All Clear

By: Connie Willis

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren, Connie Willis (introduction)

Length: 23 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

In Blackout, award-winning author Connie Willis returned to the time-traveling future of 2060, the setting for several of her most celebrated works, and sent three Oxford historians to World War II England: Michael Davies, intent on observing heroism during the Miracle of Dunkirk; Merope Ward, studying children evacuated from London; and Polly Churchill, posing as a shopgirl in the middle of the Blitz. But when the three become unexpectedly trapped in 1940, they struggle not only to find their way home but to survive as Hitler's bombers attempt to pummel London into submission.

Now the situation has grown even more dire. Small discrepancies in the historical record seem to indicate that one or all of them have somehow affected the past, changing the outcome of the war. The belief that the past can be observed but never altered has always been a core belief of time-travel theory, but suddenly it seems that the theory is horribly, tragically wrong.

Meanwhile, in 2060 Oxford, the historians' supervisor, Mr. Dunworthy, and 17-year-old Colin Templer, who nurses a powerful crush on Polly, are engaged in a frantic and seemingly impossible struggle of their own - to find three missing needles in the haystack of history.

Told with compassion, humor, and an artistry both uplifting and devastating, All Clear is more than just the triumphant culmination of the adventure that began with Blackout. It's Connie Willis' most humane, heartfelt novel yet - a clear-eyed celebration of faith, love, and the quiet, ordinary acts of heroism and sacrifice too often overlooked by history.

BONUS AUDIO: Includes an introduction written and read by author Connie Willis.

Also listen to the first book, Blackout.

©2010 Connie Willis (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

• Nebula Award, Best Novel, 2010
• Hugo Award, Best Novel, 2011
• Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2010: Readers' Choice (SF Site)

"By the time the three historians and Mr. Dunworthy have unraveled the mystery and arrived at the full-on, three-hanky finale, you’ll no longer be a disinterested observer. Drawn in Willis’s skillful storytelling, you’ll be back in 1941, wondering what’s about to happen next." ( The Village Voice)

"Katherine Kellgren's delightful English accent is perfect for the many characters she portrays." ( AudioFile)

“As vivid an evocation of England during World War II as anyone has ever written.... You’ll find here a novelist who can plot like Agatha Christie and whose books possess a bounce and stylishness that Preston Sturges might envy.” ( The Washington Post)

Great conclusion to "Blackout"

Listen to "Blackout" before you listen to "All Clear". It's the exciting conclusion to "Blackout". The author did extensive research and the book educates you as well as entertains you. I was surprised at how the American author was able to incorporate particular British social norms, idioms, and speach patterns. She must have spent a lot of time in Britain. The plot has a lot of twists and turns and surprises and keeps you guessing until the end. Great book. Well written.

Love the twists and connections.

Shakespeare- time travel and the blitz.
Heroes- loyalty, friendships and the light of the world.

WWII and time travel

Do you like thinking about time travel and enjoy history? This series is for you!
I have read a fair amount about certain aspects of WWII. Ultra, the third reich, the evac, d-day.
Never thought that much about what it was like living in Great Britain during the war. Churchill had an iron spine, but he could never stood up to Hitler without his people.
This book and the book before offer a glimpse into daily life of average citizens during WWII. And they also touch on important events during WWII. Add in the time travel and you have a very interesting book.
Some of the time travel concepts seem a bit sketchy, but it offers plenty of thinking points.
I enjoyed the history aspect of these novels and the time travel added extra thinking points.

Definitely Worth It

I love both this and Blackout. All Clear drags a bit in the middle with the repetitive explanations of how time travel is wibbly-wobbly. But overall, imaginative story, lovely writing, great narration.

Boom!

Speechless! Amazing! Breathtaking! What an adventure! Bravery! Band of Friendships and Brilliance! Familia Love! It is ALL CLEAR!

Love her.

A Hugo Award Winner. Another great Willis book. She writes great narrative with the best endings.

30 hours of great material presented in 50 hours

I really liked the characters in this book. We came to know and care about many of the people stuck in the London blitz. There was a lot of excellent history, and I think the author did a fabulous job letting us experience the terror of constant bombing, the privation of constant rationing and the courage shown by much of the population.

The cutting back and forth between different centuries and different locations was a little harder to follow in an audiobook than in print.

What made me subtract a star from the overall score was the constant repetition of the same themes - "I'm stuck, no one can rescue me", "I may have changed history" and "I'm not going to tell my friends what's really going on because I don't want them to worry."

The six parts that make up the two books in this series were probably twice as long as they needed to be.

I'm no stranger to, or enemy of, extremely long books, but I do want the story to keep moving. The same thoughts kept running through the characters' heads, and it was tiresome to hear them over and over.

We also got to hear slightly humorous or sarcastic thoughts, almost never voiced, which was also annoying. One character might say, "That's a dangerous job" and another would think "Not as dangerous as rescuing prisoners from Dunkirk".

I wondered why the characters couldn't occasionally voice their thoughts. It also occurred to me that characters, like people, probably only think interesting thoughts a small percentage of the time. Listening to every boring thought that anyone might have in a day is almost torture.

Perhaps this review is more negative than I intend, but I like Connie Willis' work in general, and I liked the characters and theme of this book. If the redundant thoughts were eliminated, I think this would be a great read for lovers of history, sci-fi fans and those looking for an exciting listen.

Wonderful story!

