Storyline: 2/5 
 Characters: 3/5 
 Writing Style: 3/5 
 World: 3/5 
 I like this type of sequel, the kind that are intended to be accessible to those whom haven't read the first book. The kind of sequel with some overlapping characters or cross-referenced events that are fun to pick up for those following along with the series but which are not integral for the present volume. It is the kind of sequel that you can read knowing that it isn't resolving some unfinished business from the last volume and which won't leave you grudgingly awaiting the next to see how it all works out. So thank you Connie Willis for writing that kind of sequel. 
 Stylistically this is a lot like the series' first, The Doomsday Book. Willis continues to show her talent for conjuring amusing characters and humorous episodes. She obviously enjoys and can do wonders with historical fiction. In so many ways, this is a second chance for those who loved her first book to enjoy her talents all over again. She carries over some of her less desirable habits as well. Thus the light comedy can wear thin for overuse and the drama can feel a little forced. One of the big additions she made to the Oxford Time Travel series is the mechanics of time travel. She confronts it directly here, though I found that to be a decided turn for the worse. (view spoiler)[Everything about the mechanics of her time travel suggests that "Time" will correct for incongruities, thus there shouldn't be much for our characters to stress over. Also, the whole computer simulations thread was nonsense - they were using the simulations to verify the very thing they that they couldn't test. So really, all they were doing was generating error parameters from computer models which had an entirely unknown correspondence to reality.... The conclusion and resolution do tie up some of these questions and holes, but it also makes it so that the character's decisions were even dumber than they appeared in the initial read. (hide spoiler)] There are places where Willis even seems to acknowledge some of this - small asides where she can't help but point out to critics that she does know they're there - but she moves on forward with the devices regardless. At least the time travel mechanics provided a distraction, a puzzle. The historical fiction in this one wasn't nearly as interesting to me - though, to be fair, readers of certain books (view spoiler)[ Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat and early 1900s murder mysteries (hide spoiler)] might have made some connections and had some fun that weren't available to me. The most notable difference between these first two in the series, however, is the tone. This one is as frolicsome as The Doomsday Book was harrowing. The light-hearted comedy just wasn't able to effectively replace the tension and foreboding of the first book, and I found a lot of the story to be bland and tedious. I was humored and entertained, then, for about the first half of the book. Thereafter the comedy was played out and the time travel mechanics leveled the suspense leaving a Victorian historical romance in which I could garner little enthusiasm. Someone who was more in sync with her literary references might have had a lot of fun with this; it might just have been that I'm too boorish to enjoy it fully.