Book reviews! (finally)
Dec. 15th, 2010 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalI feel like I have been waiting to talk about Connie Willis forever. Gah. I think I finished these books around... Thanksgiving? But I've had so much stuff going on, I haven't been able to post as thorough reviews as I'd have liked. Now the semester's over, though, so here we go!
If you'll recall, I read my first Connie Willis book back in October, and although it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, it was good enough to read more. And yay! I liked both of these books a LOT more than To Say Nothing of the Dog. All three are set in the same universe, where Oxford historians are in charge of time-traveling via technology called the net, but the others are much more serious in tone, whereas To Say Nothing... almost feels like reading slapstick comedy, which is fine in small doses, but I'd been hoping for something I could sink my teeth into a bit more. The characters are also fleshed out a lot better, and seem like real, three-dimensional people rather than caricatures.
Doomsday Book is actually the first in this series (I think? I'm not entirely clear where To Say Nothing... fits in, because Mr. Dunworthy and Finch are the only characters who carry over and they play such small roles). In it, Kivrin, an eager graduate student, manages to get approval to visit the Middle Ages, even though they've always been off-limits to historians because of the many dangers of the time, including the Black Death. But she's been inoculated and she's going to 1320, nearly thirty years before the plague hit Oxford, so everything should be fine, right? What they didn't anticipate, however, was Kivrin falling ill with an unknown virus immediately after arriving in the Middle Ages, while the same virus causes an epidemic that hits present-day Oxford on the very day Kivrin is sent back. The story follows these two parallel crises - Kivrin, stuck in the Middle Ages, unable to find her drop site so she can return home, and Mr. Dunworthy in Oxford in the present (or the future, from our perspective) trying to get Kivrin home when everyone is sick and the net has been shut down.
The story is pretty bleak, as it deals with terrible sickness and death, and doesn't pull punches in describing the horrors of the plague. I am absolutely in awe of Kivrin and how stoically she manages to care for the medieval family that took her in, watching them fall ill and die off one by one. She's a remarkably strong female character, which y'all know I love to see, particularly when it's that kind of quiet emotional fortitude that sustains a person through an unimaginable crisis. I also loved the characters she met in the Middle Ages; they were all intriguing and complex, and I enjoyed her getting to know them, to the point that some of the deaths made me very sad.
The present, on the other hand, suffers a bit from the same issues that bugged me in To Say Nothing..., though not nearly as much. The characters that populate Oxford are drawn rather more broadly than their medieval counterparts, and some of them are so frustratingly single-minded that you have to wonder what planet they're from, because their logic is clearly not our Earth-logic. It also drives me crazy how many of Willis' main characters are complete pushovers - they have important things that need to be done, and yet they let people walk all over them, creating all kinds of disasters, when a simple NO would solve all their problems. It's a story-telling crutch that frustrates me.
On the whole, though, I thought it was a fascinating book, and worth it just to meet Kivrin. I also enjoyed getting to know Mr. Dunworthy and Finch a bit better, as well as Colin, Mr. Dunworthy's pre-teen sidekick. And I have to say this - if you like historical fiction, the details here are painstakingly researched, for which I have to give Willis much credit. My knowledge of the Middle Ages comes primarily from 9th grade social studies project, which was a Jerry Springer parody featuring a medieval noblewoman and a peasant fighting over the same guy, who of course chose the rich chick in the walled city, and so the peasant girl threw plague-infected bodies over the wall to get revenge and... um, what was I talking about? Right. I know nothing about the Middle Ages, so i wouldn't be able to tell if it was accurate or not, but it sure seemed convincing enough to me!
The other book, Blackout, is definitely a sequel to Doomsday Book, as it features an older Colin, now bitten by the time-traveling bug, though it's not quite clear how he fits in yet, and Mr. Dunworthy again, now obsessed with World War II for reasons I haven't yet figured out. He sends the three main characters to study the everyday heroism of ordinary people at various points of the war - Polly is in London during the Blitz, Michael is at the rescue of British soldiers from Dunkirk, and Eileen is observing children evacuated from London and sent out to the country. But something has gone wrong, and their drop sites have stop working, which means none of them are able to get back to the present. Worse, some events aren't quite happening the way they're supposed to, leading them to wonder if one or all of them have altered the course of history. It's not supposed to be possible - the net has safeguards to prevent that - but if so, then why won't the drops open? Does their timeline even exist anymore?
I don't actually know the answers to those questions, lol, because this book ends abruptly, to be continued in All Clear, which is in my "to read" pile. Which is complete torture, because more than any other of Willis' books, by the time I got close to the end, I found myself unable to stop reading. I just had to know what happened next... and then there was no more, and All Clear was still checked out at the library. :( But I have it now, and I am looking forward to digging into it over Christmas.
Once again, Willis brings it with the awesome female characters. Polly and Eileen are both intelligent, resourceful, and heroic in their own ways. The "contemps," as the historians call the people of the time they're visiting, provide the same type of eclectic cast of characters that we saw in Doomsday Book, and although the characters are occasionally in peril (there is a war on, after all), it's not nearly as grim as the Middle Ages. It's kind of fun to see a writer improve over the years, and I do think that Willis has made progress, both in her character development and in finding the right balance for the book's tone. She's also gotten quite verbose, though, and I wonder if she couldn't have edited it down to one volume if she'd cut out some of the slower sections. Then again, if I spent years researching as thoroughly as she does for her books, I'd probably want to show off everything I'd learned, too. :)
If you'll recall, I read my first Connie Willis book back in October, and although it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, it was good enough to read more. And yay! I liked both of these books a LOT more than To Say Nothing of the Dog. All three are set in the same universe, where Oxford historians are in charge of time-traveling via technology called the net, but the others are much more serious in tone, whereas To Say Nothing... almost feels like reading slapstick comedy, which is fine in small doses, but I'd been hoping for something I could sink my teeth into a bit more. The characters are also fleshed out a lot better, and seem like real, three-dimensional people rather than caricatures.
