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Joel's Reviews > Doomsday Book
Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1)
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Joel's review
bookshelves: 2010, audiobooks, sci-fi-fantasy, minus-half-a-star, wishlist, time-travels
Nov 23, 2009
bookshelves: 2010, audiobooks, sci-fi-fantasy, minus-half-a-star, wishlist, time-travels
** spoiler alert **
Somehow, by the year 2053, we'll have invented time travel but lost the use of cell phone technology. You'd think that was a pretty good trade-off, right? Well, if you've read a few of Connie Willis' "future historian" time travel books, you know that we're probably better off as we are, because without cell phones, it seems humanity would spend most of its days in fevered attempts to place calls by landline video phone, narrowly missing one another, encountering busy circuits, unable to locate anyone not at his home or office. This would go on for hundreds of pages.
Or look at it this way: Connie Willis really needs an editor. Because this is 1/2 of a fantastic book grafted to 250 pages of tiresome running about with no real purpose. This is the same format Willis prefers for all of her longer works: lots of really great writing and compelling characters, but you have to wade through a bunch of repetitive "funny bits" to get to them, most of which seem to have to do with telephones. I also could have done without nearly a dozen scenes of characters almost dispensing vital information, then falling into unconsciousness.
But after a few hundred pages, all the annoying stuff is over with and suddenly you're falling in love with all of the characters, and dreading what's going to happen to them, especially the ones in the Middle Ages, because the Black Death wasn't known for leaving a whole lot of survivors. And I'll say one thing for Willis, she isn't afraid to kill characters you like, and here she kills a lot of them. The end of the book is profoundly sad, and only a tiny bit uplifting; the ultimate message is that there is value in the struggle even if the outcome is failure. And yet it's not a depressing read, somehow. It's also not quite as gross and plague-y as you might fear, with only a small portion of the text devoted to lancing sores and vomiting blood. So that's always nice.
Or look at it this way: Connie Willis really needs an editor. Because this is 1/2 of a fantastic book grafted to 250 pages of tiresome running about with no real purpose. This is the same format Willis prefers for all of her longer works: lots of really great writing and compelling characters, but you have to wade through a bunch of repetitive "funny bits" to get to them, most of which seem to have to do with telephones. I also could have done without nearly a dozen scenes of characters almost dispensing vital information, then falling into unconsciousness.
But after a few hundred pages, all the annoying stuff is over with and suddenly you're falling in love with all of the characters, and dreading what's going to happen to them, especially the ones in the Middle Ages, because the Black Death wasn't known for leaving a whole lot of survivors. And I'll say one thing for Willis, she isn't afraid to kill characters you like, and here she kills a lot of them. The end of the book is profoundly sad, and only a tiny bit uplifting; the ultimate message is that there is value in the struggle even if the outcome is failure. And yet it's not a depressing read, somehow. It's also not quite as gross and plague-y as you might fear, with only a small portion of the text devoted to lancing sores and vomiting blood. So that's always nice.
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Reading Progress
November 23, 2009
– Shelved
June 10, 2010
–
Started Reading
June 10, 2010
– Shelved as:
2010
June 10, 2010
– Shelved as:
audiobooks
June 10, 2010
– Shelved as:
sci-fi-fantasy
June 14, 2010
–
20.76%
"you know what is exciting are repeated scenes of a guy repeatedly passing out just before delivering crucial plot information, followed by a long scene told from the point of view of a feverish, delirious character who thinks she's on fire."
page
120
June 27, 2010
–
Finished Reading
June 28, 2010
– Shelved as:
minus-half-a-star
July 9, 2010
– Shelved as:
wishlist
March 21, 2011
– Shelved as:
time-travels
Comments Showing 1-50 of 91 (91 new)
message 1:
by
Joel
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rated it 2 stars
Jan 22, 2011 06:50PM
Yeah I should probably go back and give it a three...
