Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant tapestry of a story!
Review: Willis's knowledge of medieval life and plague combined with the imagination of a future in England is top-notch. I've studied plague for years and was very satisfied with the book. If you want more tales like this I recommend "The Plague Tales" and "The Burning Road" by Ann Benson. I'd love to see more like this....great reading!
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent novel
Review: One of the best SF novels I've read in years. The gamut of reviews on this book, some highly favorable and some the opposite, prove that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I am a hard SF fan and would not have predicted I would like this book, based on the reviews here, but I loved it. Any SF fan who hasn't read it owes him/herself a try. If you're not fascinated within 20 pages, put it aside. If you're like me and many others, you will not be able to put it down until you've finished it. A book with real heart.
Rating:
Summary: TT's plausibility not the point
Review: I was surprised to see how polarized the opinions on this book were. Hard-core SF readers apparently hate it because of the TT aspects. Frankly, their long diatribes about how TT simply isn't possible are irrelevant. They just don't get it! Willis was not trying to develop a theory of physics, she was writing a novel.It's depressing that some people believe that for a book to be meaningful it must not describe anything that could not take place in the world as we know it.
Rating: 
Summary: Like a bad episode of ER
Review: This book takes us through three waves of illness. One is a bad flu that hits a 21st century university during Christmas break. This wave is poorly written with several running jokes that (1) are not funny and (2) destroy any feeling for the deaths that occur. The other two waves occur in the Middle Ages. We get a lengthy story of the illness of a time travelling student/historian, followed by a separate plague that strikes the other characters. The story of the final plague is moving. Unfortunately, it is only about 100 pages of a 600 page book. And by the time you reach it, you have had an overdose of high fevers, racking pains, and drifting in and out of consciousness. The Hugo and Nebula awards for this book are unfathomable. Affirmative action for female science fiction writers?
Rating:
Summary: LOVED this book
Review: I don't understand some of the negative reviews this book has received. It is by FAR my favorite sci-fi type book I have ever read. I loved the characters, and I couldn't want to see what would happen to Kivrin.
Rating:
Summary: how did this win the Hugo and Nebula?
Review: I am plowing my way through all the Hugo award winners right now and after the sublime lterary quality of works such as Ursula K LeGuin's "The Dispossessed" and Miller's "Canticle for Lebowitz" I am appalled at this choice. The character's are flimsy and the plot, oh dear. Time travel always has it's problems but the solution to avoiding paradoxes here is something a ten year old could have dreamed up. A major portion of the book is spent trying to locate a time traveller in the past, and all the slapstick events that prevent them from doing so. The main character who is claimed as a brilliant student does the most inept job as an historian. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Moving
Review: "Moving" is an unusual summary for a science fiction book, but I was amazed at how much I cared for the many characters in this story. Willis places you in medieval Europe during the black death, and you feel the characters' pain, fears, hopes, and frustrations. It has been about a year since I read this book, but I was reminded of it after reading "The Cobra Event." Doomsday provides a very vivid picture of life with a rampant disease over which we have not control spreading through society; Cobra reminds us that we may not be far away from reliving the experience. Definitely read Doomsday. If you get the chance, follow it up with The Cobra Event.
Rating: 
Summary: great idea; flawed plot
Review: Kivrin's journey into 1348 was compelling. However, the parts set in 2048 were so flawed they just about ruined the book for me. My husband is a physicist who says that time travel is theoretically possible, but would require an enormous amount of energy. "Enormous" means the equivalent of the energy used by a star during its entire lifetime. Therefore any time travel device would be extremely powerful. I agree with the reviewer from July 1997 who said it is impossible to believe that scientists and engineers would create the equivalent of a neutron bomb or the Death Star, then leave it to be run by incompetents. I also thought the epidemic in 2048 was poorly done. It's hard to believe that a virus virulent enough to cause mass illness and many deaths would lie dormant for 700 years. Also, if archeological digs could activate viruses strong enough to cause epidemics, any sane society would require the archeologists to be isolated while doing the digs. They would certainly not be allowed to travel freely and expose lots of people. Especially not in a future society that quarantines people at the first sign of an epidemic. The parts of this novel set in 1348 were very well done.
Rating:
Summary: A magnificent presentation by a skilled author.
Review: This book is the winner of the 1992 Nebula Award for best science fiction novel of the year and cowinner of the 1993 Hugo Award. The History Department of a University (in or near Oxford) in the mid-21st century (I believe the year is 2048) sends its historians back in time to study peoples and events. A young historian is supposed to be sent back to 1320 England to study the customs of the Middle Ages. However, she is accidentally sent to 1348 just in time for the Black Death to arrive in England. The book depicts the effects of the plague magnificently and shows people at both their worse and their best. I really enjoyed reading it. As you can tell from a number of the earlier reviewers, there are readers who didn't care for the book too much. Some commented on the rather dark ending. Of course, that was the point. Whole towns were wiped out by the plague. There was no escape. Others suggested that there was very little science, even though time travel is crucial to the story. However, if one reads any time-travel novel or short story in which the characters travel to the past, one will typically see the same level of science as is presented in "Doomsday Book." In addition, don't forget that epidemiology is also a science. There are even critics who suggest that the book has little relevance for modern readers. I find that hard to believe when the world is now experiencing a new epidemic, albeit not as fast moving as the Black Plague. Let us all hope that we don't have the experiences of our ancestors.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated, avoid!
Review: This is probably the single most overrated SF book in recent years. I haven't read it in a while (and I *never* will again), but it left the impression of being slow, non-scientific (which you'd kinda hope a Hugo/Nebula winner *would* be), and generally boring. I forced myself to finish the book in the hope that it would get better. It did - when I was done, and able to read something else. The book is not horrible, just horribly overrated, and I'd recommend a potential buyer/reader to look elsewhere unless you've read everything else in the genre.
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