Doomsday Book is actually the first in this series (I think? I'm not entirely clear where To Say Nothing... fits in, because Mr. Dunworthy and Finch are the only characters who carry over and they play such small roles). In it, Kivrin, an eager graduate student, manages to get approval to visit the Middle Ages, even though they've always been off-limits to historians because of the many dangers of the time, including the Black Death. But she's been inoculated and she's going to 1320, nearly thirty years before the plague hit Oxford, so everything should be fine, right? What they didn't anticipate, however, was Kivrin falling ill with an unknown virus immediately after arriving in the Middle Ages, while the same virus causes an epidemic that hits present-day Oxford on the very day Kivrin is sent back. The story follows these two parallel crises - Kivrin, stuck in the Middle Ages, unable to find her drop site so she can return home, and Mr. Dunworthy in Oxford in the present (or the future, from our perspective) trying to get Kivrin home when everyone is sick and the net has been shut down.
The story is pretty bleak, as it deals with terrible sickness and death, and doesn't pull punches in describing the horrors of the plague. I am absolutely in awe of Kivrin and how stoically she manages to care for the medieval family that took her in, watching them fall ill and die off one by one. She's a remarkably strong female character, which y'all know I love to see, particularly when it's that kind of quiet emotional fortitude that sustains a person through an unimaginable crisis. I also loved the characters she met in the Middle Ages; they were all intriguing and complex, and I enjoyed her getting to know them, to the point that some of the deaths made me very sad.
The present, on the other hand, suffers a bit from the same issues that bugged me in To Say Nothing..., though not nearly as much. The characters that populate Oxford are drawn rather more broadly than their medieval counterparts, and some of them are so frustratingly single-minded that you have to wonder what planet they're from, because their logic is clearly not our Earth-logic. It also drives me crazy how many of Willis' main characters are complete pushovers - they have important things that need to be done, and yet they let people walk all over them, creating all kinds of disasters, when a simple NO would solve all their problems. It's a story-telling crutch that frustrates me.
On the whole, though, I thought it was a fascinating book, and worth it just to meet Kivrin. I also enjoyed getting to know Mr. Dunworthy and Finch a bit better, as well as Colin, Mr. Dunworthy's pre-teen sidekick. And I have to say this - if you like historical fiction, the details here are painstakingly researched, for which I have to give Willis much credit. My knowledge of the Middle Ages comes primarily from 9th grade social studies project, which was a Jerry Springer parody featuring a medieval noblewoman and a peasant fighting over the same guy, who of course chose the rich chick in the walled city, and so the peasant girl threw plague-infected bodies over the wall to get revenge and... um, what was I talking about? Right. I know nothing about the Middle Ages, so i wouldn't be able to tell if it was accurate or not, but it sure seemed convincing enough to me!
The other book, Blackout, is definitely a sequel to Doomsday Book, as it features an older Colin, now bitten by the time-traveling bug, though it's not quite clear how he fits in yet, and Mr. Dunworthy again, now obsessed with World War II for reasons I haven't yet figured out. He sends the three main characters to study the everyday heroism of ordinary people at various points of the war - Polly is in London during the Blitz, Michael is at the rescue of British soldiers from Dunkirk, and Eileen is observing children evacuated from London and sent out to the country. But something has gone wrong, and their drop sites have stop working, which means none of them are able to get back to the present. Worse, some events aren't quite happening the way they're supposed to, leading them to wonder if one or all of them have altered the course of history. It's not supposed to be possible - the net has safeguards to prevent that - but if so, then why won't the drops open? Does their timeline even exist anymore?
I don't actually know the answers to those questions, lol, because this book ends abruptly, to be continued in All Clear, which is in my "to read" pile. Which is complete torture, because more than any other of Willis' books, by the time I got close to the end, I found myself unable to stop reading. I just had to know what happened next... and then there was no more, and All Clear was still checked out at the library. :( But I have it now, and I am looking forward to digging into it over Christmas.
Once again, Willis brings it with the awesome female characters. Polly and Eileen are both intelligent, resourceful, and heroic in their own ways. The "contemps," as the historians call the people of the time they're visiting, provide the same type of eclectic cast of characters that we saw in Doomsday Book, and although the characters are occasionally in peril (there is a war on, after all), it's not nearly as grim as the Middle Ages. It's kind of fun to see a writer improve over the years, and I do think that Willis has made progress, both in her character development and in finding the right balance for the book's tone. She's also gotten quite verbose, though, and I wonder if she couldn't have edited it down to one volume if she'd cut out some of the slower sections. Then again, if I spent years researching as thoroughly as she does for her books, I'd probably want to show off everything I'd learned, too. :)
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Date: Dec. 16th, 2010 04:19 am (UTC)And I'm still trying to make it through All Clear
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Date: Dec. 17th, 2010 03:32 am (UTC)