To Say Nothing of the Dog is the second book in Connie Willis' Oxford Time Travel series. These books handily blend two of my favorite genres: sci-fi and historical fiction. In the mid-2050s, the Oxford History department uses a time machine to send its grad students back in time to study the past. The time machine, or 'The Net', has its own inbuilt self-protective measures- it won't drop a historian anywhere a near a major historical event (eg, no killing Hitler, no stopping the JFK assassination). It won't drop a historian anywhere that a contemporary will see him or her materialize. And it won't allow historians to bring anything forward from the past to the present- or it hasn't until now. The Oxford History department is already being rampaged by the terrifying Lady Schrapnell when a historian manages to bring a cat through from Victorian England to the present. The following escapades of trying to RETURN the cat to the Victorian Era are silly and ridiculous to the extreme. I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first one, Doomsday Book (which traveled back to the 1300s) but it was still a good read.