Thanks for the review! I've been meaning to check out Greg Bear for awhile. Probably still will, but I won't choose DR as my starting point.
I was going to recommend Doomsday Book by Connie Willis as a similar alternative to DR, but after looking up endogenous retroviruses I realized it's not really similar at all. *g*
I'll still recommend DB, though. Willis' SF main focus is time paradox rather than the disease itself, but an epidemic plays a large part. DB is one of several stories where she posits that time travel (to the past only) has been achieved, but that nothing can be brought forward. So it's no use to treasure hunters and has remained largely the domain of historians. In DB... this is skirting a spoiler, but there are parallels between a historical disease outbreak and a contemporary one.
Willis' adventures tend to be madcap, but DB is more serious. I found myself caring a great deal about her characters, both the grad student who travels to the Middle Ages to research her dissertation and the people she stays with while there.
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momijizukamori and
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Date: 2008-01-28 04:34 pm (UTC)I was going to recommend Doomsday Book by Connie Willis as a similar alternative to DR, but after looking up endogenous retroviruses I realized it's not really similar at all. *g*
I'll still recommend DB, though. Willis' SF main focus is time paradox rather than the disease itself, but an epidemic plays a large part. DB is one of several stories where she posits that time travel (to the past only) has been achieved, but that nothing can be brought forward. So it's no use to treasure hunters and has remained largely the domain of historians. In DB... this is skirting a spoiler, but there are parallels between a historical disease outbreak and a contemporary one.
Willis' adventures tend to be madcap, but DB is more serious. I found myself caring a great deal about her characters, both the grad student who travels to the Middle Ages to research her dissertation and the people she stays with while there.