#doomsday book

[fortheloveofreading]

Mr. Dunworthy opened the door to the laboratory and his spectacles promptly steamed up.

- Connie Willis Doomsday Book 1992 Oxford Time Travel #1

[agardenandlibrary]

there's a new episode of my podcast Backlog Books out now (link in bio):

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Kneeling on St. Mary’s stone floor [Kivrin] had envisioned the candles and the cold, but not Lady Imeyne, waiting for Roche to make a mistake in the mass, not Eliwys or Gawyn or Rosemund. Not Father Roche, with his cutthroat’s face and worn-out hose. She could never in a hundred years, in seven hundred and thirty-four years, have imagined Agnes, with her puppy and her naughty tantrums, and her infected knee. I’m glad I came, she thought. In spite of everything.

Recommended:

In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker

[davidfosterwallaceandgromit]

remembers Father Roche thought she was an angel from heaven

[specificpollsaboutbooks]

In honor of getting my Blackout and All Clear copies early, which one is your favorite Oxford Time Travel Book ?

Doomsday Book

To Say Nothing of the Dog

Blackout / All Clear

I can't pick just one

I haven't read any of them but I may one day

I don't want to vote because I've only read one/two of them*

I'm not planning to read them

Show results

Voting ended onMay 9

*not a problem for me but anyway I don't vote significantly on my polls and you do you

[dude1818]

Doomsday Book

This winter I read "Fire Watch," and I've just finished Doomsday Book, the first two stories in Connie Willis's Oxford Time Travel series. Unlike the third one, these are not comedies. "Fire Watch" is a short story about a student sent to St Paul's Cathedral during the London Blitz for his history practicum, and Doomsday Book about a student who went to the 14th century for an independent research project and got caught up in the Black Death. They're both pretty dark

I want to talk about Doomsday Book, so I'm going to save some brief comments about "Fire Watch" for under the read more. There are actually two full stories running in parallel in this book: one set in the 2050s (the present) following the professor in charge of time travel, and one in the 1320(?)s following the student

In the present, Oxford has gone into quarantine due to an outbreak of a novel flu virus, with patient zero being the lab tech running the time machine. With him down, Prof Dunworthy is running around trying to find anyone who can operate the machine to determine where his student ended up and prepare for her return, while also managing the college in lockdown and coordinating with the hospital to figure out where the flu came from. Most of the humor in the book is in this part, but even then, it's old British humor that my parents may enjoy but I don't. Everyone being awful to Dunworthy isn't funny, it's just grating

In the past, Kivrin has also come down with the flu and loses the first day or two of her trip to high fever and delirium. She's brought to the local manor house and recovers, but she's in a panic the whole time because she doesn't know where to return for her pickup. At the manor, she's assigned to take care of the Lady's two young daughters, and she also befriends the village priest. These relationships are very sweet, but it's the Middle Ages and bad things keep happening to them, eventually culminating in the Black Death arriving on Christmas. She's not actually in 1320 like planned, but ended up in 1348 instead. (It was obvious the whole time she wasn't going to be in the right year, although given her clothes were too nice and the locals too poor, I was actually expecting her to have overshot and gone too early, not too late. I knew the Black Death had to show up somehow though, since how can you have a book about a plague and set in the Middle Ages without The Plague?) Kivrin and the priest do their best to treat the cases in the village, using her knowledge of germ theory and antiseptics, but they simply don't have the technology to actually save anyone. It was incredibly depressing

The book wasn't bad in any way, but it really wasn't what I expected or wanted. The first book in this series I read was a farce, and this was fully a tragedy. Dunworthy running around putting out fires during lockdown was somewhat amusing, until the 20% mortality rate started to kick in. About half of the important characters in the present died, including the only one other than Dunworthy who was competent and enjoyable. And in the past, there was a 100% death rate among the villagers, leaving only Kivrin alive to report. Willis is very good at writing deaths that sucked to read

"Fire Watch" was also pretty grim, but it also only 16k words, which is as much of that as I wanted. In this one Dunworthy sends another of his students to the London Blitz, where he joins the fire watch for St Paul's Cathedral. As the church keeps getting bombed, his companions fall sick or get wounded by the bombs, and his mental state deteriorates until he eventually gets pulled back out

It was an interesting enough story. I am glad I read either of the novels first, since the details on the time travel mechanism were extremely sparse, and I'd want a little more context than was given. Doomsday Book is technically a prequel to this one, and Kivrin cameoed here. Willis retconned why she was in 1348, but many of the details can also work as being part of an in-universe cover-up, and her thousand-yard stare when talking about her adventure served as decent closure when I went back and reread that section after finishing Doomsday Book

[ghost-r0bot]

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis has gotta be one of the most beautifully written and emotionally impactful books I've ever read and now I just need to sit and do nothing for a long long time

[agardenandlibrary]

also, the cover for Doomsday Book kind of makes it look like a tragic historical romance

Incorrect Buzzer Noise

That guy was totally useless. Completely obsessed with his employer's wife and not the MC. did still sleep with the housemaid. made up a bunch of stuff for attention. Perhaps the biggest Red Herring of the book.

And perhaps worst of all: named Gawyn.

[agardenandlibrary]

started Doomsday Book.

im pretty sure stuff is gonna happen to her