LOVED this story! Connie Willis makes you fall in love with the characters. Katherine Kellgren is AMAZING as a narrator, flawlessly executing different voices and accents all in the same breath. Blackout and All Clear are a "must listen". Hope to hear more from this narrator.

All's Well That Ends Well

A beautifully written and narrated book, with so many characters that I won't soon forget. I wasn't there but the descriptions of the events and the people of Britain during WWII made me feel like I was there, or wish I had been. A little time travel, anyone? Some have complained that the two books, Black Out being the other, were over long. I disagree. The time used in the development and growth of the characters and their many parallel stories added so much to the atmosphere of the story and to the gradual rise in tension and wonderful conclusion.

Kind of a miracle

"That's no way to talk in the presence of ladies, you bleedin' sod," the first man said belligerently….
"Beggin' your pardon, misses. I shouldn't 'ave called 'Itler a little bastard. 'E's the biggest bastard what ever lived."

I think I have an ulcer now. The suspense, the frenetic pace of the book – hurry here, get diverted, rush elsewhere, find or miss that being looked for, if found that thing leads to another search, sprint here and there, hither and yon, at top speed, with constant interruptions and rerouting and balks and blocks and detours and dead ends… Needing to be at point A, and being required to go to point B, and then there's point C, which is equidistant to B from A… and then point D gets thrown in for good measure, also equidistant. Will they make it?! People squirting off in all directions, appearing and disappearing and obstructing and getting injured and waylaid and oh lord what now without notice. So many interruptions and interceptions and all so very well-meaning, or so very necessary, and … Yikes.

But rarely has an ulcer ever been earned in so enjoyable a fashion.

These aren't "easy" books. Not only is there the cross-stitch element of time travel to take into account, but Connie Willis isn't easy on her characters. Oh, sure, the comedy can be flowing – say, Alf and Binnie up to high-larious hijinks … but then a moment later comes the reminder that these two irrepressible vivacious children are, like everyone else in England (most of Europe), constantly under a Damoclean sword, with doom hanging by the finest of horsehairs over their heads. You just never know how it's going to go – anyone could die (everyone could die), or be left behind, or be somehow discovered, at any moment – or a fellow time traveler could show up, or time could be irretrievably altered…

Connie Willis has an intensely frustrating way of cutting away to one of the side plots – and then bringing that action to a crisis point at the end of the chapter and … returning to the main story again. Argh. And I say that with the greatest respect.

On the other hand, Connie Willis is so easy to read. Her writing is as transparent as good glass – by which I mean it's so good it disappears, leaving her characters and their settings in full color and three dimensions in your mind. Nothing is predictable, everything is immediate (Connie Willis doesn't need to use the present tense to create immediacy), and the suspense can be intense. And all the while she will make you laugh –

"Oh, dear. I do hope I didn't say anything I shouldn't have. I didn't confess undying love to some girl fifty years my junior, did I? Or quote Peter Pan?"

– and make you cry –

"We live in hope that the good we do here on earth will be rewarded in heaven. We also hope to win the war. We hope that right and goodness will triumph, and that when the war is won, we shall have a better world. And we work toward that end. We buy war bonds and put out incendiaries and knit stockings---"
And pumpkin-colored scarves, Polly thought.
"---and volunteer to take in evacuated children and work in hospitals and drive ambulances" - here Alf grinned and nudged Eileen sharply in the ribs - "and man anti-aircraft guns. We join the Home Guard and the ATS and the Civil Defence, but we cannot know whether the scrap metal we collect, the letter we write to a solider, the vegetables we grow, will turn out in the end to have helped win the war or not. We act in faith.
"But the vital thing is that we act. We do not rely on hope alone, thought hope is our bulwark, our light through dark days and darker nights. We also work, and fight, and endure, and it does not matter whether the part we play is large or small. The reason that God marks the fall of the sparrow is that he knows that it is as important to the world as the bulldog or the wolf. We all, all must do 'our bit'. For it is through our deeds that the war will be won, through our kindness and devotion and courage that we make that better world for which we long."

- sometimes at the same time.

"We must trust in God's goodness," Miss Hibbard said, patting her hand.
Mrs. Wyvern patted it too. "God never sends us more than we can bear."
"Everything which happens is part of God's plan," the rector intoned.
Sir Godfrey came up to her, his hat in his hand.
If he has some appropriately cheerful Shakespeare quote, like "There's a divinity that shapes our ends," or "All will yet be well," I'll never forgive him, Polly thought.
"Viola," he said, and shook his head sadly. "'The rain it raineth every day.'"
I love you, she thought, tears stinging her eyes.

Connie Willis's writing is possibly the most human I know of. All the variegated emotions of humanity, and the heightened emotions of humanity at war: she's got them down.

She knew now how Theodore's neighbor felt. She wanted to shut herself in the cupboard under the stairs and stay there, even if it offered no protection at all. But that was impossible. She had to make Mr. Dunworthy soft-boiled eggs and tea and keep Alf from asking him how it felt to be blown up and Binnie from sharing her opinions of fairy tales, had to learn her lines, practice tap routines, rip ruffles off her costumes and sew sequins on them. And face Eileen's unquenchable optimism.

There are a lot of books out there (not enough, but quite a few) which feel like I could step into and find my way around. Connie Willis's world feels like it settles around me as I read – or listen – and when I have to put aside the book it seems strange that no one is dropping bombs on me and that I'm stuck in this time and place.

The narration helps a great deal in that, with these audiobooks. Katherine Kellgren is brilliant and I love her and will listen to anything she reads which isn't Fifty Shades of Anything.