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To Say Nothing of the Dog: Difference between revisions
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''[[To Say Nothing of the Dog]]'' is a novel by [[Connie Willis]]. The story is set in Oxford, England, about 60 years into the future, after [[Time Travel]] has not only been invented, but pretty much everyone except historians has lost interest in it. This is mainly because it turns out that you can't bring things from the past to the future, or at least, you aren't ''supposed'' to be able to. Most of the history of this period and rules of time travel are laid out in Willis' earlier novel ''[[Doomsday Book]]'', which takes place in the same universe.
In ''To Say Nothing of the Dog'', the History Department of Balliol, [[Oxbridge|Oxford University]], has been thrown into chaos by the pet project of a rich donor: to rebuild a cathedral that was destroyed during [[World War Two]], exactly as it was at the moment it was bombed. Ned Henry is charged with finding out what happened to the [[MacGuffin|Bishop's Bird Stump]] (a bird stump, incidentally, is a kind of flower vase; this particular bird stump is cast iron, and extremely [[
The novel could be this site's designated mystery; the two lead characters are extremely [[Genre Savvy]], know their tropes, know when they encounter one, and still manage to wind up blindsided by events.
{{tropelist}}
* [[Acceptable Targets]]: The Victorian conception of what constitutes "restraint" when it comes to art. {{spoiler|The fact that even some of the contemps detest the stuff becomes a plot point.}}
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* [[Slap Slap Kiss]]: {{spoiler|Baine and Tossie.}}
* [[Strange Minds Think Alike]]
* [[The Butler Did It]]: [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]], Verity reads a lot of mystery novels, and explains this trope in great detail. {{spoiler|And in the end played straight, the Butler did do it}}, just not the "it" anyone was expecting:
* [[Temporal Sickness]]: "Time-lag", caused by having too many jumps over too short a period. Effects include forgetfulness, visual and auditory hallucinations and an absolute conviction you haven't got time-lag. In the beginning of the novel [[Blatant Lies|Ned is of course is most certainly not experiencing any time-lag]], as he explains to his supervisor [[The Last of These Is Not Like the Others|and the glowing white angel]].
* [[Time Machine]]
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[[Category:Science Fiction Literature]]
[[Category:Mystery Literature]]
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