| 11/3/96
This Week's Victim Report:
The Doomsday Book By Connie Willis (1992)
Roger Zelazny tells us (on the back cover) that this is a "good read". Now, the man is dead, and he did create Amber, so I'll at least give him the benefit of the doubt. Was I fascinated? Yes. Did I stay up all night reading? Yes. Did I think it was good? Ummmm....
The trouble with this book is that it's so damn clever. The authour has obviously done a lot of great research, and worked out her themes and allegories like Dante on speed, but what she's failed to do is have any reasonable characters. I'm not giving away too much if I tell you that there are two protagonists in this novel, one in the England of 2054, the other in the Middle Ages, and both of them surrounded by total idiots. And the protagonist in the past isn't much of a brainbox herself.
It's so easy to pick this book apart: the characters are one-dimensional, the plot contrived, the time-travel simplistic...and yet it is hard to put down. What the author has managed to do, despite everything, is show us her passionate concern for the subjects at hand, namely, fourteenth century England and communicable diseases.
This is really mostly a test, so I'll continue this review tomorrow when I'm less drunk.
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