Blackout

By: Connie Willis

Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren, Connie Willis

Length: 18 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

In her first novel since 2002, Nebula and Hugo award-winning author Connie Willis returns with a stunning, enormously entertaining novel of time travel, war, and the deeds - great and small - of ordinary people who shape history.

Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place. Scores of time-traveling historians are being sent into the past, to destinations including the American Civil War and the attack on the World Trade Center. 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, Mr. Dunworthy, into letting her go to VE Day. Polly Churchill's next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London's Blitz. And 17-year-old Colin Templer, who has a major crush on Polly, is determined to go to the Crusades so that he can catch up to her in age. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments for no apparent reason and switching around everyones schedules. And when Michael, Merope, and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse. For there they face air raids, blackouts, unexploded bombs, dive-bombing Stukas, rationing, shrapnel, V-1s, and two of the most incorrigible children in all of history 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.

BONUS AUDIO: In an exclusive introduction, author Connie Willis discusses her fascination with WWII and the historic context of Blackout.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Blackout is the first volume of a two-part novel. To find out what happens to the time-traveling historians from Oxford, we invite you to download the concluding volume, All Clear.

Listen to Connie Willis and Carrie Vaughn: A Conversation. And listen to All Clear.

©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)

“If you're a science-fiction fan, you'll want to read this book by one of the most honored writers in the field; if you're interested in World War II, you should pick up Blackout for its you-are-there authenticity; and if you just like to read, 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)

It takes time…

I have owned this audio since it first came out. At first I was disappointed as I found it hard to jump around time. Then I listened to it a second time, then a third, then the millionth. It is one of my go to books. I listen to it in all kinds of ways, I will follow a character line (love the Hodbins). I’ll just check out how the the girls are doing fending off men and V2 rockets. Be sure to pick up ‘All Clear’ at the same time, you are going to want to find out if we win the war!

You're in for a wild ride!

I'll start by saying Blackout and All Clear are a package deal, so don't expect to listen to one and not the other; you'll want to start All Clear immediately after finishing Blackout, because you can't just let the story end there. These books are amazing - the best time travel science fiction I have ever read, and I don't say that lightly. Anyone interested in time travel or WWII history will love them. You really connect to the characters, and you can't guess what will happen next. Time travel is my favorite topic in sci-fi and fantasy, and this series is my number one recommendation in that category. If you like these, listen to all of the Oxford Time Travel series. They're worth it.

I want more. I will definitely keep an eye on Connie Willis. I hope by the time I've gotten through her other works she'll have released a new one.

A Masterwork - across two parts.

I have just finished listening to 'All Clear'.... and am still buzzing hours later... I loved every moment of it.

Blackout as other reviewers have said is 'part one' and doesn't come to any resolution. Think of when 'The Fellowship of the Ring' ends and you know you have two more books of the Lord of the Rings to go. The first book doesn't resolve anything, just sets up lots of characters and plots....which is what Connie Willis does here. The first few reviewers who's disappointment I have read here must have had no idea a second book was weeks/days away from being available. I couldn't wait for 'All Clear' to be available. 'Blackout' would be disappointing without 'All Clear', so plan on getting both, you won't be disappointed.

The narration is just fantastic, The characters are just as detailed and believable as her previous books. The writing is Connie Willis at her best. Blackout is embedded with subplots that the reader is allowed to enjoy alone, but offer no idea what the heck they are about until the last half of 'All Clear'. For this this just makes it all the more enjoyable.

Get 'Blackout' AND 'All Clear' and encourage Connie Willis to write more books....

Good history, Lackluster Scifi

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The fictional (although based in fact) historical stories about what life in WW2 might have been like were great. I don't need my history to be completely about facts and dates of great men doing great things. The little things can be just as interesting. Not so great was the time travel component. The time travelers give a good perspective for those of us not living through a war, but the contrivances of plot were unnecessary at best and distractingly bad at worst. I don't need my scifi to be "hard" to enjoy it, but I feel like the Historians really don't live up to that title. It seems to me that they are a narrative convenience rather than something something necessary to telling some great stories about WW2.

Can't Wait!

Another gem from Connie Willis. I cried through the plague and laughed my way down the Cam. This one brings it all together. Can't wait for All Clear!

Long and enjoyable

This book held me enthralled to the end, although its a bit slow in places. The only negative for me was that at times she dwelt too long and too many times on the "what if" situations. If I hadnt done this then that would not have happened, if I hadnt gone here then this would not have happened sorts of thing.
Am looking forward to hearing the sequel.

Comes to an abrupt end.

This is an interesting story that feels incomplete. If an author decides to place her characters in difficult and mysterious peril, she should be compelled to extract them by the end of the story and explain how such a feat was achieved. There is no "Act Three" to "Blackout".

The narration by Katherine Kellgren is excellent. She skillfully evokes male and female character, both young and old.

Excellent!

Not often will you get a fantastic story, a great narrator and 18 hours of it for just one credit! This book alone is well worth it, and the sequel is too - you really get like 3-4 normal books for the price of two.

Confused Bushman

I am sure that a lot of people will enjoy this book. I found parts interesting and the reader very good. The story jumps about and gets bogged down in confusing detail. Listening to the book became an endurance event. I was relieved when it was over. It was a pity as the concept is great and the historical content very good.

The BEST SF writer alive!

Connie Willis is a conceited author. In the Old English sense of "conceited" -- a clever construction. Willis's conceit is to write about "historians" -- time-travelers from the 2060s who go back in time to observe "ordinary people". Her Doomsday Book, about a village during the Black Plague, was one of the most riveting evocations of human emotion I have ever read.
This time, Willis's "historians" are covering World War II in England.Their observations of ordinary people are of course an excuse for Willis to dress a fascinating parade of characters, dozens of them, all bound up in the everyday heroism of enduring a war: the evacuation at Dunkirk, the children's' evacuation from London, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, the V1s and V2s, ...
Of course, the "historians" get caught up in the movement, and do heroic things themselves. Which should be impossible, because "the theory of time" forbids any time-traveler's meddling with the past. So... is there something wrong with time itself? Willis's characters must battle the Germans while they battle against the fabric of time itself!
These two books are in fact a single work, so you must read them in order. But DO read them! They are excellent!
... and then we must wait another ten years for Willis's next work... :-((((