Are you patient enough to wade through this?

This could have been a good book. There are some excellent ideas, and the author is capable of writing well and clearly has a lot of detailed and accurate knowledge about the Middle Ages to work with. Unfortunately, the execution makes it so tedious that it negates all the good material the author had to work with.

The main problem is that almost everything is massively over-written. It is like those B-class documentaries on TV, where they take two hours to reveal what is really a tiny snippet of information, and when it finally comes out you feel annoyed because it turns out to be not that interesting anyway. I normally love long books, and at 26 hours this one is actually short by my standards, but it is still much, much, much too long. I found myself constantly wanting to shout at the author, "Please just get to the point already, it's been clear where this is going for the last hour at least!"

This is compounded by the fact that the filler material adds nothing to the story, it is effectively just pointless meandering. When Charles Dickens or Susanne Clarke go off on a tangent for several pages you love it, because they enrich their story or their characters or take you off on a wonderful side journey that is simply delightful. Here, not so much.

And then there are the characters and the narrator. There is generally nothing wrong with having a couple of stupid people in your story. They add realism and provide an excellent source of friction. However, when every single character in a book is almost painfully stupid it makes the unfolding of the story tortuous and aggravating. Even the heroine is infantile and almost retarded, although she is supposed to be a post-graduate with time travel experience.

All this, in turn, is made worse by the narrator. It is not that she is a bad narrator; on the contrary, she is very good. She has just made some terrible, terrible choices on how to portray her characters. The heroine's voice makes her sound like a twelve-year old schoolgirl terrified of getting into trouble. All the Oxford University staff members' voices are a kind of Bertie Wooster parody of pompous, choleric, upper-class Englishmen of advanced age and decidedly limited mental faculties. The voices make it impossible to focus on what they are saying, because the primary message you are receiving from the voice is, "this character is an insufferable, pompous idiot". Listening to them bumbling about, misunderstanding everything, flying into juvenile rages every ten seconds and talking to each other in these voices is like a kind of audible, Oxford version of a Keystone Cops movie. The other voices are not much better.

Again, this could have been a much better book. Unfortunately, it was not to be.

40 people found this helpful

Not What I Hoped For

Is there anything you would change about this book?

How many characters do I get? My sub-title for this book is "Or What Happens When Stupid People Get Time Travel." The bone-headedness of all of the characters was immensely frustrating as were the half-baked futuristic elements. We've got time travel, but we're still frustrated by "phone outages" and characters asking to borrow phones although in 1992, cell phones weren't unknown. Surely the author could have seen a future with them? No one can look up an NHS number. There's been a worldwide flu pandemic, but Christmas vacation means no one can do anything. Does anyone actually believe the CDC says "sorry, they're on vacation" when a possible pandemic is in the works? Entire hours are seem to be wasted on the inability of the quarantine area receiving supplies. First: not gonna happen that way, and two, probably not the reason you picked up the book. You probably picked it up wanted to read about life in the 14th century, and there's precious little of that.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Characters that are smart and capable. The characters were all so slow on the uptake. Forgetting important concepts until 10 minutes into the conversation. I'd be mentally reminding them to ask about "X" while I listened to character blab on about stupid stuff that wasn't story. The historian is particularly susceptible to being an idiot, taking forever to realize what's going on (The whole "wicked man" episode in the church was particularly grating.) There was so little actual medieval history or culture in this book, IMO, and waaaaay too many annoying children (yes, there are TWO.) Also, some resolution to where the actual director of History had gone off too. They spend the entire book looking for him, entire sections devoted to "finding Basingham (?)"

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

My frustration with the characters probably has roots in the way the reader would repeat a question like she'd never heard of the concept before. Typical exchange: "Yes, but what if Kivrin catches the flu?" "Kivrin?" said like they'd never heard the name before. OMG. It was head-bashing frustration at times to listen to this book.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Probably because a movie would certainly cut out all of the over-writing. If this author could find a way to make something more time-consuming, she would. Everything skitters out of reach requiring a second try. Everyone gets sick and has to bring the story to a stop while we have scene after scene of "no visitors!" or "you're not supposed to be out of bed."

Any additional comments?

