Doomsday Book

In Connie Willis’s Doomsday Book, a young twenty-first century British historian travels back to the fourteenth century to observe daily life. Various complications arise in a story that alternates between the near future and the Middle Ages. The depiction of Medieval England was solidly researched. The main historical flaw I observed is that the treatment of children in the book reflected modern attitudes instead of the harsher and less sentimental approach of the Middle Ages.

However, the book’s characters and plot developments weren’t too exciting and didn’t justify its 578-page length. You’d expect more to happen to a modern young woman transported back to a different era. And the twenty-first century segment seemed rather pointless. While the Doomsday Book started out promising, and I liked the ending, it dragged out quite a bit in the middle. However, others must have a more charitable view of the book, since it won the Hugo and Nebula awards.