Summary: Time Traveling “historians” are sent back to block a couple falling in love because it will distort all of history.
This is the second of Connie Willis’ books that I have read. The first in this series, Doomsday Book, is also centered on time travel, but it is a very different book. Doomsday Book is about going to a medieval community near Oxford, and it deals with the programs of a global pandemic (the Black Death) and the problems of observing evil that you cannot change.
In that first book, time travel was relatively new, and the thinking was that it was impossible to change history. However, history may have changed in the second book, and they are trying to figure out how to put it back again. And that involved going to Victorian England, playing matchmaker, and blocking a romance.
Connie Willis has a lot of humor in her writing. It is a good change of pace. But I think, like Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog is a bit long. I think the various threads and the false turns she brings the reader on as a means to get to the end are fun. But it could be cut a bit.
The book opens with a narration that doesn’t make sense. As you get into the book a little bit, you discover that the narrator has a “Time Lag.” Time Lag is a condition brought about by too many time travel jumps too quickly together, causing the person to be confused, have a problem hearing, be sentimental, and fall in love (and declare it.)
One of the fun aspects of the book is that it looks at a different era through the eyes of the potential future. To Say Nothing of the Dog was written in 1997 and set in 2057, 2018, 1940, and 1888. As I said in my review of the Doomsday Book, the projections of what may be are always interesting, even if the author made projections only 25 years ago.
According to reviews, the 3rd and 4th books of this series, Blackout and All Clear, are a single book split into two parts, and together they are about 1200 pages. So I am not sure I will get to them soon.
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (Oxford Time Travel #2) Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook