Release Message:  The story begins in 2057 at Oxford University. A machine which makes time travel possible has been developed, but time travel itself is used primarily as a tool for historical research. Written by Connie Willis.

Description:  Comic science fiction novel by Connie Willis. It takes place in the same universe of time-traveling historians she explored in her story Fire Watch and novel Doomsday Book. To Say Nothing of the Dog won both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1999,[1] and was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1998. Oxford Time Traveling Historians A comedy in which time travelers from 2048 travel back to the 19th century in order to find an artifact for a dictatorial wealthy woman; adventures occur in The Blitz and other occasions. The story begins in 2057 at Oxford University. A machine which makes time travel possible has been developed, but time travel itself is used primarily as a tool for historical research. Although millions were spent to develop time travel as a commercial venture, it turned out to have no profit potential. The natural laws of the "time continuum" prevent anything of significance from being brought from the past to the future, and also act to keep time travellers away from historically critical events, such as the Battle of Waterloo. Any attempt to break these laws results in the time machine preventing the desired goal of travel: the time traveller is sent to the right time but to a distant place (30 miles from the Coventry Cathedral, or Mexico, to give two examples in the novel), or to the right place but a time distant enough to keep the traveller from interfering in a way that might create a paradox (the narrator reaches the Cathedral but in the year 1395). In extreme situations, the continuum can correct paradoxes by changing the course of events in minor ways to keep the eventual outcome the same. The novel opens just as one time traveller appears to have violated the laws of the continuum by bringing a cat from Victorian times to 2057.