Doomsday Book by Connie Willis: long, slow but enjoyable

If this book were a movie, it would be a three-hour art house hit which some critics rave about whilst others bemoan its length, saying it would be far better at half the length. For although it is nearly 600 pages long, not very much happens. There certainly is a plot, but it moves slowly – very slowly. It is also a plot that is very light on either science fiction or time travel which, for a nominal science fiction novel about time travel is somewhat surprising.

The central character is a young historian who uses time travel to visit 14th century England in order to research the period. The book then divides into two, alternating, chronologies. One is the historian’s tale of life in a small English village with encroaching disease, the other her colleagues left behind arguing over and struggling to deal with an apparent problem with her time travel visit. The two chronologies come together again near the end, but for most of the book it is really two stories – one set in the near future about squabbling researchers and one set in the 14th century about day to day life.

The near future is already, for a book written in 1993, rather dated. Despite time travel being invented, people still struggle to get hold of each other via landline phones – not only do mobile phone apparently not exist in this future, nor does email. A 2.5 Gig storage device is also one of enormous capacity.

The historical tale has much to commend it – as long as you are not looking for fast-paced action or science fiction. Instead, it has a very gentle tension, as frequently you get to moments in the plot where, in a more conventional action story, the rhythm of the scene would lead up to something dramatic. But rather, you get something low key – or nothing. That can make for frustrating slowness, but also makes the moments of drama that much more striking.

The characters in both the 14th century and near future are a rather mixed literary bunch. Both full of clichés (the narrow-minded academic rival, the charming womaniser, the snobbish lady, the unfairly criticised poor man and so on) but still drawn with enough skill to make the reader feel concerned over their fate and moved by the deaths which occur.

The book won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, indicating its appeal to many but it is not a traditional action-packed tale of time travel by any means.

You can buy Doomsday Book by Connie Willis from Amazon here.