All Clear (audiobook) by Connie Willis

A sci-fi book for lovers of history

Published in 2010 by Audible Studios.

23 hours, 56 minutes.
Read by Katherine Kellgren.
Unabridged.

43 hours of audio listening later (read wonderfully by Katherine Kellgren who handled a wide variety of accents and aging characters with real skill), I am finally done with the Blackout/All Clear saga. These books are intended to be one giant book, not a series, although you would never. ever know that from the audiobook's cover. To her credit, the author, Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Connie Willis introduces the second half of this audiobook with a warning that you had better listen to the first half first. Indeed you should and you should listen to the second installment as soon as you can after hearing the first one because there is no review, no scenes where the characters re-hash everything for the benefit of the listener. This is literally the second half of a very large book and she starts out exactly where she left off.

See my review of Blackout here.

All Clear continues the premise of Blackout (of course) and follows the adventures of late 21st century historians who learn about the past by time travelling. They observe and learn by blending in and becoming part of the past. They operate under the belief that they are unable to actually alter history (and apparently they have never read Jack Finney's Time and Again!) but they should not really do anything to test that theory.

Blackout/All Clear is both science fiction and historical fiction. Its real strength lies in its historical research and the way that it makes the reader experience London during World War II. The bombings, the inconveniences, the rationing, the danger, the weariness, the randomness of death from a bomb dropped from the sky - those aspects of the war come through crystal clear. Some reviewers have complained about the length of the books (and they are a big chunk, believe me, I know).  Certainly, a Reader's Digest type of editing job could easily cut out hours and hours of listening time without much affecting the plot of the story. Scenes could be cut, conversations could be shortened. There are certainly aspects of mind-blowingly stupid behavior on the part of the characters that had me wondering of Willis had gone daft.

Connie Willis

But, Willis has created an experience here. This is not so much a story but an homage to the regular, everyday people that endured the cruel attacks of a dictator, the privations of war, made communities in subway tunnels, survived when they were literally alone in the world. It is a bit of their experience and as such it is priceless. I teach history so nothing about this book really surprised me. I knew the bare facts but Willis has created a chance for the listener to get a taste of what it was like to live the facts, not just know them. For that, I have to thank her.

Throw in a bit of drama, a touch of sci-fi, the lovable completely awful Hodbins and I have to recommend Blackout/All Clear to anyone interested in World War II. Sci-fi fans are bound to be disappointed but I like both and I certainly enjoyed this.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found here: All Clear.

Reviewed on March 12, 2011.

Blackout (audiobook) by Connie Willis

Be prepared - this is only half the story

Published in 2010.
18 hours, 44 minutes
Read by Katherine Kellgren

Connie Willis continues her on again/off again time travel series with Blackout, a book about time travelling historians from mid 21st century Oxford who are visiting World War II England. Katherine Kellgren does a fantastic job of nailing the great variety of English accents and the one American accent as well as the male voices.

Time travel has become routine for these historians - they have teams to help prepare them for their jumps into the past, including clothing, paperwork and implants to help them with accents. They are also able to learn vast amounts of information by way of sleep learning, which can be helpful for memorizing such things as every location of a V-1 attack or what time all of the air raids happened during the Blitz. But, the routine of time travel belies a deeper problem - that of "slippage".  The trips back and forth are becoming less and less accurate. They used to be able to pinpoint the placement of historians down to the minute but now they can be off by hours, days and even weeks. Some have a theory that, despite assurances to the contrary, this is evidence that the historians are actually changing history bit by incremental bit.

St. Paul's Cathedral, rising above the smoke and flames 
of a firebomb attack on December 29, 1940. The 
adjacent neighborhoods burned but St. Paul's was saved. 
This photo became a symbol of London surviving 
these attacks.

Blackout is both science fiction and historical fiction, if one can do that. All of the main characters are historians from the future, but the great majority of the story is set in World War II England. There are 5 main plotlines. One features an historian working with evacuee children from London in the English countryside. Another features an historian who is sent to interview participants in the Dunkirk evacuation. A third historian is researching the Blitz - the German air raids on London during the Battle of Britain. There are two orphan stories about the V-1 Buzz Bomb attacks and Patton's in 1944 and Patton's Ghost Army in the D-Day invasion.

I called the last two "orphan stories" because they have no seeming connection with the rest of the story (except that one of the historians is in both 1940 and 1944). That is because Blackout is actually the first part of a single book that Willis had planned called All Clear. But the book became so long that it was split into two parts by her publisher. Willis makes it clear on her website that it should be considered one continuous book Blackout-All Clear. Well, that's great, but I have looked at the audiobook over and over again and I can find no reference to another book (All Clear) coming out, the fact that this is the first half of a single book or anything to indicate that Blackout is anything but a stand alone novel. Frankly, it never occurred to me that this 18 hour, 56 minute audiobook would only be the first half of a single novel. This is a pet peeve of mine - publishers not telling readers that the book is the first of a trilogy (or in this case, a duology) or is actually the book in the middle of a series of books. How hard it is to add that little bit of printing to a cover?

Connie Willis

I found the descriptions of World War II England to be wonderful - gritty but not maudlin. They are detailed enough that this history teacher found himself immersed in another world, along with the time travelling historians. The description of the evacuation at Dunkirk was as fine a bit of action writing as I have run across, especially for a book that is mostly about the mundane details of everyday life during a war of terror against the civilian population of England (as if air raids and torpedo bombs dropped on parachutes so as to maximize their damage can be mundane!).

I've already ordered All Clear.  When I've listened to all 23 hours of it I'll let you know...

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Blackout.

Reviewed on Feburary 6, 2011.

See my review of All Clear by clicking here.