-
Blackout
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren, Connie Willis
- Length: 18 hrs and 44 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
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.
Critic reviews
- Nebula Award, Best Novel, 2010
- Hugo Award, Best Novel, 2011
- Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2010: Readers' Choice (SF Site)
Featured Article: The 25 Best Time Travel Listens to Take You on an Unforgettable Journey
Time travel is one of science fiction's most popular subgenres. Fans are drawn to its infinite possibilities, offering a glimpse into past cultures, societies, and pivotal events while exploring big what if? questions. What if you knew what would happen next in your life? What if you could go back and change history? What if you did change history? With this guide, you're sure to find an exciting audiobook to transport you to the perfect place in another time.
Related to this topic
-
Doomsday Book
- By: Connie Willis
- Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin
- Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Oxford student Kivrin, traveling back to the 14th century is more than the culmination of her studies - it's the chance for a wonderful adventure. For Dunworthy, her mentor, it is cause for intense worry about the thousands of things that could go wrong.
-
-
Timely, beautiful, terrible and haunting
- By mudcelt on 11-02-09
By: Connie Willis
-
Goodnight from London
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Robson
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1940, ambitious young American journalist Ruby Sutton gets her big break: the chance to report on the European war as a staff writer for Picture Weekly newsmagazine in London. She jumps at the chance, for it's an opportunity not only to prove herself, but also to start fresh in a city and country that know nothing of her humble origins. But life in besieged Britain tests Ruby in ways she never imagined.
-
-
Light story
- By Bev Holdgate on 08-10-17
By: Jennifer Robson
-
The Winds of Marble Arch
- By: Connie Willis
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 1 hr and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom, an American, is in London for a conference when he begins to experience unusual forces in the Underground. Is it an easily-explained phenomenon - or ghosts from Britain's past?
-
-
Hugo award winner
- By Katherine on 07-09-12
By: Connie Willis
-
The Unlikely Spy
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“In wartime,” Winston Churchill wrote, “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” For Britain’s counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable - a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor. The Nazis, however, have also chosen an unlikely agent.
-
-
The Unlikely Spy
- By Margaret on 12-14-09
By: Daniel Silva
-
Hornet Flight
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's June 1941, and the low point of the war. England throws wave after wave of RAF bombers across the Channel, but somehow the Luftwaffe is able to shoot them down at will. The skies, indeed, the war itself seem to belong to Hitler.
-
-
An Outstanding Spy Novel
- By C. McCoy on 03-13-05
By: Ken Follett
-
Enemy Brothers (Living History Library)
- By: Constance Savery
- Narrated by: Paul L. Coffey
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
British airman Dym Ingleford is convinced that the young German prisoner, Max Eckermann, is his brother Anthony, who was kidnapped years before. Raised in the Nazi ideology, Tony has by chance tumbled into British hands. Dym has brought him back, at least temporarily, to the family he neither remembers nor will acknowledge as his own.
-
-
More people should read this wonderful story!!!
- By E.F.B. on 08-02-18
By: Constance Savery
-
Doomsday Book
- By: Connie Willis
- Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin
- Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For Oxford student Kivrin, traveling back to the 14th century is more than the culmination of her studies - it's the chance for a wonderful adventure. For Dunworthy, her mentor, it is cause for intense worry about the thousands of things that could go wrong.
-
-
Timely, beautiful, terrible and haunting
- By mudcelt on 11-02-09
By: Connie Willis
-
Goodnight from London
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Robson
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1940, ambitious young American journalist Ruby Sutton gets her big break: the chance to report on the European war as a staff writer for Picture Weekly newsmagazine in London. She jumps at the chance, for it's an opportunity not only to prove herself, but also to start fresh in a city and country that know nothing of her humble origins. But life in besieged Britain tests Ruby in ways she never imagined.
-
-
Light story
- By Bev Holdgate on 08-10-17
By: Jennifer Robson
-
The Winds of Marble Arch
- By: Connie Willis
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 1 hr and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tom, an American, is in London for a conference when he begins to experience unusual forces in the Underground. Is it an easily-explained phenomenon - or ghosts from Britain's past?
-
-
Hugo award winner
- By Katherine on 07-09-12
By: Connie Willis
-
The Unlikely Spy
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“In wartime,” Winston Churchill wrote, “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” For Britain’s counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable - a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor. The Nazis, however, have also chosen an unlikely agent.
-
-
The Unlikely Spy
- By Margaret on 12-14-09
By: Daniel Silva
-
Hornet Flight
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's June 1941, and the low point of the war. England throws wave after wave of RAF bombers across the Channel, but somehow the Luftwaffe is able to shoot them down at will. The skies, indeed, the war itself seem to belong to Hitler.
-
-
An Outstanding Spy Novel
- By C. McCoy on 03-13-05
By: Ken Follett
-
Enemy Brothers (Living History Library)
- By: Constance Savery
- Narrated by: Paul L. Coffey
- Length: 7 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
British airman Dym Ingleford is convinced that the young German prisoner, Max Eckermann, is his brother Anthony, who was kidnapped years before. Raised in the Nazi ideology, Tony has by chance tumbled into British hands. Dym has brought him back, at least temporarily, to the family he neither remembers nor will acknowledge as his own.
