First published in 1992, Willis expands on the near future she first established in her short story [b:Fire Watch|10301442|Fire Watch (Oxford Time Travel, #0.5)|Connie Willis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347988641l/10301442._SX50_.jpg|16295500] (1982), where student historians from University of Oxford go gallivanting about on assignments into the past to study events or places and record details of significance for better understanding. Time travel as a learning tool.

It's mid-December in 2054, and Kivrin Engle is headed back, against the advice of her mentor, Professor James Dunworthy, to observe life firsthand in 1320. Dunworthy is a professor from the 20th Century department, and despite his complete resistance to her assignment to medieval England, he has helped prepare Kivrin for the ill-advised jaunt as best he can. The book opens with Dunworthy seated beside his friend, Dr. Mary Ahrens (who provided all necessary medical enhancements and inoculations to Kivrin), as they begrudgingly wait to observe Kivrin's disappearance via the Net.

Willis employs one of my favorite techniques, when done properly, for complete immersion into a world. She sprinkles the world-building about in an organic way by throwing the narrative headfirst into the deep end of the pool. It harkens back to elementary school when you need to just be patient and wait for context — any word you don't know will be easy to figure out. Any level of understanding necessary for the story will come out in the text. Willis doesn't completely overwhelm the reader — and especially a reader from today (with the boon of the internet and modern technology) — but she does have her characters speak as they naturally would, and using their contemporary words for the futuristic technology.

Thus Kivrin is able to travel back in time via the Net — which the technician, Badri Chaudhuri, will open using specific coordinates to transport her to the correct time and place. Only something seems to have gone wrong when Badri shows up where Dunworthy and Mary are having a drink, shortly after what appears to have been a successful drop for Kivrin. He's disoriented and visibly frazzled before collapsing. Badri is sick with an unknown virus, and a quarantine is quickly established for Oxford. Dunworthy, with whom Badri was trying to communicate prior to his collapse, is desperately trying to verify that Kivrin's drop was executed correctly and she is safely in 1320.

(Bit of a spoiler here:)

Spoiler

It takes a while for the pair of narrators — Kivrin and Dunworthy — to realize she was mistakenly sent to 1348 . . . the year the Black Death arrived in Oxford. Her own arrival in the 14th century was difficult because she too had fallen ill with the unknown virus that has afflicted Badri. She is found on the side of the road and taken to the nearby manor house where she is cared for until she is fully recovered.

I wish I had been writing my reviews when I first read this book in 2015. I assume we had the presidential candidates pretty established, or a large number of them still, but it was yet fairly early in the campaigns and certainly well before what would come. But the main thing we have (surprisingly) since encountered from which we are still reeling, is the COVID-19 Pandemic.

I could still recall, before this reread, in vivid detail, all the really humorous bits Willis included regarding the panic in the present day of 2054 for an influenza epidemic outbreak. And they were still funny today. But really, I was completely struck over and over again during this reread at how incredibly accurate Willis got the 21st century's reaction to their [much smaller-scale] flu epidemic.

From the initial wave of panic, the quarantine, the rationing, the loss of necessary supplies (toilet paper, soap, PPE (which are called SPG's here), face masks, etc.), the down and overworked telephone system, both the purposeful and accidental spread of misinformation, the excruciating wait for a vaccine, the protests, and the overall chaos, it's all here. Willis does chaos of panic-inducing situations unbelievably well, in general. She handles the Blitz and World War II England with her skilled hands so brilliantly in the two-volume book: [b:Blackout|6506307|Blackout (All Clear, #1)|Connie Willis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1433715206l/6506307._SY75_.jpg|6697901] and [b:All Clear|7519231|All Clear (All Clear, #2)|Connie Willis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320549311l/7519231._SY75_.jpg|9735628], that it feels like the definitive civilian-side account for WWII fiction. Period. It's all the minutiae that repeats, that weighs down progress, that convinces people that the moon is actually made of cheese. And while I appreciated it as much as I could've in 2015, I was astounded and so thoroughly impressed by it now in 2021.

