Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is a time travel science fiction book where the main character, a young female historian, goes back to medieval times. The author’s main purpose in writing this book, so far as I could tell, was to show off her knowledge of that era. It was lush with detail, but unless you are into history you’re likely to be overwhelmed by the tedious display.
It was a strain to give this as much as two stars. Perhaps I was expecting too much because this was a Hugo and Nebula Award winner and Willis is supposedly an iconic figure in science fiction, but I must agree with all those who say it was boring. The almost six hundred pages could have been easily trimmed to two hundred. The author tries to keep the reader in suspense by constantly keeping the characters from contacting each other with the necessary information due to sickness, quarantine, travel with no phone, etc. It was simply irritating. The plot really doesn’t hold together and most of the characters aren’t very likeable. The whole bell-ringing thing was another irritant. Maybe Outlander fans would enjoy it, but I can’t recommend it.