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Two weeks ago, I finished a fun time-travel novel, and it’s still haunting me.I thought I’d blog about it. The book is a little slow-going and long, but worth the read.

The main character, Kivrin, is a history student at Oxford in about 2054. In 2054 they send history students back in time to study history. (Yes way, Ted!)

However, Kivrin’s journey is far from excellent. They intend to send her back several years before the first outbreak of the plague, but they accidentally place her at the start of the outbreak. I won’t tell you how things go awry, but massive viruses start breaking out on both ends.

The obvious philosophical issues that crop up are metaphysics of time issues and a host of problem of evil worries. At the end of the novel there is even a Gettier case! Well…it will be contentious whether it’s actually a Gettier, but even if it’s not actually a Gettier case, it may raise some interesting epistemological issues for religious belief. I haven’t quite fleshed that out yet. I’ll wait to post about that.

The person who recommended this book told me that medievalists love it because it’s loaded with little bits of information about life in Medieval England. Since I’m not a medievalist, I can’t know for sure which tidbits are historically accurate. If most of it is accurate, then you’ll learn a lot of cool stuff about medieval life.

Bottom-line: If you’re a philosopher into metaphysics of time, time-travel stories, and medieval stuff, you should read Dooms Day Book by Connie Willis.

(I may post more about that Gettier case later)

One Response to “Dooms Day Book”

  1. Stewart

    I wanted to confirm those Medieval tidbits, so I traveled back in time and checked for myself. It turned out to be quite accurate, but I later learned that my trip was an illusion produced by meddlesome aliens. The book, however, was still spot-on…

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