578 pages
English language
Published Nov. 10, 1993 by Bantam Books.
Somewhere in the future, ordinary history students must travel back in time as part of their university degree. An award-winning best-seller in the United States, this is the first of Connie Willis' brilliant Oxford trilogy.Kivrin knows everything about the Middle Ages - she's read all the books. She knows it's dangerous: cutthroats in the woods, witch hunts, cholera, and millions dying in the plague. For a young historian, it's fascinating.When Kivrin's tutors in Oxford's history lab finally agree to send her on an on-site study trip, she jumps at the chance to observe medieval life first-hand. But a crisis that strangely links the past and future leaves her stranded in the most deadly and terrifying era in human history, face to face with the heart-rending reality behind the statistics. And while she fights for her own life, Kivrin finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope in this dark …
Somewhere in the future, ordinary history students must travel back in time as part of their university degree. An award-winning best-seller in the United States, this is the first of Connie Willis' brilliant Oxford trilogy.Kivrin knows everything about the Middle Ages - she's read all the books. She knows it's dangerous: cutthroats in the woods, witch hunts, cholera, and millions dying in the plague. For a young historian, it's fascinating.When Kivrin's tutors in Oxford's history lab finally agree to send her on an on-site study trip, she jumps at the chance to observe medieval life first-hand. But a crisis that strangely links the past and future leaves her stranded in the most deadly and terrifying era in human history, face to face with the heart-rending reality behind the statistics. And while she fights for her own life, Kivrin finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope in this dark time.Five years in the writing, Doomsday Book is a storytelling triumph. Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the timeless issues of evil, suffering and the indomitable will of the human spirit.
This book just made me cry about a fictional family from the middle ages who were already dead by the time the story starts. It’s beautiful in its entirety.
This is not a scifi book about time travel; it’s historical fiction about the realest characters I’ve read in a novel this year.
Time travelers from our future competently deal with a pandemic in their time while people from our past deal horribly with one.
першу половину (аудіо)книжки вагався, чи не покинути... другу — ковтав сльози. в підсумку — добра класична фантастична проза; не кожному «зайде», але дайте шанс, не полишайте на половині.
One of the best. Period.
