To Say Nothing of the Dog is one of the funniest science fiction books I’ve ever read. It isn’t a silly, knee-slapping romp like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but a calmer story that relies more on character interactions than external craziness.
Time travel exists but is primarily a method for historical research. It’s also exhausting, and Ned Henry has done far too much of it. But instead of getting some much-needed rest, he’s sent to Victorian England to recover something called a bishop’s bird stump. He gets help from Verity Kindle, a fellow time-traveller who has shuffled a cat between timelines, an act that has the potential to completely upset all of history.
Ned and Verity are a great team as they try to patch everything up, and the eccentric Victorians they run across are hilarious.
Recommendation: Buy it. This Hugo-winner is a great book.
Without a doubt, ‘To Say Nothing of the Dog’ was one of the most entertaining and laugh out loud books I’ve ever read. Connie Willis is a delight. ‘Doomsday’ was also totally awesome. Anyone who likes SciFi and Time Travel absolutely has to read these.
Can’t agree more with the review. I love this book, just as I did almost anything I read written by Connie Willis. I was only bewildered by the lack of reference to the origin of the book’s name (Jerome K. Jerome’s masterpiece), or to P.G Wodehouse – another great influencer on Willis’s work