Forty years prior to the 2054 events in the book, the world had experienced a pandemic, which killed sixty-five million people. (That marks the year 2014; only five years before our actual pandemic.) But it is mentioned over and over as a reference point for those old enough to have lived through it. And aside from the humorous moments that remain so (the constant search and worry over toilet paper supply levels, for instance), Willis somehow also managed to properly imagine the negatives (most of which I probably just found funny in 2015, but now have quite the sting to them). Especially in regards to a group of American bell ringers — there to perform for Christmas, who constantly demand more than can be done and complain about their civil liberties being threatened.

"I've posted notices asking that everyone conserve lavatory paper, but it's done no good at all. The Americans are particularly wasteful."

The WIC first pegs the virus as an influenza that originated in South Carolina. But because of the heritage of the technician (read: foreign) who is the index case (patient zero), members of the public start calling it the Indian flu — some even get it all wrong and talk about a cholera outbreak. Also, despite the parameters of time travel not allowing anything negative through the Net (either direction) that could alter the future or create a paradox, which is self-corrected by Time (as an entity), many start spreading false information about it coming through the Net itself.

There were three picketers outside an Indian grocer's and a half dozen more outside Brasenose with a large banner they were holding between them that read "TIME TRAVEL IS A HEALTH THREAT." He recognized the young woman on the end as one of the medics from the ambulance.

Heating systems and the EC and time travel. During the Pandemic it had been the American germ warfare program and air conditioning. Back in the Middle Ages they had blamed Satan and the appearance of comets for their epidemics. Doubtless when the fact that the virus had originated in South Carolina was revealed, the Confederacy, or southern fried chicken, would be blamed.

"So you say." He held up a printout. "Probability indicates a .003 percent possibility of a microorganism being transmitted through the net and a 22.1 percent chance of a viable myxovirus being within the critical area when the net was opened."
"Where in God's name do you get these figures?" Dunworthy said. "Pull them out of a hat?"

"A group of picketers convinced him the virus came through the net, and he's barricaded the laboratory."

"They're saying it's some sort of biological weapon. . . . They're saying it escaped from a laboratory."

A woman in a Burberry stood in front of the Casualties Ward holding a picket sign that said "Ban Foreign Diseases."

In boldface type [a flyer] said "FIGHT INFLUENZA, VOTE TO SECEDE FROM THE EC. . . . A Vote for Secession is a Vote for Health. Committee for an Independent Great Britain."

"THE END OF TIME IS NEAR!"

A small crowd of protesters stood outside in the rain, holding pickets that said, "UNFAIR!" and "Price gouging!" He went inside [the chemist's]. They were out of masks, and the temps and the aspirin were outrageously priced.

I only discovered Willis as an author in 2015, and it was by pure happenstance. Just loose logistics really. I was following the 2015 Popsugar Reading Challenge and one prompt was: A book written by an author with your same initials. I turned the corner and ran straight into Connie Willis, and I continue to love these time-travel books of hers.

Audiobook, as narrated by [a:Jenny Sterlin|686024|Jenny Sterlin|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]: This narration was from 2008, and it is fairly typical of performances from that time. Sterlin was especially wonderful for the 14th century Middle English and the names from this time. I probably glossed over this when I first read it in 2015 in print, but here Sterlin was quite the asset. Beyond that, while most of the narration and voices were fine (bless the charming attempt at the broadly applied American accent), I did not like the booming, often disdainful voice she adopted for Dunworthy. Her choice, which made Dunworthy bark often at others, reminds me a bit of the oft-discussed difference between Michael Gambon’s leaping and running shout attack at Harry Potter in the movie adaptation, compared to the he-asked-calmly Dumbledore in the fourth book. But it was otherwise absolutely enjoyable enough for this revisit.

"Perhaps you'd like to explain it to me, too. I'm not used to having my civil liberties taken away like this. In America, nobody would dream of telling you where you can or can't go." And over thirty million Americans died during the Pandemic as a result of that sort of thinking, he thought.

Only a few of them were wearing their face masks. By day after tomorrow they'll all be down with it, Dunworthy thought.