Well, I'm going to spend a bit of time doing one of the things that "shouldn't" be done in talking about a book: talking about why it isn't another book. Of course it doesn't matter in the slightest how this book is or isn't like To Say Nothing of the Dog - all anyone will be looking for in this review is whether or not I think the book worked and why or why not. On the other hand, so many of my friends here have read (and loved) To Say Nothing of the Dog that when they see a blurb describing a

Well, I'm going to spend a bit of time doing one of the things that "shouldn't" be done in talking about a book: talking about why it isn't another book. Of course it doesn't matter in the slightest how this book is or isn't like To Say Nothing of the Dog - all anyone will be looking for in this review is whether or not I think the book worked and why or why not. On the other hand, so many of my friends here have read (and loved) To Say Nothing of the Dog that when they see a blurb describing a book about time-travelling British historians, which has clearly a comic tone, can thoughts of Willis really not occur? Bringing these expectations into the book doesn't help much, so in getting to what worked for me, I'll go through some of the reasons This Book Isn't That Book.



1) People die. Lots of people die, and it's not even like in Blackout/All Clear. They often die unexpectedly, and in fact die unexpectedly often. Which leads to...



2) The method of time-travel isn't the net (which seems to have many in-built failsafes) - and you have to do a lot more suspension of disbelief that St Mary's, which loses people all the time (pun not intended, though now I've noticed it....), has been allowed to keep operating. The book's present is pretty much our present, give or take, and Health & Safety seems to be operational, but St Mary's keeps on running. Also, Mr Dunworthy wouldn't let his historians go into such obviously bloody dangerous episodes of history (I was about to call them 'drops'), although the Boss does have -- well, some excuse.



3) As I said, they curse a lot. I didn't mind, but the first few 'fuck's did come as a bit of a surprise.



4) As did the sex scene. Connie Willis's characters don't have not-un-explicit sex! Was only one scene, but I was still somewhat shocked, just because my brain only let go of the Willis mode very slowly.



5) Some people were really, really bad. Seriously nasty. It wasn't just a shock, in fact, it made me wonder how these horrors had managed to go looking like reasonably normal people for so long. There's certainly nobody like that in To Say Nothing of the Dog - in fact, people who appear awful (but not *seriously* bad) sometimes turn out to be really quite kind. Or at least not so awful.



6) Overall, the idea was that you wouldn't manage to break the time continuum, but if you screwed up, History would bump you off before your stupidity had actual consequences. Not so sure this actually works, but it all gets so much more interesting/complicated by the end that I'm also not sure it really matters.



So - what both was Willis-like, and what worked very well for me, was the sheer fervour of these historians for experiencing the past, for discovering its secrets, and for just being there. Our heroine reminds me a bit of a grown-up Colin with all his wild "I want to go to the Crusades!" rashness still intact. She apparently impresses even the Boss (who has already lost quite a few historians by the time she interviews for the place) with her utter lack of concern about the obvious dangers of time-travel, and I loved it. I loved her, actually, and her voice, and her closed-off-ness, and her loyalty -- and love of tea. They all love tea. (It's possibly obvious that I also love tea, right?) Although I would want nothing less than to be a part of a family that kept being knocked off, by History or its enemies, I really liked the way Madeleine/Dr/Miss Maxwell/Max/(the protagonist) felt about this family, having no ties to her own abusive one. Really terrible stuff happens to her, and then it gets worse, but without diminishing the losses she (and others) have suffered, there's some great retribution served up, and there's more humour at the end.



I didn't feel that deeply invested in the romance, though I could buy the pair of them being quite into it, and when they each make a big, horrible mistake it seemed in keeping with their pasts, and I could also see them forgiving the other. There's a LOT going on by the end, and I kept being really surprised by the direction things went. The previous sentence isn't a complete change in direction of my paragraph, BTW, as part of what explains the mistakes is that they're made while things are hellish. It's likely that some readers would find the science-fictional aspects less than solid, but things generally worked well enough to keep me happy enough to brush aside the questionable aspects. (That previous sentence may be more of a zig-zag, but it links to some of the book's direction-changes mentioned above, honestly!) As nobody I know has read this yet, I'm avoiding spoilers, but I'm dying to discuss it, so hope others will read it. And less selfishly, I do think it's very well worth reading, as long as you don't expect it to be at the level of Willis at her best. (Or 'best' comic mode? Whatever! Willis being brilliant, anyway!)



One last thing is that the book is poorly edited. It didn't bother me much because it was mistakes like missing full stops or commas, not confusing of "their" and "there", or "I" where it should be "me". Much easier to read a typo than incorrect grammar! I'm so glad it didn't throw me out, as I was so thoroughly, utterly in the story throughout. Can't wait for the next.