What sold me on this book was the fact it had won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. As science fiction, I found it lacking. As history, I found it lacking. By the time the "real" story starts, you're ten hours in. This book would have been more enjoyable with a length of maybe 15 hours.

59 people found this helpful

Timely, beautiful, terrible and haunting

Now more than ever, I am recommending that everyone I know listen to this book. It is an amazing, satisfying, beautiful and terrible story mostly about a time traveler who is trapped in a small medieval village that is stricken by the plague. Meanwhile, current day Oxfordshire is also suffering from an especially virulent flu and attendant quarantine. The book was written in 1992 and much of the action takes place in a squalid, medieval village and yet it is all terribly timely. The characters and setting are beautifully written and this is one of the most moving books I've ever had the pleasure of reading or listening to.
Three more selling points for this great book: 1) I love a good, long book from Audible and "Doomsday" is a wonderful 26 hours and 30 minuets of listening to one of my favorite narrators, Jenny Sterlin. 2) "Doomsday won a Hugo Award in 93 and Nebula Award in 92 and 3) Connie Willis has written another book with some of the same characters that is much lighter in tone yet still very worth reading and a good way to recover from the terrible, searing beauty of "The Doomsday Book". That other book is also available on Audible :"To Say Nothing of the Dog"
Listen to "Doomsday" first, save "To Say Nothing of the Dog" to cheer you up and you can then finish off with Jerome K Jerome's sweetly funny "Three Men in a Boat". There- I've just come up with a great plan for your next 50 or hours of Audible listening. You can thank me later. After you've thoroughly enjoyed all of these amazing books.

310 people found this helpful

I wish i had a time machine..

I wish I had a time machine to go back in time and stop me from getting this.
This book was super repetitive. I liked the idea of this book however a lot was lacking in the execution for me. This book was super repetitive. If you like hearing about the same things over and over again, you may enjoy this book. This book was super repetitive. It took forever to really kick into gear. I think for me, if finally became interesting when I had about 3 hours left. This book was super repetitive. I think if it would have been trimmed down to maybe 10 hours or even 15, I might could have rated it higher. This book was super repetitive.

49 people found this helpful

WELL DONE...but a real bummer

I listened to this on vacation and the beach, and it promised to be pure, guilty-pleasure ear candy. I was not disappointed by the writing, the concept, or the reading (the narrator is fanTAStic).

However, I would put a warning label on this that the whole second half of the book is (vague spoiler alert) sort of a sinkhole of depressing events. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone looking for a "pick-me-up" or a happily-ever-after type story.

I guess a book about the plague wouldn't be a typical candidate for that anyway, but for history buffs like me, taking a time machine back to the Middle Ages sounds like such a "fun" idea...and this just isn't a "fun" story.

Still, DEFINITELY worth a read...when you're in the right mood for a downer.

173 people found this helpful

Cut by half would have made it twice as good.

We're in the middle of the 21st century, and a group of Oxford scholars are now able to travel back in time. Young student Kivrin Engle has a passion for the middle ages, and the object of the next study involves traveling to the 14th century Oxford region in 1320, well before the arrival of the bubonic plague of 1348 which killed off entire villages. Kivrin has spent years preparing for this trip, and even though professor Dunworthy thinks her too young and worries the trip is fraught with too many dangers, she hasn't wasted time learning Middle English and Latin and the various tasks and labours expected of the young noblewoman she is meant to impersonate. But things have gone wrong from the start. When she arrives in the 14th century, she is badly disoriented and falls gravely ill. She is found and brought to the home of a family who do their best to nurse her back to health, but though she has spent many dedicated months to prepare for this journey, she soon discovers all her studies have been for naught, because for one thing, she can't communicate with them. Meanwhile, in the Oxford of the 21st century, things are going very wrong too. Badri Chaudhuri, the young technician responsible for setting up the apparatus for Kivrin's time travel, seeks out Dunworthy to tell him that "something is very wrong", but he can say no more than that, having fallen gravely ill and suffering from high fevers which put his life at risk, so that all he is able to communicate through the better half of this lengthy novel is that "something is wrong" over and over and over again.

