Connie Willis: Doomsday book (1992, New EnglishLibrary)
527 pages
English language
Published Nov. 11, 1992 by New EnglishLibrary.
Somewhere in the future, ordinary history students must travel back in time as part of their university degree. An award-winning best-seller in the United States, this is the first of Connie Willis' brilliant Oxford trilogy.Kivrin knows everything about the Middle Ages - she's read all the books. She knows it's dangerous: cutthroats in the woods, witch hunts, cholera, and millions dying in the plague. For a young historian, it's fascinating.When Kivrin's tutors in Oxford's history lab finally agree to send her on an on-site study trip, she jumps at the chance to observe medieval life first-hand. But a crisis that strangely links the past and future leaves her stranded in the most deadly and terrifying era in human history, face to face with the heart-rending reality behind the statistics. And while she fights for her own life, Kivrin finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope in this dark …
Somewhere in the future, ordinary history students must travel back in time as part of their university degree. An award-winning best-seller in the United States, this is the first of Connie Willis' brilliant Oxford trilogy.Kivrin knows everything about the Middle Ages - she's read all the books. She knows it's dangerous: cutthroats in the woods, witch hunts, cholera, and millions dying in the plague. For a young historian, it's fascinating.When Kivrin's tutors in Oxford's history lab finally agree to send her on an on-site study trip, she jumps at the chance to observe medieval life first-hand. But a crisis that strangely links the past and future leaves her stranded in the most deadly and terrifying era in human history, face to face with the heart-rending reality behind the statistics. And while she fights for her own life, Kivrin finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope in this dark time.Five years in the writing, Doomsday Book is a storytelling triumph. Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the timeless issues of evil, suffering and the indomitable will of the human spirit.
I was not prepared for the grief and stress and loss in this! Sorry to say that her characterization in 1991 of how Americans would behave when confronted with health quarantines is exactly spot on.
Time travelers from our future competently deal with a pandemic in their time while people from our past deal horribly with one.
This is a well-constructed and interesting read. It's got an excellent story, but boy, it takes a long time to get to some of it.
Get it? Takes a long time? Time travel jokes?
I'll show myself out.
FFS I just wished Willis would get on with it!
I really enjoyed this book. I agree with many readers, it's a book to make your heart ache but since my heart is aching right now, that's just about right. It's a story not about the grand adventures of heros, but the strength and courage of ordinary folks doing their best in unbearable situations. You can't help but fall in love with Kivrin, and be rooting for her to the very end.
Great characters. Well, the main characters are awesome, though the secondary characters are coarsely drawn.
While I like the premise of the story and think there are some interesting characters being portrayed, the main problem I'm having is one of pace. More than once I've found myself urging the story to move along to some kind of payoff point.
Around page 300 or so, just when the bad things start happening, it turns into a real tale, though it always feels as if we're being led around in circles instead of toward the true direction of the story.
