Funny story: a number of years ago I read Blackout by Connie Willis, one of my favorite authors. I really love Connie Willis, even though there have been some disappointments (Remake is way too obvious and Promised Land. . .I don’t even want to talk about it). But when she’s on, I’m nuts for her writing. Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, which are curiously tied together by a time-travel theme and some shared characters, are two of my favorite contemporary novels, in spite of them being very […]
The Doomsday Book
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis This genre-bending story is a medical thriller, near-future time travel, and historical fiction novel all in one. Despite the subject matter, it’s a rather cozy novel; the kind you read while sipping tea on a rainy afternoon. While reading, I kept thinking that it had no right to be as good as it was because the overall story is rather thin: girl travels in time, professor tries to get her home. Well, maybe it’s a bit more complicated than that. […]
Oxford Temporal Historians At It Again
I really wanted to title this review “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego”. Not for any correlations to the bible story in To Say Nothing of the Dog: Or How We Found the Bishop’s Bird Stump at Last by Connie Willis. Because the characters reminded me of former high school classmates of mine who received those nicknames our freshman year of high school from a very cranky history teacher. Much of the struggles of Ned, Terrence, and Cyril through the early portions of the book reminded me […]
Bumbling about Victorian England with a bulldog and a cat named Princess Arjumand.
After I read Doomsday Book a couple of years ago, a bunch of people told me that this one was much lighter in tone, and funny, but I didn’t realize it would be an almost straight up farce at points. To Say Nothing of the Dog takes place two years after the events of Doomsday Book, but either book can be read on its own without regard for the other. Oxford historian Mr. Dunworthy is the only character of any note who plays a role […]