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5.0étoiles sur 5
This is not Hollywood, Jui 7 2008
The time is the mid-twenty-first century, and the development of time travel has changed history from a scholarly discipline to one involving direct observation. Kivrin Engle is a history student at Oxford, and she's determined to visit the Middle Ages. Everything has been carefully arranged: she has learned half a dozen languages, and basic household skills appropriate to the period, and they have selected a time and place carefully calculated to present the lowest risk. She is set to go back to a Yorkshire roadside in 1320, 28 years before the Black Death first appears. However, something goes wrong, and she gets deposited in the middle of a forest at the height of the plague.
I'll be blunt: people die in this book. Lots of people: people you figure are getting their just desserts, and people you like; people who seem destined to die, and people you expect to survive. The rising body count doesn't numb you to each successive death, as you might expect, but makes each one more tragic, as you want to cry, "enough!" This is not Hollywood. Willis takes on one of the greatest disasters in human history, and stares into it unblinking. In doing so, she raises (but does not resolve) one of the most enduring questions: how could a good, loving God allow the suffering of the innocent?
The truth is that suffering is real, and it comes to both the guilty and the innocent. Neat, simplistic philosophies which try to explain suffering and prosperity in terms of punishment and reward simply cannot work in the real world, with all of its mess and complexity. If we as Christians come under fire from unbelievers who have a problem with the problem of pain, it is because we have all too often hidden behind such philosophies like Job's comforters, instead of having the courage go to God with our problems like Job.
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4.0étoiles sur 5
Wherever you go, there you are, Oct. 22 2006
It's impossible to speak about this book without mentioning THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE. Don't get me wrong---the only similarities happen to be time travel---otherwise totally different stories. BUT, for me, DOOMSDAY BOOK has a bit more going for it. The plot is this: Take one history student, say, in the year 2048, and transplant/transport THEM to England in the 14th century. Sounds simple, almost contrived---a sort of "Back to the Future," type of scenario, but again, it's not the idea but what the author does with it. In this capable writer's hands, the story comes to life as no other. I was really outright "shocked" at how well the tale was handled. No cliches here, folks. Just good writing and pacing that makes sense and keeps things moving.
Just to kick things up a notch, our time traveler arrives just as the Black Plague is getting underway. And why not? Now, all this is good and well for a nice story that will keep yo flipping the pages, but something else is happening here. There's an underlying metaphorical touch that I couldn't quite put my finger on---a veritable "this is really about something else" feeling that leads me to believe Willis is a much "deeper" writer than one might expect. No, I don't think I'm reading too much into this great tale, but you pick up a copy and decide for yourself. So many books disappoint---this isn't one of them.
Also highly recommended: TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE
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5.0étoiles sur 5
Great Book - Great Premise, Mars 21 2005
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The premise, in which students travel in time to learn about history, is unique and extremely well handled by Willis. The descriptions she uses to describe the time travel mechanism, and the 'rules' in place to prevent the alteration of the time line, are also well done. In the past I've always felt that time travel was poorly handled by authors. They either left too many gaps, or made the system so overly complex that I found myself spending more time thinking about how impossible the time travel was and less time on the 'meat' of the story. Thankfully, this story has none of these inadequacies.I especially liked the characters. Each one was well written, and presented in a believable manner. I think an author does a good job of writing a book when they make you, the reader, want to meet the individual they have written about in person. Willis, in my opinion, achieves this. And finally, the descriptions Willis manages to convey with regards to the 14th century make one think that she was actually there herself! For anyone interested in historical fiction, or has a passing interest in time travel (with a bit of humor thrown in) I'd say this book's for you.
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