Reviews

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

searobin's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

The concern over TP got me every time it was mentioned! It was remarkable how many things were very accurate about the 2052 pandemic, though I guess the 1968 flu pandemic would have been a good template for Willis to work off - she was a bit optimistic about how much better we would be at containing the spread, however. 
It is always fascinating to read older books set in the future. The idea that phones would develop video capabilities, but not be easily transported, is so interesting! This did lead to some repetitive and slow-paced yet somehow frantic moments in the book. The pacing was a bit odd at times, but I was always engaged and keen to find out what happened next, even if the route there was a bit circuitous. 

I fell in love with so many of the characters, and came to absolutely loath a few others. But they were all so human, and relatable, and it was really lovely.

A few other random thoughts: 
-I am annoyed that no one seemed to do the incubation time math for the tech.

The one academic closed down the lab because he thought the tech could have gotten sick via the net, but he developed the major symptoms only 1-2 hours max after the net was active, and the virus took 12-48 hours to incubate. That really frustrated me.

-Thank goodness I have aphantasia and couldn't picture any of the gory bulboes or anything else. 

samcarag64's review

adventurous emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

frasersimons's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

The later half of this book comes together very well, whereas the first half was a very near dnf, for me. I read another “classic” time travel book a little while ago, and apparently authors were really enamoured with stranding people in the past without plot or pacing. All the momentum of the fairly interesting premise is utterly sapped and there is a long amount of time dedicated to sickness and disease, which is pretty hard to turn into forward movement in a story. 

Luckily? I was driving and couldn’t turn it off, and as the characters began to be able to, you know, communicate with each other, a story started to emerge. A historian bearing witness to something incalculably terrible becomes fairly interesting, if for no other reason than it becomes a human experience rather than the distance historians claim to need and want from their texts. 

That being said, not much actually happens. In a 21 hour audiobook, that’s a problem. It is overwritten and the dialogue serviceable. But it does have interesting themes that are driven home quite well, in the end. 

emilyb_chicago's review

1.0

The tone is dark and oppressive and the pacing was slow and repetitive in this book. In addition to the writing issues (literally repeating the same sentences paragraphs apart) and the lack of a plot, the whole story revolved around an inadequately trained main character. She was unable to use the most basic tools of her job and seemed uncertain and lost from the start, even though she supposedly had been preparing for years to be ready for this type of trip.

While the dual timeline had the potential to be interesting, there was nothing done with the potential. Every cool twist I thought might come turned out to be a dropped story thread. The characters started frantic and stayed frantic throughout the entire novel. There was no depth and no growth.

The abbreviations the author used were confusing and unclear. It took me many chapters to understand that "contemps" was not someone held in contempt but a contemporary of the time period. Why not explain that in any of the random winding dialogue?

Spoiler

It's unclear if the main character was supposed to be an observer in the past world or if she was supposed to integrate into past life - she did neither well. She didn't even know how to use the translator that was provided her. How had she never even had a single test with this basic equipment that she was going to literally be relying on? Easily a hundred pages were spent on her not being able to use a translator that was an essential tool used by people in her position.

There only redeeming part of this novel was one interesting conversation toward the end about faith. It's not worth this novel to read that part.

There are so many excellent time travel books, don't waste your time on this one.

rsainta's review

5.0

All the reviews who thought the 2054 parts were boring have clearly never lived through a pandemic/quarantine, because this book was eerily prescient of 2020. A flu-like virus, spread by droplets, causing fever and difficulty breathing? Check. Americans complaining about quarantine because it infringes on their civil rights? Check. Running out of key supplies, like PPEs and toilet paper? Blaming an ethnic minority for the virus? Protests about completely unscientific conspiracy theories? Check, check, check. And of course, we can't forget the face masks that everyone kept forgetting to wear! The medieval times parts were interesting, but damn the pandemic parts had me shook.

klparmley's review

4.0

I really love this historical fiction/time travel mashup. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. Curious to see which characters are regulars.

And, ftr, I don't think I'll ever forget that the Black Plague arrived in Great Britain in 1348.

jimmyg's review

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

The story is excellent but it's clear the writer isn't English because some of the factual areas and comparisons are jarring. 

myiopsitta's review

emotional sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

mistyd's review

5.0

I really loved this book. It was very captivating. There were a few parts that dragged, but over all the book flowed very well. One part stuck out that was very poorly written and researched. *spoiler alert!* At one point during the plague, Kivrin tells a mother to stop nursing her baby and give the baby milk from the cow. It was so ridiculously wrong. Telling the mother that was as good as giving that baby a death sentence. The ONLY chance that child had of surviving was by getting antibodies through her mother's milk. Five minutes research would have given Connie Willis that information. It was so glaringly inaccurate that I did wonder if the rest of the book was very well researched. Honestly, I don't know that much about the 14th century, and since the book was so interesting and captivating that I just forgot about it and enjoyed the rest of the book!

deanna_rigney's review

4.0

If it were possible on here to give a 4.5 that would be my rating. I save the coveted 5 stars for those books that just wow the socks off me, and this came very, very, very close. I love the idea of time travel, and this takes place in future Britain where the protagonist Kivrin is sent back to the Middle Ages, a place where time travel has been forbidden thus far because of all the nastiness like cutthroats, burning people at the stake, oh, and of course the PLAGUE. So everything seems peachy keen, but soon something goes horribly awry and this rush of desperation to make things right in both the past and present ensues. It is a great story, and a very human story, without undo maudlin sap.