Doomsday Book

De: Connie Willis

Narrado por: Jenny Sterlin

One of the most respected and awarded of all contemporary science-fiction writers, Connie Willis repeatedly amazes her many admiring fans with her ability to create vivid characters in unusual situations. With Doomsday Book, she takes listeners on a thrilling trip through time to discover the things that make us most human.

For Oxford student Kivrin, traveling back to the 14th century is more than the culmination of her studies - it's the chance for a wonderful adventure. For Dunworthy, her mentor, it is cause for intense worry about the thousands of things that could go wrong. When an accident leaves Kivrin trapped in one of the deadliest eras in human history, the two find themselves in equally gripping - and oddly connected - struggles to survive.

Deftly juggling stories from the 14th and 21st centuries, Willis provides thrilling action - as well as an insightful examination of the things that connect human beings to each other.

©1992 Connie Willis (P)2000 Recorded Books

Reseñas de la Crítica

• Hugo Award, Best Novel, 1993
• Nebula Award, Best Novel, 1992

"Ms. Willis displays impressive control of her material; virtually every detail introduced in the early chapters is made to pay off as the separate threads of the story are brought together." (The New York Times Book 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)

intriguing blend of history and science fiction

I downloaded this book after hearing an interview on Audible. I was very pleased with my selection and found it hard to stop listening! Both the writer and the reader made the characters and place come alive.
If you like history, even if the Middle Ages isn't your area of expertise, you will like this story.

This is a fine story if you don’t like SciFi or editing

First, this is not a SciFi or fantasy book, excepting a few plot devices. It’s essentially our world with a few extra technologies.

The performance was very good, and a few characters were well written. The others were just objects to be acted upon, and had no arc to speak of.

Mostly though, it was overly long by at least half. Maybe even more.

Horrible narrator. Like nails on a chalkboard.

Might be a good story but gawd. Who could get past that horrid performance? Can't stand it.

A Literary Time Travel Triumph

Any additional comments?

Connie Willis is a great novelist, not just a genre writer. The Doomsday Book effectively weaves together a strand of the future and a strand of the past for two compelling adventures in one solid frame.

Though some of the future world-building is less imaginative than is her treatment of the Middle Ages (especially where high-tech communication, Centers for Disease Control, and pedestrian travel are concerned), both stories wrap around each other to make you care very much what happens at "the drop" in the time travel net--and to everyone involved in the expedition. Actually, other than the time travel expertise, most of the "future" reads like the present--but the ability to drop historians into different epochs and then retrieve them makes up for that deficiency. While the scientists of the "future" are trying to track down the origin of a new flu variant, the heroine is lost in a small English town in the Middle Ages, and her colleagues battle the laws of physics, a fatal flu, and each other to find her and bring her back. The details of life in the Middle Ages were especially compelling, especially as people begin to lose hope and wonder if the heroine will ever return to her "pre-drop" life. Her efforts to fit in, her fears that she will die before she can find the point of return, and her constant uncertainty about the mores of the people she is living among turn out to be surprisingly suspenseful (will she be burnt as a witch...cast out and abandoned...sent to a convent for the rest of her life?). Her relationships with her hosts' children and the parish priest are especially moving, and Jenny Sterlin does a great job of sounding like a tired, grouchy little girl, a lecherous overweight nobleman pawing his 12-year old "fiancee," as well as a devout yet uneducated priest, casting a spell that lasts for over 26 hours of reading time--quite a feat!

I enjoyed the book even more than I expected to--definitely worth a credit.

Engaging and enjoyable, but a bit tedious

Willis does an excellent job creating an engaging protagonist in Kivrin. The dual story lines can be a bit of a drag to wade through however, as I would tend to want to know more about one plot line than the other. The other drawback is that Willis is, at times, unnecessarily redundant in her prose. I feel she is at her best when she is subtle and lets you fill in the blanks.

Not the most light-hearted story and it could be a bit graphic for the squeamish, but in spite of that I think the details evoke a visceral quality that adds to the story. I think, overall, it was worth the time and effort. I was emotionally connected to the main characters and was left wanting more in a good way, which is a positive thing for me in a story.

The performance was well done, although Sterlin's American accent could use some work.

Interesting premis

Overall story line is quite interesting. Frustrating, slow and awkward writing style. Many prejudiced and unlikable characters that seem to be presented as profound. Slow, thick, heavy narration does not help to move the story along. I did not listen to the sample audible provides so when the reader began I thought "Shoot, an entire book of this?"
Amateurish stalling techniques posing as cliff hangers rank as the biggest frustration builders- simply silly, and time wasting. The writing gives the impression it was produced by a novice. I would bet history-buff girls in middle school, keen on the blue death, would readily buy in. If presented to me as a work by one of my young budding writers here at home I would tell them the "Idea of the book is intriguing, and you are a pretty good story teller, but honey (!), go back and put some brains into the writing. You're not in Jr. High any longer." Unless this is an anomaly in Ms. Willis' cache I haven't the patience to wade through any more of this simple predictable "stuff". I will also avoid this narrator "like the plague"!

a bad narration can kill a story

this is an amazing story that is hurt by a narrator with limited range.
the most important job a narrator has is to help the listener tell the ‏characters apart.
that didn't happen here, I was confused half the time, didn't know who was saying what.

Great Book - Great Reading

As the first of the series - that I read in the wrong order, this was great. The reading was excellent and the story still great. I really recommend this audio book.

Boring Story

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Narrator was fine. Story was not intriguing.

Would you ever listen to anything by Connie Willis again?

Maybe. Her later books in the series have high ratings.

Did Doomsday Book inspire you to do anything?

No

The best narrative performance I've heard

The book has won many awards for good reason, but it's not really my preferred sci-fi. What made the experience of reading this audio version one of the best yet, for me, was Jenny Sterlins narrative performance. She made the characters alive, very distinct from each other, and gave them believability. I believe that her performance made the story even more moving than it would have been had I simply read the txt of it.

Well done.