by Connie Willis
I’ve never been much of a fantasy reader, but a friend recommended Connie Willis as someone I might like and I thought to take a peek. She’s won the Hugo and Nebula awards more times than almost anyone else, so she must be doing something right. I started with the Doomsday Book from 1992, which won the Hugo and kicks off a long series. And I have to say, the Doomsday Book is nothing if not different. It’s an odd cross between a cozy mystery—it has that feel to it—and a historical adventure, all tied together by a set of fantastical rules governing time travel.
It’s a long book and I have to confess I thought the middle sagged, as I had trouble pushing through it. And I also didn’t care for the harried way all the characters in Oxford – in the year 2050 – rushed around in what seemed a constant panic. Of course there are always problems in novels, but in this book there seemed a similar panic induced by deadly plagues as by sweaters and bel
l concerts (hence the cozy mystery feel). It got such that I began to feel harried myself!
But then, in that way that some books do and I really admired in this one, the ending pulled together all the pieces and uplifted the story to something moving. The protagonist Kivrin is quite a trooper—you can’t help but admire her grit. Then, more powerfully, Ms. Willis achieves something vivid within connection between Kivrin and the Oxford professor who sends her to the Middle Ages via time travel. (Which, as you might imagine, goes less than well.)
The ending celebrated an unusual bond –that between a professor and student—which is neither a romance nor a typical friendship. It’s a relationship you see much less rarely in fiction, and I found it both refreshing and surprisingly complex.
Doomsday Book proved quite a good read—and I went on to read the first in her two-book series about time travel back to the Blitz. I recommend them for folks who like that blend between cozy and hard.