Oh, her.
I am still pissed that I wasted good money on “The Doomsday Book,” which I bought in an airport when I was bored, because of all the awards it won.
Here’s the angry review I wrote for Amazon a few years ago. Please tell me where I’m wrong.
Spoilers, I guess, but it was spoiled when I found it.
I grew up loving science fiction, but I haven’t read much for years. When I was casting around looking for a book, I saw that this had won the Hugo and Nebula. I immediately thought of Heinlein, Asimov, or Bujold, and settled down for an enjoyable read. What a huge disappointment.
How could this book have won second prize at a local aspiring authors’ club? There is barely enough action for a short story, and it is wretchedly handled. To give an obvious example, the basis of the story is that they have time travel. TIME TRAVEL, for God’s sake! What could be more exciting?
According to this book, watching paint dry could be more exciting. Nobody cares about it, other than incompetent administrators fighting turf battles at universities.
I said it’s been a while since I’ve read sci fi, but I do remember that the point of it is to imagine how new technology would affect society. Well, what if we had a time machine? OBVIOUSLY, it would be the biggest thing in the world. It would be controlled by the government, to prevent sabotage from the past. It would be guarded like Fort Knox. The general public would be fascinated by the possibilities, historians would be lined up for miles trying to get a slot, and religious people would do anything to get a chance to prove their faith to be true. Criminals would want to escape into the past, or maybe dominate it with their superior scientific knowledge. Lots of people would want to go back and tell their fathers to buy IBM in 1960, or to sell everything in 2007.
Nothing like this happens. The machine is apparently just a device in a lab, without a single guard. The “security” is provided by the guy who watches the front gate for the entire campus. The technicians are few, incompetent, and avoid answering their phone when needed (and there are apparently no cell phones or answering machines in the future). Although there is no mention of any technical reason why trips couldn’t be made every day, they apparently go weeks without any activity, and one of the characters spends the first third of the book complaining that even that was too rushed. When they finally do send someone back, NOBODY BOTHERS TO FIND OUT IF IT WORKED. They just send her back and leave one tech with the machine, and when he suddenly gets ill, that’s the end of the follow-up. Only one other person even tries to ask him what happened with the, you know, TIME TRAVEL. The man in charge of the machine is so incompetent that he refuses to check on it, and finally simply unplugs it just to get the other guy out of his hair, not realizing that he has stranded the traveler. Oh yeah, and the person who was sent back is just an eager student, who apparently had no competition for the honor.
The action takes place at Christmas time, and there are all sorts of religious people around, from horrible Bible thumpers, to well-meaning bell ringers. You would think that one of them would have some interest in going back to see the birth or death of Jesus, or even a period church. Nope - the time machine doesn’t interest them at all. In fact, the only notice the general public takes is a few kooks who want to shut it down.
Even the hero, such as he is, is a boob. When he finally tries to rescue the first traveler, he decides to go back himself, even though he just left the hospital against medical orders, and can barely walk. A strong young man offers to go back with him to help him, and he refuses the help — he doesn’t want to endanger him. Well, OK, but are you telling me that the only two possibilities were sending a semi-invalid by himself, and sending a semi-invalid with an untrained minor? Are you telling me that there was nobody else on campus who was healthy and intelligent and wanted to travel in time? Are you telling me that the beautiful, intelligent Kirvin didn’t have a boyfriend? Are you telling me that they couldn’t call somebody, somewhere, and say we have an emergency with our, you know, TIME MACHINE, can you please give me a cop or a soldier or SOMEBODY that will help ensure that as soon as we send this doddering old fool back to the dead of winter in the 14th century with no tools or weapons or transportation or even warm clothes, he doesn’t just stumble a couple hundred yards and then freeze to death???
The book is very light on the technical aspects of time travel, but what little there is makes no sense. The (single) tech does his calculations, making careful measurements and placement of the traveler, but then a second person jumps into the field without warning, just as the machine is activated, and the transfer works perfectly.
We are told that the machine magically prevents anything from going through that could change the past. How this can be done without the travelers losing Free Will is beyond me, but OK, presumably that is why they have to make sure there are no zippers on their clothes and the like. Except that the guy that jumped into the field without warning brought his flashlight back to the 14th century, and it worked just fine. So did his GPS locator, which the boob of a hero never thought to bring on his rescue mission. He OBVIOUSLY would have stumbled around the woods and froze to death if he had gone alone, as he wanted to.
You think I’m spoiling it? There is nothing to spoil. What little good there is about this book all takes place in the 14th century, so I won’t say much about that, except that I hope you like Waiting For Godot. Some people write about the painstaking research, although the author apparently doesn’t know which century Joan of Arc lived in. Some people say they cried. How hard is it to make you cry when writing about cute little girls (with puppies, no less) in the time of the Black Death?
In short, I don’t really think there is anything to recommend about this book, but if there were, it would be as historical fiction, not science fiction. If the entire modern story were eliminated, and the 14th-century story were chopped by about 80%, it might have made a decent short story.
Can modern sci fi really be so bad that this book won the Hugo and Nebula? God save me from whatever finished second.