Dooms Day Book - Connie Willis

[The Wanderer]

I'm two 3rd's of the way through this and very absorbing it is

Anyone else had the fortune to read this marvelous book?

 

[Allegra]

I read Willis' To Say Nothing Of The Dog and liked it. Then I picked up Passage and dropped it at one 3rd because it's repetitive. I'll have to try Dooms Day Book someday, it's been on my shelf for a few years!

 

[Spade]

Doomsday Book is in my top 5 novels, right up there with Dune. I was completely absorbed in it and was sad when I finished it. That doesn't happen with me and books very often anymore.

 

[Ian Whates]

I have a friend who is a medieval historian of some prominence (and an SF fan), and she despises this book, siting it as the single worst novel she has ever read because of its historical innaccuracies.

Lacking her specialist knowledge, I absolutely loved it. Dark, tense and full of surprises and pathos.

It's very different from To Say Nothing of the Dog, where Connie has transfered the light, humorous touch she often displays in her shorter work to a novel length piece.

I had the pleasure of chatting to Connie about Doomsday Book during Worldcon in Glasgow, and she asked me if I was aware of any goofs regarding her portrayal of modern day UK. The only two I could think of were her referring to somebody having gone on holiday to 'Devonshire' rather than 'Devon' and some of her terminoligy regarding Oxford university and its students, which was very American in places rather than British. But frankly, who cares? I thought it a wonderful book.

Can't wait for her long-anticipated next novel, set in the same universe, with time travel back to the UK during World War II and the blitz. She read from this at Glasgow in 2005, and I think the novel was already overdue then!

Still, I'm sure it'll be worth waiting for.

 

[The Wanderer]

It's a Vivid and Powerful book