Friends, Book Lovers, Cannonballers, lend me your eyeballs!It is time to post the preview for our discussion topics for Doomsday Book. As some of you may know I have not yet finished myself (80% and counting!), but with so much happening on the page there is plenty to talk about even before I reach the end. Some of you have already posted glowing reviews of Connie Willis’ book, and those of you that are finishing up should feel free to review before our discussion if […]
Why hast thou forsaken me?
There is a scene in Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog that has stayed with me. Our intrepid historian, Ned, accidentally travels back to the Middle Ages for a short time and witnesses a scene that is repeated in the book in three different historical moments – a woman is asking a man why he hasn’t done a thing she asked him to do and the man is making excuses. Ned cannot understand the words the woman and man are speaking, because English […]
A Gobstopper of a Novel
Thank you CBR book-club for forcing me to read outside of my usual genres. I usually read 1-2 science fiction books a year to appease Mr. Beth Ellen (it’s his favorite genre), but he gets to choose them so it’s always to his taste. I really enjoyed reading further into the genre, especially as I’m a sucker for time travel into the past. Doomsday book is two stories: it’s the story of Kirvin, an historian, traveling back to the 14th century to learn more about […]
Cannonball Book Club Reads Science Fiction – Book Announcement!
Our Cannonballers have made their voices heard, and we will be reading Doomsday Book by Connie Willis for our June 1st Book Club Reads Science Fiction. From the first twenty-four hours of the vote this book has been in the lead, but books two and three; Lagoon by Nnedi Okarafor and The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin gave chase. I’m adding all three to my to read list, and hope that if your choice wasn’t our final choice, that you’ll make the time to […]
On second thought, let’s not go to Camelot. ‘Tis a silly place.
Fun fact: the ‘doom’ in ‘doomsday book’ has little to do with the word ‘doom’ as in ‘gloom and doom’, but comes from the Latin ‘domus’ or house. I have to admit, though, that it sounds wonderfully creepy, which I suppose is the only reason Connie Willis chose it as the title to her novel as it has nothing to do with the early medieval document. It’s not even set in the same period of time. The year is 2055, the place is Oxford. Historians […]
I very badly want to quote Monty Python here but I’m afraid it would be a spoiler.
Well, I can safely say this is the best book I’ve ever read about time-traveling historians and deadly diseases that kill a shit ton of people. And no, it’s not the only book I’ve read about that! I read Timeline about ten years ago, although I barely remember it. Anyway, I love Michael Crichton books, but Connie Willis’s writing is on a whole other level. Although they both write science fiction, Crichton was first and foremost a thriller writer, and judging by Doomsday Book, Willis is […]