Rating: 
Summary: A lovely, engaging read
Review: Fans of "Star Trek" type fare, look elsewhere. Everybody else, here's a wonderful book, absorbing and suspenseful and intelligent and even funny. "Doomsday Book" has a well-researched tour of the middle ages, enjoyably snarky commentary on university life, and a race-to-the-finish-line plot, all in one neat package. (Also does for the CDC what "Slow River" did for sewage treament.) If you're the kind of reader who must have dragons and spaceships, skip it, you'll only be confused. Those who prefer a little less convention and a little more craft should be very pleased. (I feel the same way about most Gibson, Nicola Griffith's "Slow River," and the first three-quarters of Peter Hoeg's "Smilla's Sense of Snow," if you want a baseline to judge these comments by.)
Rating:
Summary: Good but not perfect
Review: This book really isn't sci-fi - it uses time travel as a way of introducing the middle ages. Anyone expecting technical marvels will be disappointed. Instead this is a very solid, emotional story. I'm a 29-yo male computer engineer and I almost cried at the end. The lack of technical detail didn't bother me. In fact, it was refreshing because so many sci-fi authors try to describe tech in great detail and just end up showing how little they really understand. This book is about the plague, carries a great many details of the 1300's and is a story that educates and involves the reader. The characters are most certainly not cardboard - people who say that just read this book for the wrong reasons. My only nitpick is that the very end (the rescue) was too predictable, and I skimmed most of it because I knew what was going to happen. Perhaps the part I liked the most wa sthe brutal reality of things not going the way of the main characters in either time periods. I've had days like that myself.
Rating: 
Summary: How to feed a teenager's voracious reading addiction.
Review: When I finished reading Doomsday Book I looked at my son's stack of library books and quietly placed it on the very top. It was the next thing he choose to read. For two days last summer all he did was read Doomsday and eat. In Father Roche he found a hero unlike any other and understood completely Kirvin's words that the man was a saint. He also made the comment, "I wouldn't want to be a woman in the dark ages and have no control over my life." So for those people who don't understand what all the fuss is about, well, your loss and our gain.
Rating:
Summary: We cannot alter chaos to our own ends
Review: I had finished "To say Nothing of the Dog" and found Doomsday Book. I was hoping for a different ending, but couldn't read fast enough to get there. I find Ms. Willis entertaining, and thought provoking. A real pleasure to read, and knowledge to gain.
Rating: 
Summary: This won the Hugo and Nebula?
Review: As science fiction, this is a terrible book. As historical fiction, it's serviceable. However, this book's plot is paper thin, its characters are cardboard, and its extremely UN-exciting. The book drags on forever with no direction. I recommend other Hugo and Nebula winners, but stay away from this one, unless you want the history of the Black Death pounded into you over and over...
Rating: 
Summary: Hmmm, people love this?
Review: Well, I read it, and now I can say- what's the big deal? Connie Willis can write and write well, but the essence of a good book, story, is missing. Also this book ranks low, low, low on the originality scale. To those readers who hold this up as the best book they've ever read: Read more.
Rating: 
Summary: Zzzzz....
Review: Boring! I really, really tried to make it through. After 230 pages nothing had happened so I stopped. Why is this book called science fiction? The only apparent reason is because of the use of time travel, but even that is poorly depicted. The author avoids questions about the "rules" of time travel by simply installing an entity called the "net" that somehow stops problematic things, such as bombs or an encounter that would change history, from travelling back in time. But wouldn't any encounter alter the future? Willis should have read the Bradbury short story, "The sound of thunder," before writing this. Willis doesn't seem to have put any thought into the time travelling idea, which isn't surprising because it has no place in the book. It's simply a lame excuse to describe a historical encounter. Also, the future could be the 1970's for all the description it is given. As I have said I only reached page 230, but what I read any editor worth his salt would have cut in half. Did you like the 50 pages worth of garbage spent with the characters trying to trace the origins of the virus? Unbelievably dull.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful.....Is all sci-fi this good?
Review: I stumbled upon Doomsday Book while browsing through the new release section at a public library. I read it back in 1993. After returning the book, I forgot the name. I have spent countless hours in bookstores and libraries describing the book to the sci-fi gurus in hopes that they could tell me the name. I've even spent many a hours here at Amazon trying to find Doomsday Book. Finally, I checked out Borders.com and found it. Borders has a fantastic search engine.I am not a sci-fi fan. All that techno stuff turns me off. But, I loved this book. The author paints a vivid landscape. What I loved most is the realistic descriptions of characters and living conditions. Can any of you reccommend other novels like Doomsday? I also liked The Alienist and I am looking forward to Lady in the Loch. Please email me with any reccommendations that you may have.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for lovers of historical fiction!!!
Review: Students in my English IV class could not believe I cried over literature. They laughed at me when I said I could not finish reading Doomsday Book during school for fear of weeping too loudly! Well, maybe a few of my hardcore student readers understood, but the masses cackled maniacally. Several comments: this is fantastic literature! I became a tad aggravated during the 21st century sections, but really came to admire Mary and Mr. Dunworthy. The medieval portions of the book are something else. I was utterly and completely moved by Father Roche and Kivrin; these 2 people are not cardboard characters in the least! It is too bad that some of the complainers about this book never made it to the conclusion; it moved me as much as any literature I have read within the past 5 years, and believe me, I read a ton. I will never forget "you are here in place of the friends I love." I am sure other devotees of Doomsday Book won't either. Please readers, give this wonderful novel a chance. I did and will never regret it!
Rating:
Summary: Two worlds in one boook
Review: I do not know why this book is called a science fiction book, because the time travel device used to go back into the Middle Ages is something which does not seem to play an important role in the book. The nice thing about the book is the comparision about a flulike epidemic in 2050 and the plague in 1348. I wondered whether the writer was English, because she catches the English humor and way of thinking quite well. I think the novel would have been stronger and better if there was more attention to the Middle Ages, because the story told about a village catching the plague during Christmas 1348 is quite strong.
|
