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Last time, on Ben's reviews:… there's a very palpable, somewhat ironic fear here, because in a way these three are more frightened of the Blitz than the stalwart contemporaries (or "contemps" as the historians call them).… So for a moment, there's a justifiable and interesting suspense. Unfortunately, Willis attempts to sustain that suspense entirely too long…… all the characters in this book are ninnies … They complain about the retrieval team not showing up and they lie to each other and keep
It's here It's here!The only reason why this is not a 5 is because the middle section of Blackout and All Clear (and I count them as one book, because really they are) annoyed me a bit with the obsession over whether they changed the outcome of the war and where the retrieval team, over and over. I understand why Willis did this (complete anxiety!) but it was too much. Probably because I have gone through times in my life when I too get completely stuck in the broken record of a mind loop, and t...
All Clear (and Blackout) are an excellent way to learn more about World War II/The Blitz in England. It is, however, an extremely frustrating book on many other levels.Of particular concern to me was the tendency for the historians to explain details that the other historians should hand in their degrees for not knowing. It was one thing in Book 1 to have to explain that Agatha Christie was a novelist. It's another thing altogether to revolve a major plot point on the fact that one of the histor...
She does it again.While it didn’t move me quite as profoundly as her masterpiece Doomsday Book, this elaborately-structured, deeply humane, beautifully-rendered novel proves that Connie Willis is indeed a master. Everything matters, even when, at times, in its hundreds of pages there are moments that seem tangential or muddled. She has worked it all out, and has wound up with an increasingly resonant meditation on hope, courage, chaos, and the small and large ways in which we are all connected t...
Let me begin by saying that The Doomsday Book is one of my all-time favorite novels (definitely "top ten," quite possibly "top five"), and I'm also tremendously fond of Connie Willis's Lincoln's Dreams, as well. When I knew she had a new book - well, duology, though the two books are really one chopped in half - set in the same time-travel universe as The Doomsday Book, I was beside myself with anticipation. (I blame her publishers for the decision to splice the book and then wait months between...
I hate this book so much. I hate it so much that it hurts. I hate that I spent an audible credit on it. I hate that it's about subjects I LOVE- WWII? Bletchley Park? And it still sucks. It's not badly written- it's just a terrible story, and the lead characters are whiny, dumb, ignorant, and keep switching voices. (that last isn't the author's fault). I HATE that I know more WWII trivia than these "historians" do. That part is the worst. That and the idea that three professional time travellers,...
Much better than the first part, given to us in Blackout. I suspect, still, that 20% of Blackout and 10% of this book could be cut out, without loss of content or quality.Really, these are more of a historical drama set in the Blitz than anything else. Ms. Willis deftly twists the story-lines of past and future back together into a very satisfying ending.
This was unnecessarily long. It should have been combined with the first part, Blackout and edited into one book. The characterizations are very good, but what is done with those characters is often pointless. All they do is worry and speculate; running around not asking vital questions and refusing to tell one another the truth. So much crazy squirrel behavior from what are supposed to be highly trained Oxford graduates, it's ridiculous.Because Willis can write and I enjoyed Sir Godfrey and the...
Christmas 2010: I realised that I had got stuck in a rut. I was re-reading old favourites again and again, waiting for a few trusted authors to release new works. Something had to be done.On the spur of the moment I set myself a challenge, to read every book to have won the Locus Sci-Fi award. That’s 35 books, 6 of which I’d previously read, leaving 29 titles by 14 authors who were new to me.While working through this reading list I got married, went on my honeymoon, switched career and beca
Time-traveling historians fight their way home. This book was ridiculous. I feel bad writing that, because 1. so many people liked it so much, and I'm sad to think I didn't understand how to appreciate it, and 2. it's a celebrated author's book about a WAR. But the only way I remotely got through it was by treating it as a comic novel and mentally tallying up all the ridiculousness, including but not limited to: 1. every time a character's mission was completely stymied by one single, non-malici...
I found this book to be both amazing and frustrating. I don't recall ever having such mixed feelings about a book. When it's rolling it's a rare and rewarding page turner and when it bogs down it feels like a week of reading before the story moves on. There are way too many pages where we go inside a character's head and we listen to that character wonder. She'll wonder if she did something wrong and lost the war for England, she'll wonder where another character is and what they are doing and i...
This is a wonderful and amazing book. It really is the second half of a book. On the same day, I went from finishing Blackout and started reading this book, and it was like going from one chapter to another, not like going from one book to another.Thank you to Goodreads friend and fellow group member Sarah Pi who didn’t let me see answers to my questions and therefore helped me avoid unwanted spoilers.I am very proud that less than 1/3 the way through this book, I figured something out, probably...
All Clear, or, I'm An Historian, Get Me Out Of Here!What I really found lacking in this novel, and in Blackout All Clear 1, was an overall sense of being in another time. I know I was reminded of the fact of it on every single page for a thousand pages (“THIS IS TIME TRAVEL! I am AN HISTORIAN and THIS IS TIME TRAVEL!”), but I never got a real sense of it. Maybe this is because the Oxford of 2060 is very sketchily painted? I have no sense of home for any of the characters, and therefore no real s...
I don’t think I’ve ever been so sad to leave a set of characters behind. After spending more than 1,000 pages with them between All Clear and its predecessor Blackout, most of it set during the Blitz of London with lots of high tension twists and turns, heartaches and triumphs, I feel like we’ve been through the war together and it’s hard to let go. With three time traveling historians as protagonists and numerous less prominent but well developed supporting characters, both books have lots of v...
The second half of Blackout more than a sequel. Weird experience – I have massive problems with this book, but I also could not put it down. Hrm.I think that this book succeeds at its smaller scale purpose. It’s clear from what she’s said that Willis did massive amounts of research about the Blitz, and that she really wanted to make it come alive. Which she did. She takes this sense of fear and purpose, this keep calm and carry on, this practicality and humor and misery, and she nails that basta...
1200 pages - between Blackout and All Clear - chock full of anxiety-ridden ramblings and repetition can be wearying even for Willis's fans. But what ultimately emerges is a massive historical novel about the courage of the common man - and woman, and child - in the face of adversity during WWII in England, thinly disguised as an entry in the mildly science-fiction Oxford Time Travel series. The details in the setting and characters are well rendered, and historical events such as the Blitz, the
Perhaps this wasn't the best of book(s) to have started with Willis. As much as I wanted to like it, the story just didn't rise to the occasion, but dragged on and on and on from one book to another with hardly any suspense or change in its tiringly frenzied pace. I ultimately had to accept, that despite its few scattered moments, the destination hadn't enough of an impact to justify the taxing journey.The narration was meandering and repetitive, and the approach got lost somewhere in execution:...
This took me way longer than it should’ve done to finish. First I started it immediately after finishing Blackout, which I would highly recommend, but then I interrupted it to listen to other more pressing buddy read books. Once I got back to it, some 8 months later, I had kind of forgotten some details and was mildly confused at the start. That aside, this is such an excellent and intricate story. I love the time travel element, which is more prevalent than in Blackout, but the real meat of the...
Oh I really don't know where to start: This book has been a disappointment and an utter waste of time. I dragged myself through 'Blackout' and persisted with this one, thinking that it will be all worth it. But despite of the twist in the end and what many have termed 'brilliant' finale, I still can't get over the fact that the omniscient narrative of Ms Willis, in which she follows each miniscule thought of the time travellers, really time consuming, boring, to a point it became truly annoying