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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 51-91 of 91 (91 new)
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Rosie
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rated it 3 stars
Jun 18, 2014 06:23PM
This review is absolutely spot on and by the last third of the book I was invested but damn did it take a long time to get there!!
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Book came out in 1992. Cell phones, even the primitive sort, were not ubiquitous. I'm rather stunned that this is such a sticking point for so many readers, but then I'm also not a typical science fiction fan...just a literary sort who likes a good read. Personally, I found the lack of technological intrusion to be charming and the depiction of Oxonian medievalists as clueless, arrogant, and technology-illiterate to be wickedly amusing.
again, it's not so much that they're aren't cell phones, but that she uses an inability to communicate as a hook for a lot of narrative wheel-spinning and repetition that i decidedly did NOT find wickedly amusing.
Also, more generally, the inability to imagine logical technological developments seems like a serious weakness in a sci-fi writer.
This is EXACTLY what I wish I had written.
I really don't understand the problems you guys have the communication problems in the book.First of all, as was mentioned numerous times, the book was released in1992, and I imagine it took a few years to write and in the late 1980's - early 1990's almost no one knew about them while video capable phones (wirely connected) were in many science fiction books / shows.
And second of all, nowadays, whenever there's an emergency and everybody's trying to use their cell phones at the same time mobile networks crash. That happened at nearly every disaster site for the past 15 years. Why would that be any different in case of an epidemic?
I felt exactly the same way. Loved the book, but I found the phone issue really distracting. Somebody was always running around looking for a phone, waiting their turn for the phone, asking somebody to sit by the phone and wait for a call, or missing a call because they were outside. I saw my first mobile phone in 1993, and didn't realize at the time that it was a Big Deal - but I'm not a science fiction writer, making a living out of predicting the future. Surely a SF writer in 1992 would have had some idea that personal mobile phones were coming? I loved everything about the book otherwise, and will now happily look up others by the same author.
Agree. I feel the author was aiming at Faulty Towers "irritainment" and ended up only half way there. Loved To Say Nothing Of The Dog, which I read first.
Great review, almost a tale of two storylines, the Kivrin plot is amazingly well written, the Dunworthy one less so.
Totally agree with this review.
I would add Young Mr "Apocalyptic" Colin. Haha. But I did like the book overall.
I've just reread this book, having first picked it up at the time of publication. Back then, it was very futuristic and really believable (the only portable phones I'd ever seen before that was watching soaps like "Dallas" - clumsy tech, at best).Reading it now I wonder what a revision or rewrite might do - in terms of tech - to make it more credible for 21st century readers?
Totally agree that the lack of cell phones merely masks a severe editing problem. Do we really need to hear about all the hospital paperwork? And if I heard the tech vaguely say "somethings...wrong" one more time...! I feel that the concept and the research were great, the execution less so. We should have spent far more time in the medieval POV.
Agree: you said it better than I!
I agree with the review except the bit about it not being a depressing read. Despite not emotionally connecting with either of the POV characters, or really most of the other characters besides, I still found the close of the book to be unbearably bleak. And I think it's easy to point to missing cell phones as a flaw. It's really not the missing cell phones, but the contrived nature of most of the plot. They are having trouble reaching the Dean because it is the holidays and he is fishing. Are you kidding me? I don't even remember the justification why they had to do the trip while the Dean was out, but it wasn't a good one. They can't go into the time travel lab because the temporary Dean is afraid of a plague coming through time. (Um, if that's the case it's already here and being quarantined... let us in so we can determine if that's what happened!) The main character is so spineless he keeps trying to get the temporary Dean to let him in instead of trying another plan. The plague coming through time is a complete red herring. Everything that happens is inorganic, and worse, uninteresting.
If there had been cell phones in this version of the future, the author would still have been putting up temporary barriers just to keep the characters from figuring out what happened to Kivren. It would have been OK if the characters had been interesting enough to ignore the weak plotting, but unfortunately they weren't.
I listened to this. I was wishing the author had skipped over much of the middle where nothing much happens and there’s a lot of repetition. I thought it was an ok book. Not as great as I expected based on many reviews. I thought the characters were stereotypes. The overprotective mom, the Americans, the father figure and so on.
Totally agree. I skipped over so much of the part set in Oxford because it was frustrating. I don't need page after page of a guy making phonecalls and talking to people about making phonecalls and then talking to people on the phone he's spent days trying to talk to and then not asking them any relevant questions and getting no useful information from them, so he can go back to talking about making phonecalls again. The entire part with Kivrin was just fantastic though. The author did such a good job of making us care for these characters which made the outcome do devastating. But the fact that that incredibly compelling story kept being punctured by the boring Oxford story kind of deflated it.
