Connie Willis

When a time-travel lab suddenly cancels assignments for no apparent reason and switches around everyone's schedules, time-traveling historians Michael, Merope, and Polly find themselves in World War II, facing air raids, blackouts, unexploded bombs, dive-bombing Stukas, rationing, shrapnel, V-1s, and two of the most incorrigible children in all of history--to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control.

Blackout

Sarah Sammis

Blackout by Connie Willis is another of her Oxford time travel books. It has a sequel, All Clear. While not as silly as To Say Nothing of the Dog, Blackout is more lighthearted than Doomsday Book.

Three Oxford researchers in 2060 are preparing for their trips back to WWII. Time travel works like the old days of scheduling time on the supercomputer. Time is precious and limited in the Net and budget cuts are making access to it even more tenuous.

The rescheduling of launch times and the need to scramble to prepare sets the tone for this book. Going unprepared to the past, combined with the dreaded time slip, gives each of the three researchers an impossible task — conduct the research and make it to their pick up location at the agreed up on date.

Blackout is the longest and most complex of the Oxford time travel stories. There are some slow bits and some incorrect details — I still found it a compelling read. I think it helps to have an understanding of how academic research works — and how it is often affected (for better or worse) by budgetary concerns.

Natalie

Sarah Escorsa

I am a huge Connie Willis fan and I was really excited when I heard she had finally written a new book (the first since 2002). I actually have mixed feeling about "Blackout". Willis is the best time-travel author ever but this book really did drag on a bit, especially the first part of the book, where Willis repeats herself quite a lot. Things do pick up in the second part of the book, which {very frustratingly} ends with a cliffhanger. I was very much surprised by the ending as I didn't know that "Blackout" was only the first part of the story and that it was to be followed by "All Clear".

The characters are very likeable (an added bonus: it's great to read about characters from "Doomsday book" and "To say nothing of the dog"!) and Willis is as witty as ever. Despite its obvious flaws, "Blackout" still is an enjoyable read. It's just not as gripping as other books Willis has written in the past.

Sylvie Hébert

Couldn't believe that the entire plot of the story doesn't unravel until the next book, which I won't read!

Casie Blevins

The tension will drive you wild in this novel but if you realize at the outset that most of this novel is actually 'middle' and the ending is nowhere in sight, it makes more sense. It was originally one novel (including All Clear) and it was so huge that they had to break it up into two. (Blackout and All Clear). The point is, this is another exceptional novel by Connie Willis and I've already started the second one.

Hannah Swithinbank

Claudiu

Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place, with scores of time-traveling historians being sent into the past. Michael Davies is prepping to go to Pearl Harbor. Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees and trying to talk her thesis adviser into letting her go to VE-Day. Polly Churchill’s next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London’s Blitz. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments and switching around everyone’s schedules. And when Michael, Merope, and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse. For there they face air raids, blackouts, and dive-bombing Stukas—to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control. Because suddenly the once-reliable mechanisms of time travel are showing significant glitches, and our heroes are beginning to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can possibly change the past.

Blackout

Reviews