Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Doomsday Book is the first full-length novel in Connie Willis's Oxford time travel series. The series (this is not a spoiler) is about people in the history department at Oxford in the mid-twenty-first century who have a way to travel into the past to do their research. In Doomsday Book, an historian travels back to the middle ages. Connie Willis does a lot of research and does a good job of portraying the middle ages (as far as I know). I love this period of history myself, so the main character, Kivrin, basically has my dream job. Although it is certainly not all fun and games in the Middle Ages, which, as her mentor warns her before she leaves, were full of danger and disease. The story takes place partly in medieval times and partly in Oxford in the time she left from (it's a real-time jump, so the same time elapses for the historian in the past as for the people in Oxford while she is away), making it the first book I've ever read where "meanwhile" involved a 800-year gap.

The book's pacing is relaxed, although the events certainly are not. The pacing annoys some impatient readers, but I found it appropriate, and never boring. It gives the book time to flesh out the feeling of the situations, and lets the reader spend more time with the wonderful characters. Without such wonderful characters, the events of the novel would lose their impact. This is true in general, but Connie Willis does such a good job of making you fall in love with the characters that you care about what happens to them more than with most books, which is critical to this book's success on an emotional level. I won't tell you what emotions those are because these are spoiler-free reviews. Actually, don't read any synopsis of the book as it will spoil a major plot development. Even the blurb on the author's site spoils it. Just trust me that the book is exciting and don't read the back cover. I will say that although this is definitely not a humour novel like the next book in the series, To Say Nothing of the Dog, it does have many funny moments. Connie Willis has a great sense of humour.

I highly recommend this book. It is a beautiful, haunting story with many of the best characters I've ever encountered in a novel. If you are a history buff like me, then I recommend it even more, if that is possible. I also recommend the other books in the series, especially Blackout/All Clear (which is one book in two volumes).

Format recommendation: Audiobook. The narrator, Jenny Sterlin, voices the characters wonderfully, bringing each to life with their own distinct personality. The books are also available on the Kindle.

Age recommendation: Mature teens and older. The content and language are quite tame, but younger readers might find it too dark and slowly paced.

Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card

I had been planning on reading Pathfinder after I finished Connie Willis's time traveling historian series, but when I learned that Orson Scott Card was coming here for a book signing, I decided I had better read it before he arrives, in case people talk about it at the signing. It is the first book of a new science fiction and fantasy trilogy. Yes, it's both science fiction and fantasy. It has swords and starships (although not together). The book reveals what is going on throughout the story in an interesting way, similar to how the Mistborn trilogy had chapter headings that gradually began to make more sense and reveal things about the history of the world as the book progressed, except this book uses longer headings, and it's not clear at first what the relation between the asides and the main narrative is.

The story and characters are mostly interesting. There are some parts in the middle where it dragged a little for me, but most of the time I was intrigued. Sometimes the characters would get on my nerves, but that's mostly because they are very smart (one reminds me of a political Ender) so it's a little jarring when they act juvenile. Sometimes they can be annoying, but that's true to character for teenagers so that's not a flaw. The science fiction elements of the story are very intriguing, and the exciting parts were appropriately thrilling. I'm looking forward to reading the next installment next year.

Overall, any Orson Scott Card fan should like this, although it I suspect it would especially appeal to teen readers who can more closely relate to the protagonists. It's a good book, although not up there with Ender's Game or Enchantment. I recommend it.

Format recommendation: Audiobook. The narrators, including the Ender series narrator Stefan Rudnicki, are good, although I liked some of them more than others. I didn't care for one of them, but he only had a couple of chapters so it's not a big deal, although it did make me like the character whose viewpoint he did less at first. The book is also available on the Kindle.

Age recommendation: Young teens and up. Content is pretty tame, although the political and scientific subject matter might confuse younger children.