Started: 12 August 2012
Finished: 17 August 2012
Pages: 491 / 641
Connie Willis conceived of this as a single book but her publishers insisted on publishing it in two installments. I wouldn't have minded so much if it hadn't meant that when I first read it I ended up waiting almost a month between the time I finished the first half (Blackout) and the time I tracked down and read the second (All Clear).
Those of my readers who read SF have almost certainly already read this. It won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2011: the Hugo because it's gripping and has great characterizations, humour, and heroism, and the Nebula because the quality of the writing.
Reading the book for a second time gave me the opportunity to observe the skill used to foreshadow, build suspense, reveal character, develop the plot, and develop the conceptual framework of time travel, all through the mechanism of multiple parallel storylines. It would have been trivial to have made a muddle of it, and just slightly less trivial to have come up with something banal. Instead Willis wrote something both entertaining and inspiring. If living through the London Blitz as a non-combatant wasn't like this, it should have been.
I an intrigued by this one and will follow it. I can't remember if I read it - so probably not. I liked your comment about "re-reading" and how it is still pleasurable, but in a different way. Moving has made me decide which books to keep, and I have been doing that by rereading them.
ReplyDeleteOh, you definitely need to read this one Jennifer. You won't be able to put it down. I had trouble putting it down and I already knew how it came out! Let me know if you need a loan.
ReplyDeleteThanks for much for the recommendation. I enjoyed the two books greatly. I want to especially thank you for the tip that it was one big book. I got the first one as a hard copy and the second one electronically. I prefer print to e-books, but will gladly read e-books. About half way through the second novel I was getting a bit tired of all the coincidences. It was starting to feel like bad prose, but loved the way she pulled it off in the end.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it Jennifer. Coincidences fascinate Willis: one of her inspirations is the 1930s madcap comedy where everything goes wrong until everything goes right, all because of a series of increasingly improbable coincidences. Having a forum to play with coincidences is one of the reasons she writes time travel stories at all, I suspect. And its definitely a hallmark of her writing.
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