Book Review by Aarene Storms: "Blackout" and "All Clear" by Connie Willis

by Aarene Storms, youth services librarian, KCLS Richmond Beach

Blackout by Connie Willis

All Clear by Connie Willis

audiobook editions read by Katherine Kellgren

The historians at Oxford in 2060 can time-travel to the times and locations of important historical events. The technology isn't perfect, but forty years of travelling through history has streamlined a lot of procedures so that historians cannot change history.

That's the theory, anyhow.

Polly, Mike, and Eileen are working independently on historical research assignments during WWII. Polly is studying shopgirls in London during the Blitz. Mike wants to observe heroism at the evacuation of Dunkirk. Eileen poses as a maid in a country manor to see the effects of the children's evacuation. All three become closely involved with their subjects...and each notices some glitches in their time-travel drops. Have they inadvertently changed history and created a paradox in which the time-travellers from 2060 don't even exist?

Blackout ends abruptly, and the action is picked up immediately in All Clear, the second part of this "double-decker novel". (The author notes that the two volumes are really a single book which the publisher released in two parts).

In All Clear, the reader learns that the glitches with the time-travel drops are worse than previoiusly known: not only will malfunctioning drops not open to allow historians to return home to the year 2060, the drops won't even allow the people in 2060 to travel back in time to share information or supplies with the people who are stranded in the past.

With bombs dropping overhead and a deadline approaching, the Oxford historians are desperate to find a way home. The characters from the future and the past are riveting, the history is deeply and flawlessly researched, and the action will keep readers glued to the book.

No sex, minimal cussing. There is, however, plenty of bloodshed--tactfully described whenever possible--relating to the casualties of war and bombing attacks on British cities and towns during the war. In reading these books, I learned more than I knew there was to know about English life in the 1940's, and I found it absolutely fascinating.

If you are seeking a story as hypnotic as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I recommend that you open up a copy of Blackout and All Clear.

For an extra treat, check out the audiobook edition of Blackout and All Clear, read by award-winner Katherine Kellgren, available from the library on CD and downloadable audio.

The events may not have happened; still, the story is true. --R. Silvern