbolism and metaphors were exceptional and not glaringly obvious (while being easily seen by all but the least astute reader). Yes, those who sought a novel of pure escapism were bound to be disappointed, but they should have read the back of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Is This Really Science Fiction ?
Review: This is an interesting book and the characters are certainly vivid and well portrayed. But in the end, even with time travel, I don't think this is really science fiction. It's a story of people coping with adversity; a deadly virus and the plague. More than anything it portrays life in an English village in the 14th century and vividly describes people getting violently ill. Watch ER instead if that excites you. I'm surprised that it won the Nebula award. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court has more science in it than this, and is a lot more enjoyable to boot.
Rating:
Summary: Oxford, we have a problem...
Review: First, this book is way too long, considering that, in fact, nothing much happens during all those pages. I agree with those who complained about the pacing. The future parts were irritating and the characters, especially that horrible old woman whose name I can't remember, were quite unrealistic. In reality, I think people, even the medical personality, would be more helpful and understanding in that kind of a situation. The difficulties the Oxford people had seemed quite... well, artificial. The medieval parts were much better, though I'm, of course, not a history expert. Anyway, they seemed realistic and down-to-earth in a good way. Kivrin was probably the only believable "modern" character in the book, and her relations with the village people were described cleverly. I could feel sympathy for Agnes, the priest and all those others; their fate really touched me. The end was anti-climactic in a way, but definitely better than some made-up epic final with no sensible meaning. Willis could keep up the atmosphere right to the end. Points for that.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting book with minor flaws
Review: I found Doomsday Book to be an intelligent and well-written book with a lot of fine detailing to back up its central idea of time travel to the medieval period. The atmosphere of the book is well-done, with the aura of sickness carried both by the plague of the medieval period and the pandemic-stricken world of the book's modern period. There were times where (like a number of the other reviewers) I felt the pacing suffered in the book-- although in my case I felt like issues such as 'when' Kivrin actually was were artificially stretched out and strained the realistic layer of the novel in the service of adding additional suspense. Similarly, I felt that the book was hindered by the constant need for people to wait by the telephone and the inability to reach people-- even though the book was written a while ago, cell phones and answering machines were obvious components of the future. However, the flaws do not detract too badly from the overall worth of the book, or the pleasure in its reading.
Rating:
Summary: Cross-Over Story Appeals Beyond Sci-Fi
Review: The Doomsday Book was suggested to me for the historical merits of its story line, and I was not in the least disappointed. Having spent the past 4 years researching and writing a travel guide to medieval London, I found the history to be accurate, and the characters both authentic and compelling. I have never been a sci-fi fan--in fact have made it a point to not include it on my reading list. Connie Willis just might make me change my mind!
Rating:
Summary: Grown-up science fiction
Review: This book is a compelling read, not significantly marred by some oddly low-tech characteristics of Ms. Willis's world of the future. Her writing style conveys the manic, driven, repetitive thought processes of people under extreme stress. I had trouble putting it down, especially for the last third of the book. This is NOT a traditional science fiction 'comic book without the pictures'. It's a compelling story of people soldiering on, finding a way to do the best they can, in nearly impossible circumstances. Most intellectually post-adolescent readers will love this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Too long, often tedious, but still of some interest.
Review: Like others, I found the writing in this book overly repetitive (after being told for about the sixth time, I was pretty much willing to accept that one third to one half of Europe was wiped out by the plague) and sometimes tedious. Something that was particularly annoying was how the characters were constantly coming into and going out of most scenes, especially in the future part of the story. Similarly, the plague and influenza victims all seemed to be on a rollercoaster of getting worse, then gettng better, then getting worse, ad nauseum. It may be an accurate description of the progess of those diseases, but it hardly makes for page turning reading. Anyway, despite this, I stuck with the book and actually liked a couple of characters (Kirvin and Colin). And the historical insights were interesting. Overall, I don't feel I wasted my time, but the story could have been written much better.
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