Blackout

ByConnie Willis

Release Date: 2010-02-02
Genre: Fiction & Literature

Score: 4

From 111 Ratings

Description

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.

Reviews

Full of dead ends
2
By drshabazz1
Frustrating. The characters faced problem after problem, and they wasted A LOT of time pursuing solutions that ultimately never worked out. The historical accuracy was great, and I actually learned quite a bit about the blitz, but I was constantly tempted to skip ahead to see how it ends. Suddenly it was over, and there was no satisfying resolution. I need closure so badly, that I felt forced to read the next book. Good concept, and good resolution in the end of the series, but it could have been more exciting.
Absolutely terrible!
1
By Kennyob
I want my money back!!!
Great historical detail but horrible otherwise
2
By i don't want a nickname.
I loved reading the telling of London during the Blitz, and the details and description are great. I want to go from this to a better book on that time.

But this book was horribly frustrating. I stuck with it hoping the end would resolve some of the setup - but no. It feels instead like some full book got cut in half arbitrarily. The last page is just an ad for the next book in the set, which I'll be skipping.

Nearly the whole book involves characters rushing around trying to meet some deadline, getting tripped up by one mishap after another, and just barely missing or making it -- then another character doing exactly the same thing in another place. Nearly all of the action is driven forward by the characters not being able to get a word in edgewise and the "contemps" basically forcing them to do idiotic things that don't help them or their intended missions. It feels like a few genuine moments inflated with a lot of fake action and contrived coincidence.

I really wanted to like it, I really wanted it to come together in the end. But it felt like mostly a waste.
No end
3
By Menetheran
This is actually quite an enjoyable book until you turn the last page and discover it's over with no resolution to any of the key questions. Otherwise well written. I rented it from the library; would have been very irritated had I paid full price for it. Having said that, I'll probably check out the next one.
Leaves You Hanging
1
By VTNH
A good book has a beginning, a middle and an end. This one has no end. There is no resolution and no answers to the key questions. At the climactic point in the narrative the reader is informed that they have to get the next book to read the conclusion. Spoiled the whole experience for me. What a cheap shot!
Same old same
2
By Backroad Rider
Ms. Willis is one of the best of our contemporary writers but if you have read her other time travel novels, you may find she is stuck in a rut with Blackout. It has the same or similar plot and characters as her other books in this series.