The Doomsday Book - Connie Willis

This afternoon, I sat crying over the fate of a little girl. She could have been my daughter, my best friend’s daughter – but she wasn’t. She didn’t even exist. Ah, but she did. She came alive in a way that made me care, that made me weep. ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * A couple of months ago, I read a book review here by bwanamdevu. It was a wonderful review and made me want to read the book - a high recommendation indeed, as I had not previously heard of the author. Our local library didn’t have it, so I ordered it from another one in the area. The book arrived ... more

I read The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis yesterday. All in one day. That goes some way towards showing how good a read I found it. I picked the book up from Amazon marketplace, since apparently it went out of print in February 2003 (so there might still be copies in your local bookshop, if you're quick). I chose it on the basis of KarenUK's opinion I read here a few days earlier (thanks, Karen!), and I'd never heard of Connie Willis before. The book itself is pretty hefty, at nearly 600 pages, so there's plenty to get your teeth into. The plot is pacy and interesting from the first word. It ... more

---Why I Bought This---I had just been reading 'Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England' and one reviewer mentioned this novel as having the same sort of theme so thought I would give it a try.---The Product---This book was purchased from Amazon for 1p plus postage.Written by Connie Willis, an award-winning American science fiction writer.Published by New England Library, Hodder and Stoughton, 1992.ISBN - 0-450-57987-5---Brief Synopsis---This book has two story threads running through it. It is set in 2054 and time travel is possible, but done only by historical researchers - but no-one has ... more

Connie Willis - a winner of Hugo and Nebula awards may be known to you already but this was my introduction to her work.It was recommended to me by Bakka Bookstore in Toronto and I was a bit reluctant at first but after a few pages was hooked. Willis is reputed to have spent 5 years writing this novel and she has certainly produced a "tour de force". Her world is the near future of 2054 where time-travel is possible. It appears to be the preserve of historians who use it to travel back in time for their field studies.Great care has to be taken to adequately prepare those travelling back to ... more

The Doomsday Book was the first book I read by Connie Willis, and remains the best. She is an author who always offers plenty of original ideas, but in this book she manages to also captivate the heart with some good characterisations and a lot of compassion. The story is set in the future and the past, and concerns Kivrin, a history student who uses the Universities time machine to travel to 14th century England to study life then. Things go horribly wrong though and she lands in the middle of a Bubonic Plague epidemic, and has to cope with the horror of it all. I’ve read it 4 times. ... more