Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis

Release: July 1992
Format: Novel
Genre: Science Fiction
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

We may never know just how young Kivrin Engle wrangled her academic advisor and the powers-that-be at the University of Oxford into sending her to previously off-limits, 14th-century England, but her timing was not ideal given that she’dd just been exposed to a recently re-emerged influenza virus. Oh, and the inexperience tech who also got hit with the virus with the virus after the drop may have sent Kivrin to the wrong year.

— Ruthie Mariner

You know what he said when I told him he should run at least one unmanned? He said, “If something unfortunate does happen, we can go back in time and pull Miss Engle out before it happens, can’t we?” The man has no notion of how the net works, no notion of the paradoxes, no notion that Kivrin is there, and what happens to her is real and irrevocable.

DEBUT

Doomsday Book (Bantam Spectra, July 1992).

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Middle Ages (AD 476 to 1454): destination time period, 14th century
Circa AD 2000 to 2099: starting time period, 2054–55

Timeline Models

Unexplained Timeline Model: It’s unclear whether the net prevents new timelines altogether.

Themes

Chronology Protection Conjecture: The net either rejects any travel that could cause a paradox or injects a time slippage large enough to avoid the paradox.
Language Difficulties: Initially, Kivrin’s translater had problems.
Synchronized Time
Time Corps
Time Historians
Time Travel Sickness, Injuries, and Mixed-Up Body Parts: Initially, Kivrin thinks her influenza symptoms are nothing more than “time lag.”

Real-World Tags

Pandemics, Epidemics, and Bio-Disasters

Groupings

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From Oxford University, 22 December 2054 ⋙ to the Oxford-Bath road, 13 December 1348. Note: Kivrin travels.
From Oxford University, early 2055 ⋙ to the Oxford-Bath road, early 1349. Note: Dunworthy and Colin travel.
From the Oxford-Bath road, early 1349 ⋙ to Oxford University, early 2055. Note: all three return.

Oxford Historians 1

Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis

DEBUT