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Title: A lovely, engaging read
Review: Fans of "Star Trek" type fare, look elsewhere. Everybody else, here's a wonderful book, absorbing and suspenseful and intelligent and even funny. "Doomsday Book" has a well-researched tour of the middle ages, enjoyably snarky commentary on university life, and a race-to-the-finish-line plot, all in one neat package. (Also does for the CDC what "Slow River" did for sewage treament.) If you're the kind of reader who must have dragons and spaceships, skip it, you'll only be confused. Those who prefer a little less convention and a little more craft should be very pleased. (I feel the same way about most Gibson, Nicola Griffith's "Slow River," and the first three-quarters of Peter Hoeg's "Smilla's Sense of Snow," if you want a baseline to judge these comments by.)
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