Doomsday Book (novel)
Very early in the story, the expectations of the novel's characters are dramatically altered as nearly everything possible goes wrong. The technician who set the time travel coordinates suddenly collapses. It soon becomes apparent that he is an early victim of a deadly new
influenza epidemic which promptly interrupts university functions and shuts down the project. Eventually the entire city is quarantined.
Kivrin herself comes down with the infection almost immediately after arriving in the past but, because her
immune system was enhanced prior to her jump, she survives. She awakens after several days of
fever delirium to find herself being cared for by the residents of a noble household in rural England. This small group of people soon learn that she is
literate. Literacy is so rare among women that they conclude she is almost certainly a runaway
nun and intend to pack her off to a
convent as soon as possible, whether she's willing to go or not.
Worse yet, during her illness she lost track of the physical location where she arrived. To return to her own time, she must somehow locate the drop point and find a way to be there, if and when the door opens again. After some time in the past, Kivrin is stunned to learn that the project sent her to the wrong year. She has arrived just as the
Black Death comes to England.
The book's point of view moves back and forth between the Kivrin's situation and the severe
epidemic which has struck the community in the present. There are interesting, well-drawn characters in both eras, and more than a little comedy. Even as the University staff are desperately trying to get her back, and medical people are dealing with the flood of critical cases, tourists from America insist on continuing with their mission to perform a
peal of bells at one of the world-famous churches.
In the end Kivrin can only watch while all the people she has come to know die horribly, the last being the priest who found her when she was sick and brought her to the manor to be cared for. As she buries him, her rescuers arrive from the future. They barely recognize her - she has been so long in the past that she speaks
Middle English by habit. They return together to a 21st century Christmas.
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Doomsday Book. Bantam Books, Hardcover, May 1992. ISBN 0553081314
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Doomsday Book. Bantam Books, Paperback, 1993. ISBN 0553351672
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Review by Science Fiction Weekly
