…and came away wildly frustrated that nobody milked that poor fucking cow!
The medieval chapters were among the best historical fiction I’ve ever read. I found myself frustrated with the present day chapters because I was dying to get back to the 14th century.
I felt that there was a lot of repetition in the present day part, which probably contributed to the frustration. I stuck it out though since the other half was so rich.
Gonna ask my therapist why I was so much more upset about the cow than the people literally dying of the plague.
This book drove me crazy for one specific reason: every five pages, it’s >!“Geez, we REALLY need Badri to wake up!” I think that was the character’s name. Never has so much of a plot been driven by the fact that there’s one dude in a coma.!<
Don’t get me wrong, the book was well-written and I enjoyed it for the most part, I just got really tired of >!the whole “Badri is in a coma” subplot!<.
I absolutely love that book. It’s one of my favorites!
She has some great short stories called Impossible Things and a sweet novella called Remake that you might like.
To fully appreciate ’To Say Nothing of the Dog,’ it is necessary to have read ‘Three Men in a Boat’ by Jerome K Jerome. Subtitle is ‘to say nothing of the dog.’
Her followup, To Say Nothing of the Dog, is edited far better, it’s an incredibly tight book (almost too much considering how much is packed in there).
Then Blackout/All Clear gets even worse than Doomsday even though there’s good bits in there.
I read all 14 or 15 or whatever Wheel of Time books and the one thing that upset me the most was an animal death in the last book! Animals don’t have any responsibility for the terrible human situations they get pulled into.
Shoutout for Bellwether. Hilarious.
I agree with your assessment OP. It was fine but quite underwhelming overall.
Fantastic book, the deaths broke my heart.
Is anyone going to mention how the “present day” pandemic events in her book were eerily similar to actual pandemic events? She predicted human behavior 30 years before it happened!
I read the book before the pandemic, and said to myself. “There’s no way people would be that stupid in the present day.”. Wow, was I ever wrong!!!
I read it at the start of the pandemic with no idea what it was about going in, and it was wiiild
I last read it in the early 2000s, I’m going to have to reread with that in mind. Especially since I’m currently making my way through blackout/all clear and loving it.
This was the most redeeming part of the professor’s chapters - I couldn’t believe how accurate it was. So eerie!