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me too! people were reverent. i just thought it was ok. To Say Nothing of the Dog features the same band of time travelers but is a lot more fun -- it's all victorian-era farce instead of maudlin disease tragedy.
Doomsday is by no means, from an objective standpoint (to the extent reading is even an "objective" activity), one of the best books I've read. But I readily count it among the most important books in my life. So much depends on what's happening in your life when you read a book, and Doomsday's themes paralleled those in my own life at the time I read it. Thus, while Doomsday has it's problems and downfalls, it will always be close to my heart.
true, true. but not the parts where the phones weren't working, right? i would have been fine if there was needless less running around in the future scenes. why was the "plague" in the future necessary at all anyway? kivron's story was obviously the real focus... it just played like padding to explain why she was stuck in the past.
"kivron's story was obviously the real focus... it just played like padding to explain why she was stuck in the past."Yep. I totally agree the future storyline was an excuse to put Kivrin in 1349 England. And it was Kivrin's story that paralleled my own in some respects.
But hey, how do you know I didn't have a really bad day when some drunk in a pick-em-up drove into the cell phone tower at my end of town?!?! Hmmm?!?!
You do realize that the book was published in 1992, right? When most of us didn't know jack about cell phones. I read it in '93 and absolutely loved it.
i do realize that, in 1992, the vast majority of people did not have cell phones. but many rich people did. the technology was well established. even my entirely unimportant and non-wealthy parents had a bag phone in the car.so i think it is safe to say that a science-fiction writer writing about the future could reasonably extrapolate that mobile technology would continue to develop.
and that's beside the point because the future plot isn't dull because it doesn't involve cell phones but because it is clumsy padding to make the overall story work. instead of coming up with a valid crisis in the future to explain why kivrin can't just be rescued from the past in a timely fashion, willis spins her wheels with repeated scenes of busy signals. she should have come up with something that wasn't boring, or at least not repeated it so many times.
truthfully, i thought the tech's repeated fainting spells were far worse though. "i've got to see dunworthy!" "i'm right here! tell me!" "got to tell dunworthy... the net! kivrin is in terrible... [FAINTS]" (repeat 5 times)
Spot on about Willis' strengths and her weaknesses. She can be really powerful, but damn she meanders.
thanks. i have been steeling myself to read Passage but it is so long and undoubtedly packed with this kind of stuff... you just sort of need to get into the zone and try to enjoy the characters, the meticulous research and the big ideas i suppose.
Yeah Passage goes on and on and on(kind of like this sentence). But touching and thought-provoking too.
I so agree with this review.
I understand your point, but what you consider "padding" is to me a crucial part of the story. The future plague isn't just a problem for getting Kivrin back, it's a parallel. Even when technology enables us to get many things right, there will be disease outbreaks. No matter what the technology, communicating is always a problem.But yeah, if this makes you crazy, don't read Passage in which the constantly-under-work halls and stairs of a large urban hospital are a metaphor for the maze of our minds as well as for the blocked passages and halls of the Titanic.
I love this aspect of her work. Phone tag grounds her time-travel like nothing else could.
Kaethe wrote: "I understand your point, but what you consider "padding" is to me a crucial part of the story. "yes, i was perhaps overstating my dismissal of that part of the story. the plague is fine, it is more the amount of space it takes up and the constant repetition in the searching for a cure, running up against bureaucracy, etc. it just isn't interesting to read, and is tonally very weird, with the odd humor about the bell ringers and such.
there's some of this in the past sections as well, particularly the long parts where kivron is incoherent and can't understand what people are saying or recognize who anyone is. it just goes on too long. the ideas are fine but she needs to be more concise. way more concise, if black out/all clear is any indication.
Fair enough. I love those passages, because they give me such a strong sense of how the characters feel, but I can see how they would feel too long to others.
so you're willing to suspend belief enough to believe that time travel is possible, but not suspend your belief that there are no cell phones?
i wouldn't care about cell phones at all if the entire plot didn't hinge on the fact that characters can't get a hold of one another. though it would still be stupid even if they did have cell phones and they just weren't working or something. i found the entire subplot irritating and repetitive.
I agree with every word of this review, and would only add: OH GOD THE ENDLESS TOILET PAPER SCENES, WHY WHY WHY.
you don't understand, the american bell choir is in town and THEY MIGHT NOT HAVE ENOUGH TOILET PAPER! she probably was trying to make some kind of point about modern sanitation but i didn't need 40 pages of it.
See, I thought the point she was trying to make was "This modern-day plotline needs more padding for some reason! Padding... padding... I know, TOILET PAPER!" Yaaaagh.
maybe i am giving her too much credit...i do recommend To Say Nothing of the Dog. an outright farce is a much more appropriate venue for, well, farce, and there is a lot less of that kind of padding. or at least, i had a lot more fun with it.
Yeah, see, to me concerns about running out of toilet paper are exactly the sort of thing you get during a crisis. Someone has to worry about the very mundane aspects of life, so I can relate. And am I the only person who has trouble actually speaking to others regardless of the number of devices they have? Everyone has a pager, and a cell, and a landline in the office, and everyone is still on another line, or just stepped out, or not in the office today.Eureka. I love Willis because I work for a university hospital and she has nailed the experience.
but see, to me, reading about mundane things is ok for a little bit. then i get the point and it becomes tedious.
Yeah, I agree. A little bit of phone tag, a passing mention of the toilet paper, that would have been fine. But it went on for PAGES, while meanwhile, with our other characters, THERE'S A FREAKING PLAGUE GOING ON!!Man. Though I really liked the short fiction I've read of Willis's (probably because it's SHORT), I've been too shell-shocked to try To Say Nothing of the Dog. Even though I own it. I'll get to it one of these days...
Dog might work for you, because it's silly. I hope it does. If you're amused by the chapter headings, you'll enjoy it.
To Say Nothing of the Dog involves the same Oxford-time-travel set up but otherwise has very litte in common with Doomsday Book. They are totally different animals.
haha - how good is this review? How accurate? Nail on the head.Like some others here, I have To Say Nothing of the dog lined up, however it might be a while before I have patience enough to open it up
EVANGELION, STAR WARS, and STAR TREK (just to name a few) are all sci fi epics loved by millions the world over that are full of plot inconsistencies and technological fuck up's but that didn't make any of them any less great and memorable.
the point isn't that there are plot holes, it is that the plot holes create plot circumstances that make the story tedious and boring. i didn't care or notice that there were no cell phones in willis' to say nothing of the dog because that book didn't bore and frustrate me.
About the repetitive nature of the plot. I am currently reading it and yesterday something happened to me that hasn't happened since I was a child. I lost my bookmark (not that) and COULD NOT FIGURE OUT FROM CONTEXT WHERE I HAD LEFT OFF. The plot is so repetitive that every place I opened up seemed like a part I had already read. Eventually I just picked a place and ended up re-reading two 'Kivrin' scenes, but everytime I hit a 'Dunworthy' scene I had no idea whether or not I was re-reading it.But I'm not giving up. The 'Kivrin' scenes are worth it. Even so, if I had to rate it right now the 'Dunworthy' scenes might well drag it down to a 2.
Roger wrote: "The 'Kivrin' scenes are worth it. Even so, if I had to rate it right now the 'Dunworthy' scenes might well drag it down to a 2."that's pretty much what happened to me.
I rated it five stars but that's pretty much willfuly ignoring the problems with the "Dunworthy scenes." To me the "Kivrin scenes" were so powerful and so poignent to everything I was going through in my life at the time I read the book that they were worth five stars by themselves.Ultimately, because of the Kivrin scenes and their relevance to what I was enduring a few years ago, this book was one of the single most influential works of fiction in my life. And you really can't ask for more than that from a book.
I've just finished Blackout and the first two-thirds of your review could have been written about that book too.
