Die Farben der Zeit oder ganz zu Schweigen von dem Hunde und wie wir des…

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (Vol. 2 of the Oxford Time Travel Series) (4 stars)
Although this may be classed as volume 2, you in no way need to read volume one in order to enjoy this book. Even though I have read vol. 1 (The Doomsday Book), the novels are very different in tone. Vol. 1 is about time travel to the time of the Black Death, a much more somber subject, and Vol 2 is time travel to the Victorian Era and a tongue-in-cheek parody of an earlier Victorian work entitled Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. The characters are familiar in both volumes and the apparatus of time travel is the same in the two books, but they are both very different novels and enjoyable individually. Not quite what I was expecting after the Doomsday Book, but an enjoyable read in between heavier subjects.
This one is much lighter in tone, uses a lot of humor and makes fun of social stereotypes of the era. The scientists are traveling back in time to change an aspect of history and save a cat from drowning because cats have become extinct in their future world. It’s not hard-hitting science fiction going into the details of time travel, but more of a lighter historical romance piece but still enjoyable in its own way. It shows the author can be versatile in her styles of writing. ( )

I get confounded by time travel stories. This is a time travel story. I got confounded. In the midst of my confusion there were some glimmerings, and I had a chuckle or two, but not enough for a four star rating. ( )

Willis' Oxford Time Travel series are always fun adventures and this is no exception. This one takes us to Victorian England and has a lot of mysteries for the historians to solve. I liked the characters and the sense of time and place. The plot kept me guessing without being too technical with its time travel explanations. There were plenty of fun mentions of literary classics - but some of the discussions spoiled classic mysteries that I had hoped to read soon. Overall a fun read that was light enough to entertain, but deep enough to hold my interest. ( )

The opposite feel from the Doomsday book. Light and full of whimsy. Mistaken assumptions. Verity is a fan of classic mysteries. Lots of references to Agatha Christie and Peter Wimsey. ( )

This was a fun book, and I'd put off reading it because I'd understood that it heavily referenced (if not was an outright homage to) Three Men In A Boat, a book that I was unfamiliar with. In addition, I remember the first book (Doomsday Book) being a bit heavy. So as prep, I started Three Men In A Boat, and decided that after a chapter or 2 that I didn't need to finish it, and that I got the general gist of the book.
On to THIS book, then. And except for the chapter headings? summaries? and only a small few mentions of 3MIAB, I found that I'd definitely been over-sold on the necessity of being familiar with 3MIAB. Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to state that the chapter heading/summaries gimmick wore out REALLY fast. Nothing like spoiling your own book in the middle of it.
Anyway, this story was crazy-complicated (as all good Time Travel books should be), especially at the end as they were trying to tie everything together. But it was a lot of fun, and there were some very funny parts. The whole tone of the book was so much lighter than Doomsday Book, and I appreciated the minimum amount of exposition needed to explain Time Travel and the net.

Audiobook notes - the narrator did a nice job of making distinctive voices, and if there were any mispronunciations I didn't notice them. ( )