Doomsday Book - Hardcover

Connie Willis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553081314 ISBN 13: 9780553081312

Publisher: Bantam Spectra, 1992

Synopsis

For Kivrin Engle, 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.

Winner of the Hugo Award 1993
Winner of the Nebula Award 1993

"A tour de force" - New York Times Book Review

"Ambitious, finely detailed and compulsivly readable" - Locus

"It is a book that feels fundamentally true; it is a book to live in" - Washington Post

About this title

Review:

Connie Willis laboured five years on this story of a history student in 2048 who is transported to an English village in the 14th century. The student arrives mistakenly on the eve of the onset of the Black Plague. Her dealings with a family of "contemps" in 1348 and with her historian cohorts lead to complications as the book unfolds into a surprisingly dark, deep conclusion. The book, which won Hugo and Nebula Awards, draws upon Willis' understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering and the indomitable will of the human spirit.

Review:

"A stunning novel that encompasses both suffering and hope.... The best work yet from one of science fiction's best writers."
-- "The Denver Post
"Splendid work -- brutal, gripping and genuinely harrowing, the product of diligent research, fine writing and well-honed instincts, that should appeal far beyond the normal science-fiction constituency."
-- "Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"The world of 1348 burns in the mind's eye, and every character alive that year is a fully recognized being.... It becomes possible to feel...that Connie Willis did, in fact, over the five years Doomsday Book took her to write, open a window to another world, and that she saw something there."
-- "The Washington Post Book World

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam Spectra
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0553081314
• ISBN 13: 9780553081312
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 445