Nice review and even before I read I wrote mine which had the same remarks about smartphone and the future. As someone else and I had said, this book was written before the explosion of the internet and smartphone/cell phone technology. Yet if you say she still used this type of writing in her later books, it means there is a deliberate flaw too.
Have you considered when the book was written? 1992 - before internet, before cell phones became ubiquitous. You've got to forgive her for failing to foretell the real future while she creates an imagined future that helps us experience the past.
my gosh, you basically told everything i was thinking about this book. a lot of characters don't finding each other, a character pathetically passing out 5 times exactly when he was about to tell the vital information, lots of pages of a character wondering about things. i hope it get better
I could not agree more. I know it was 92. But they had cell phones in the 80s. And lots of people had car phones by 92. Only one hundred pages in so far but I’m annoyed with the main characters. 2053 and they can’t obtain medical records in a country with government run healthcare. Kivrins optimism is insane considering she has studied the Middle Ages. It’s like dealing with a six or seven year old. I’m gonna give it another 100 paged. I almostNever put down a book once I start. This might be one of them.
This was a helpful review, thanks! I am about 100 pages in and wondering whether it's worth continuing (you are so right about the insane levels of phone tag!), but your description motivated me to keep with it.
I absolutely agree. I’m not even halfway through and want to give up. How did this win the Hugo?
I’m with you. I had high hopes, but this book was boring and the present-day shenanigans were beyond annoying.
I found all the calling and missed calls and almost calls and poor-quality calls annoying too—but I believe that was deliberate. Willis wanted you to see the “glorious future where nothing like a plague happens� as one with severe relational disconnect. We may not suffer from the plague, but progress is not all it’s cracked up to be. Contrast that with the 1300s, with the richness of the relationships portrayed (even the bad ones, like with the mother-in-law). Even though the 1300s were “dangerous� and “backward,� there is much we can learn from them. I think this was one of Willis� points.
Stephanie wrote: "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." Actually, many Sci-fi writers back to the 1950s envisaged personal communications devices, and they are a sorely missing article in this story.
Well said. The last third was really good and actually fast paced. The rest was so repetitive. “Something’s wrong!� How many times does he need to say that before actually saying what is wrong. Very frustrating at times.
I am only starting the book. I know the author is American and she also has a creative right to do what she wants but there are no 1 pound notes in UK, they're coins. Also is she calling a nativity scene a 'creche'?. Sorry I am only on page 36 and I like the idea. However, some little things are already niggling me.
Exactly what I though. I just finish it and the “present day� stuff was tedious. It sounded like a 1950s vision of the future. Not helped by the totally unrealistic view of British life. An American view of England. Writing like the NHS had an office or department in every town like the council. A young boy running around being all jolly hockey sticks and a stuffy god fearing overpowering mother and her cheeky sex mad son. Comical rather than comic. After about 2/3 of the way thought it got really good, I only kept going because of how good the historical sections were. They were really gripping and great characters. Almost like two different authors. I enjoyed it in the end but don’t think I’ll read any more of the series.
Olga wrote: "Also is she calling a nativity scene a 'creche'"That's, literally, one of the definitions of 'creche'
Don't you know? Cellphones go out of use by 2043
The phone thing wouldn't have been a big deal if 1) it hadn't been central to the plot and 2) in 1992 one could see wireless technology coming. The not being able to get what you want done and being overwhelmed in a crisis. The repetitive conversations added to the sense of being out of control and is totally realistic. I work in emergency operations centers and will attest to that. I loved the end of the book as sad as it was. This why I hate ratings. How can you flatten books into literally one dimension?
Yes, yes, yes. What is up with the phones??
Joel, your review was apocalyptic.
Loved this book. I found the future epidemic very believable having lived though the COVID-19 epidemic, oh and Brexit just before, the UK did indeed have a toilet paper crisis, bureaucracy tried to cope with incompetent fools in authority, oh and the NHS does have many many offices in every town. However that isn't the point, the future farce is really important, and contrasts with the past. The people in the future engage in all the behaviours Kivrin expected in the Middle Ages. In both cases people like Father Roche and Great Aunt Mary really did their best whilst others around them fell foul of their weaknesses.
Aerin wrote: "I agree with every word of this review, and would only add: OH GOD THE ENDLESS TOILET PAPER SCENES, WHY WHY WHY."About that... 😅
You make some good points, but don’t read older sci-fi unless you’re willing to accept wrong predictions. Authors failing to predict cell phones is par for the course.
Great review. I felt exactly the same about this book!
