I had first heard about Connie Willis from a Hugo award she won for
Blackout/All Clear. I knew it was time travel novel but never picked it up. A friend from work, however, strongly recommended her books and lent me her copy of
Doomsday Book, which won the Hugo and Nebula awards. And what a ride it has been! This book was not what I expected and ended up being a really good read. Here's the blurb:
For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received.
But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin -- barely of age herself -- finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history's darkest hours.
Five years in the writing by one of science fiction's most honored authors, Doomsday Book is a storytelling triumph. Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering and the indomitable will of the human spirit.
Read on for my full review.
