The Dooms Day Book and Time Travel
The situation is described in the book Dooms Day Book, in which Oxford's history department uses time travel to update and correct the historical records. As a result, the events enable Kivrin to conduct study between the years 2054 and 1320. She was unfortunate because the time machine malfunctioned and dumped her 28 years later, during the Bubonic plague era. Connie Willis is an exceptional author in my opinion for a variety of reasons. First of all, I believe she made a good effort to conduct thorough study before creating her account of medieval England. As such, she was able to send Kivrin back to 1320, even though she landed in 1348. Reading Willis book takes the reader to an academic historical experiment of Oxford. The experiment is a typical one with difficulties in the real world. Willis has successfully described the historic experiment fully bringing readers into his world where time travel is possible.
The Impact of Miscommunication
There are a lot of miscommunications events that result from time travel. Most of the sentences are half spoken. The sentence structures show that some dreams were lost, there were a lot of misunderstandings, and some messages were conveyed later or never passed at all. As such, many dramatic tensions result from the poor communications that recur throughout the book. The poor communication made it possible for the author to present comedic and tragic consequences. The author brought out events slowly. I am not sure whether it was an intentional style that I did not get to comprehend. However, it highlights the isolation that was felt during the bubonic plague.
Disappointment with the Structure
In as much as I had so much expectation before I read Dooms Day Book, I was not fascinated at the end of it all. I enjoyed the book for the fact that it had basic world building and it talked about a critical theme that affects scientists mostly; time travel. However, the structure disappointed me. Important to note is that structural problem was not of the sentences only, but the whole book at large. The poor structure made the book complex and difficult to understand. As such, I found it difficult to connect the wordings and phrases easily as they were written.
Complexity and Technology
Also, I think the much use of the present technology complicates the whole structure and understanding of the book. I think I expected so much of the 2054 technology to reflect in 1348 that what the book offered. The author tried to bring readers to embracing the differences in time and the differences in time and the differences in activities. In his world, time travel is possible. In such a world, complexity is inevitable, and thus Willis spent the time to create science and build rules to fit the complexity in the created world. Unfortunately, I think the author did not fully accomplish the goal. Instead, the book becomes complex and made it challenging to comprehend and understand the author's mind with ease.
A Good Book with Room for Improvement
Collie Willis has written a good book with such an exciting theme that could fit well as science-fiction rather than historical. However, I feel like Collis needed to polish the book more. Willis was able to communicate some events like the Bubonic plague. The description brought a correct image of how it would have been in 1348. For instance, there were not anachronisms, the creation of proto germ theory. No quarantines and much more characteristics are essential for management of a plaque in 2024.
