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In the end, I didn't think much of this book. I didn't mind the retro-future and actually found it entertaining as a strange alternate universe, and I admired and enjoyed the factual and realistic look at a small English town as the plague hit. I also liked the time-travel device because it allowed me to relate to Kivrin as a modern observer of that time and notice its subtleties and differences, whereas with books simply written to be in another historical era, it's much easier to forget or not focus on that and instead is often more about the plot. Maybe it would be better said that with this book, I felt more a part of that town in the middle ages as I went there vicariously through Kivrin rather than so many historical books where I feel more like I'm viewing history from the outside.
That said, the book just didn't compel me very much. So many characters in the future part of the book bordered on the ridiculous, and it was a very bizarre combination when a major point of the book is to experience realistic people and towns from a former time. As for the past, while I really appreciated the concern with realness and detail, I still felt the story was slightly flat and somehow a bit off.
However, when the plague truly struck the town in the past, I was very impressed that the author was willing to kill off everyone. I kept envisioning Kivrin saving someone and even possibly bringing them back to the future with her - the young girl especially, then Rosamund, then the priest, or saving anyone through her "lancing the boils" trials, and though I was sad to see them die (especially the young girl), it was realistic and really gave me a feel for what it might have been like on a town where the mortality rate was 100%. I was duly impressed that the author kept giving the impression over and over again that Kivrin would save someone only to then fail; I really respected that.
But respect does not make a good book, and to top it all the ending was pretty awful aside from the obliteration of the mediaeval town. I could even overlook the deus ex machina - I really didn't think it was a deus ex machina because the author had made it clear that Kivrin couldn't possibly be caught with anything modern while she was there, while the boy was only to be there very quickly and wasn't supposed to have come anyway. I thought the more eyeroll-worthy part was when the professor knows it is Kivrin when she rings the bell. I thought perhaps it'd be explained that she rang some special combination that they both knew about, but no, it's never explained and as far as I can remember wasn't mentioned anywhere beforehand, so we just must believe that somehow he "knew" a random bell ringing in the middle ages was Kivrin.
Frankly, I think the author almost ruined the weight of letting all the people from that town die by letting the professor and boy zap in from the future and rescue her so easily and at such a perfect moment just after everyone had died. I don't know, if it were me, I'd almost rather Rosamund had lived (she was past the main sickness and some people did survive after all) and Kivrin and Rosamund had taken off for Scotland and the professor found an empty town at the end, or something similar.
Anyway, the main thing I want to know is - where in the &%*@ *#@&! was the head of the program?!?!? It was never explained and I spent the entire book thinking he must be the priest in disguise or something and perhaps he had arrived a long time before by secret and accident and had to live in the middle ages for years and years, stuck, and for some reason couldn't tell Kivrin if he knew she were from the future. I respect the author if that were her intention, to misguide us for awhile, and I'm fine and actually happy that the head hadn't "snuck" back in time somehow because it just would've made things even sillier, but the author should've at least given us a sentence to explain where in the world he was during everything. I suppose a vindictive salmon must've caught him and dragged him under on his trip or some such.
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