# "Doomesday Book" by Connie Willis. (Spoilers very much welcome) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 15, 2004, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomesday-book-by-connie-willis-spoilers-very-much-welcome/234431 "2004-03-15T15:08:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![booklover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@booklover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklover)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomesday-book-by-connie-willis-spoilers-very-much-welcome/234431/21 "2004-03-16T15:25:53Z")
😃 Wumpus, I love it. Doomsday Book: The Sequel! Seriously, justplainDave, this book rocks. Any teacher who assigns it as reading must be ultimately cool. A highly neglected Connie Willis book: _Bellwether_. Great, typically complex story about societal trends, chaos theory and a researcher’s campaign for grant money… ---
**Author:** ![Caprese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9a28c/32.png) [@Caprese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caprese)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomesday-book-by-connie-willis-spoilers-very-much-welcome/234431/22 "2004-03-16T15:33:06Z")
> [@booklover](#): > > 😃 Wumpus, I love it. Doomsday Book: The Sequel! > > Seriously, justplainDave, this book rocks. Any teacher who assigns it as reading must be ultimately cool. > > A highly neglected Connie Willis book: _Bellwether_. Great, typically complex story about societal trends, chaos theory and a researcher’s campaign for grant money… Agree about _Bellwether._ _Passages_ is excellent as well, and yes, _To Say Nothing of the Dog_ is swell, esp if you have read the original Jerome novel. However, **Doomsday** is still my favorite. It’s well worth reading, and I agree that any teacher who assigns it is very cool. ---
**Author:** ![Drastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Drastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drastic)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2004, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomesday-book-by-connie-willis-spoilers-very-much-welcome/234431/23 "2004-03-16T15:39:26Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > There’s one thing I didn’t understand about the ending. You know how, at the end, we find out that Mary is descended from Roche? Did Willis put that in for a kind of “redemption” theme? Roche kills Agnes’s family, and now his descendant gives Agnes a new family. Or was she trying to say that we have to be judged as individuals, because the evil Roche was the ancestor of the noble Mary. > > You know, that would probably make a good essay topic. On my first read, I was pretty sure this was a pretty non-heavy-handed redemption thematic bit. But it seems to me there’s some interesting subtext I can’t quite put my finger on. There’s little hints here and there–the same mannerisms, little habits of speech–that Mary’s, thematically, the same as Roche, simply acting differently only because it’s a different context. Something akin to how water takes on the shape of the vessel it’s poured into. It’s a human equivalent to how the retrovirus sent back from the paradox-source in 2530 triggered both the Plague itself by acting as a mutagenic co-factor, and served as an airborne cure to the ebola-like bioterror agent ripping the world apart in the book’s present-day. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doomesday-book-by-connie-willis-spoilers-very-much-welcome/234431.md?page=1)