The very beginning of the story showed great promise, and I found all the details about 14th century England fascinating, but I felt that for at least the first half of the narrative barely anything happened at all and we were circling round the same details again and again, as if in a bad dream. I quickly lost patience and was ready to give up, but so many fans of this book assured me it was well worth the effort that I stuck to it. The story that finally emerges is a good one, but I would probably have enjoyed it more had there been a serious editing job done, since so much of the book was taken up with what seemed like filler. Had the novel been cut by half, I would probably have thought it was pretty great, but as it is I have a hard time believing that it won prestigious awards (the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards among many others), and had to overcome a lot of frustration to finish it. I think I found a reasonable compromise with my current rating.

You might love it completely, and then again, you may not.

71 people found this helpful

A Haunting First Book in the Series

I mistakenly read this series out of order starting with book 2 first. That book "To Say Nothing of the Dog" was an upbeat, funny, and happy experience. The title of this book should be a warning to future readers--"Doomsday". Don't start this book thinking this will be a happy listen. Very long, repetitive, plodding and detailed. That said, I admit I still couldn't stop listening. Time travel and enthralling stories that alternate between past and future. Characters are developed into people that captivate and make the long hours of listening possible. A thoughtful look at time, perception, life, illness and epidemics. A perfect example that even a grueling book can be worth a listen.

78 people found this helpful

Good and Bad

previous reviews seem to either love this book, or find it to be overwritten. I fall closer to the latter.

There were elements that were very good. The narrator is excellent, superb. The amount of detail that Willis gives for the preparation of time travel was, at first, intriguing and unique. The story does have imagination.BUT, a big but, the length of the book, ( and I mean how long she takes to tell the story, not the length per se) and the unnecessary ( often boring) detail, and meanderings off the main trail, made it very tedious to get to the end. I finished it only because of two reasons. One, well, I'm OCD about these things. Two, the latter portion of the book got considerably more interesting than the former.

I recommended only if you have lots [and lots] of patience with the developing story. Otherwise, a pass.

38 people found this helpful

Don't let the bad reviews stop you!

I loved this book! I listened to another Willis book "To Say Nothing of the Dog" (also an award winner) and enjoyed it immensely. Then, I debated downloading this one. The terrible reviews almost stopped me - but I'm so glad I didn't listen to them. I imagine fans of action/adventure-oriented Science Fiction would not appreciate it. However, if you like more character-oriented scifi, historical novels and British literature, you are likely to enjoy this as I did. I agree that the narration isn't especially outstanding, but I found it perfectly adequate. The characters are very well-developed and many are truly lovable. Try it!

141 people found this helpful

A Plague Upon Us

A pessimist might say, well that's 26 and a half hours of my life I'll never get back. An optimist might respond, well at least it saves us from having to listen to the other 63 and a half hours of this series. Seriously: you've been warned.

Neil Young once introduced his song, Don't Let It Bring You Down, by saying, here's a song guaranteed to bring you right down -- it starts off slowly and then peters out altogether. If only that were true of Doomsday Book, which starts of slowly, 18 hours worth of slow, and then turns downright awful for the final eight hours. Unless you've been hankering for graphic descriptions of death by plague (eight hours worth!), consider yourself warned.

At the 18 hour mark, there was a moment where I thought this might all be worth it. I could see exactly how Willis could bring together her story of time travel from the mid-21st century to the 14th century, with its bookend epidemics and attempts to bring the time traveller back from the deep dark past. But instead of tying together the scant plot strands, she gives us eight hours of the plague.

I listened to Willis's Bellwether and absolutely loved it. A neat, satisfying six and a half hour bundle of genius. I thought Doomsday Book might be Bellwether times four, the entire Oxford series Bellwether times fourteen. If only Willis had distilled this down to a manageable 8-12 hours, maybe it would have lived up to its hype and awards (by cutting out the endless repetition, for example, or cutting down the graphic description of the plague -- half an hour of plague would have sufficed).

This is beyond disappointment. This was simply awful -- 18 hours of boring followed by eight hours of awful. Thanks to Jenny Sterlin for narration that at least makes the listening easy on the ears. Too bad the writing was not at the same level.

60 people found this helpful