I have been a life long SciFi reader and fan. This book did not deserve a Hugo and Nebula award in my humble opinion. It is a clear case of affirmative action at work.
Chris wrote: "I have been a life long SciFi reader and fan. This book did not deserve a Hugo and Nebula award in my humble opinion. It is a clear case of affirmative action at work."i don't know about that... some people really connect with it, and Willis was already a respected writer of novels and short stories.
i would say that she's coasting on her success now though, judging by the hugo and nebula wins for Blackout/All Clear.
Well, maybe I am being a bit extreme. But she certainly is not my type of SciFi author. A bit to squishy for me. No cell phones and poorly thought out tech. Anyway to each his own, but I am extremely reluctant to try another of her "SciFi" books.
Chris wrote: "I have been a life long SciFi reader and fan. This book did not deserve a Hugo and Nebula award in my humble opinion. It is a clear case of affirmative action at work."Harsh to slur 51% of the world's population as incompetent because one author doesn't work for you.
So much potential. Why, why, why doesn't she get a good editor?
Crap. I haven't read this book yet, but after reading Passage and Black Out, both of which were full of hundreds of pages of missed connections and panicky scrambling, The Doomsday Book would finally be the Willis novel that made me realize why she's so beloved. Sounds like it's the same as all the rest, though. WHY, Connie, WHY? Please, I beg you, let an editor help you!
Joel wrote: "Crap. I haven't read this book yet, but after reading Passage and Black Out, both of which were full of hundreds of pages of missed connections and panicky scrambling, The Doomsday Book would finally be the Connie Willis novel that makes me realize why she's so beloved..."Try To Say Nothing of the Dog. That's the one that did it for me. I've been chasing the dragon ever since.
Wow. Glad i read your review. So you are saying I should re-try? I did read up till page 200 or so. I quit because I was bored.
I read this in 1997. At the time, very few people I knew had a cell phone, and those that did didn't rely on them the way we do today, so I didn't even notice the lack of them in the book. I suspect changes in culture have made this book seem dated.Neither did I notice when I read it all of the 'missed connections and panicky scrambling' that characterize so much of Willis's work. I've actually written about that very thing in some of my reviews, most recently my reviews of "Blackout/All Clear". I didn't notice it (at least, it didn't bother me) when I read Doomsday book. Perhaps because I was new to Willis. I wasn't already worn out on her pervasive theme of frustrating communication problems.
I daresay if I had read "Doomsday Book" for the first time in 2010 instead of 1997, or if I had read other Willis work first, it would have seemed less original, less fresh, and I would have given it less stars.
yeah, it isn't so much the cell phone issue as that i don't think "characters suffering missed connections and miscommunications because of almost farcical bad timing or misfortune" makes for a very interesting way to tell a story. like:"i need my character to find out X, but it can't happen yet because otherwise the book would be over. so instead of coming up with an actual reason why she can't learn x despite her best efforts, i will just have her call the person who can tell her x, but she keeps getting a busy signal, and then he goes on vacation. then when the book is almost over he can come back and reveal x. there! give me a hugo."
that said, i really liked her book Passage, which is rife with this stuff.
I know what you mean -- I've commented (negatively) on similar contents in her other books.Which is exactly why Passage was my least favorite of her books.
i can't defend the plotting at all, but i liked the titanic stuff a great deal, and i thought it worked really well on an emotional level.
gave up after 150 pages, agree with this review
My feeling exactly Joel, see my review above. Willis could be so much better if she had an editor prepared to be ruthless. I'm afraid that with all the acclaim she's received she's become a lost cause. It's a real pity, because there's some definite talent here, it's just drowned in all the rambling verbiage.
But after a few hundred pages, all the annoying stuff is over with and suddenly you're falling in love with all of the characters, and dreading what's going to happen to them, especially the ones in the Middle Ages, because the Black Death wasn't known for leaving a whole lot of survivors.Perfectly put, Joel.
