Chapter Seventy-One: Doomsday Book

What a book!  This is, I believe, the first of Connie Willis's books that operate on the premise of a future (mid-21st century) in which time travel has been invented, a future in which Oxford University sends historians back in time to research events first-hand.  Anyway, in this adventure, a historian travels back to the 14th century and ends up (spoiler) in the middle of the Plague; meanwhile, a mysterious virus (not the Plague, I promise) is wreaking havoc on Oxford in the book's present (2054). This sort of medical kind of drama may sound corny, but I think Willis pulls it off really well in this novel--I was certainly kept frantically turning the pages to see what would happen next.  I'm not quite sure how, but Willis really makes me care about these characters, which also contributed to my avid interest in the story.  Moreover, she's able to add in humorous bits, which I always appreciate.  Part sci-fi, part historical fiction, part drama, this book is well worth reading if you enjoy any of these genres.