-
-
More people should read this wonderful story!!!
- By E.F.B. on 08-02-18
By: Constance Savery
-
Their Finest
- A Novel
- By: Lissa Evans
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1940. France has fallen, and only a narrow strip of sea lies between Great Britain and invasion. The war could go either way, and everyone must do their bit. Young copywriter Catrin Cole is drafted into the Ministry of Information to help write women into propaganda films - something that the men aren't very good at. She is quickly seconded to the ministry's latest endeavor: a heartwarming tale of bravery and rescue at Dunkirk. It's all completely fabricated, of course, but what does that matter when the nation's morale is at stake?
By: Lissa Evans
-
Crooked Heart
- A Novel
- By: Lissa Evans
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Noel Bostock - aged 10, no family - is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a suburb northwest of the city with Vera Sedge - a 36-year-old widow drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it.
-
-
Surviving The Blitz In WWII Great Britain
- By Sara on 04-24-16
By: Lissa Evans
-
The Pearl Thief
- By: Elizabeth Wein
- Narrated by: Maggie Service
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the internationally acclaimed best-selling author of Code Name Verity comes a stunning new story of pearls, love and murder. Sixteen-year-old Julie Beaufort-Stuart is returning to her family's ancestral home in Perthshire for one last summer. It is not an idyllic return to childhood. Her grandfather's death has forced the sale of the house and estate, and this will be a summer of good-byes. Not least to the McEwen family - Highland travellers who have been part of the landscape for as long as anyone can remember.
-
-
Freshwater Pearls and Scottish Plaid
- By Cynthia on 08-14-17
By: Elizabeth Wein
-
Secrets of a Charmed Life
- By: Susan Meissner
- Narrated by: Alana Kerr Collins
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Current day, Oxford, England. Young American scholar Kendra Van Zant, eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, interviews Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets about the war that she has kept for decades...beginning with who she really is. What Kendra receives from Isabel is both a gift and a burden--one that will test her convictions and her heart.
-
-
Rare 5-Star Across the Board!
- By Imamomof4 on 06-14-15
By: Susan Meissner
-
Life Class
- By: Pat Barker
- Narrated by: Russell Boulter
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1914, a group of young students gather in an art studio for a life-drawing class. Paul Tarrant and Elinor Brooke are two components of a love triangle, and at the outset of the war, they turn to each other. After volunteering for the Red Cross, Paul must confront the fact that life, love, and art will never be the same for him.
-
-
In Love and War
- By Cariola on 07-28-09
By: Pat Barker
-
Dead Man's Land
- By: Robert Ryan
- Narrated by: Richard Burnip
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Deep in the trenches of Flanders Fields, men are dying in the thousands every day. So one more death shouldn't be a surprise. But then a body turns up with bizarre injuries, and Sherlock Holmes' former sidekick, Dr. John Watson - unable to fight for his country due to injury but able to serve it through his medical expertise - finds his suspicions raised.
-
-
Watson is wonderful, amid very grim surroundings
- By L. Gutman on 03-01-18
By: Robert Ryan
-
A Duty to the Dead
- A Bess Crawford Mystery
- By: Charles Todd
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his patriotic footsteps, volunteering to serve her country as a nurse during the Great War. In 1916 she promises Lieutenant Arthur Graham that she will carry his dying request to a brother. When Bess arrives at the Graham house in Kent, Jonathan Graham listens to his brother's last wishes with surprising indifference.
-
-
Terrific period mystery
- By Anne on 12-04-10
By: Charles Todd
-
Velva Jean Learns to Drive
- A Novel
- By: Jennifer Niven
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set in Appalachia in the years before World War II, Velva Jean Learns to Drive is a poignant story of a spirited young girl growing up in the gold-mining and moonshining South. Before she dies, Velva Jean's mother urges her to "live out there in the great wide world." Velva Jean dreams of becoming a big-time singer in Nashville until she falls in love with Harley Bright, a handsome juvenile delinquent turned revival preacher.
-
-
If Jenna Lamia reads it, I'll listen to it!
- By Susan on 12-17-09
By: Jennifer Niven
-
Dying in the Wool
- A Kate Shackleton Mystery, Book 1
- By: Frances Brody
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bridgestead is a peaceful spot: a babbling brook, rolling hills, and a working mill at its heart. Pretty and remote, nothing exceptional happens...until the day that Master of the Mill Joshua Braithwaite goes missing under dramatic circumstances, never to be heard of again. Now Joshua's daughter is getting married and wants to make one last attempt at finding her father. Kate Shackleton has always loved solving puzzles. So who better to get to the bottom of Joshua's mysterious disappearance?
-
-
Fluff & Nonsense
- By Sara on 01-03-15
By: Frances Brody
-
Lavender Road
- By: Helen Carey
- Narrated by: Annie Aldington
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lavender Road boasts a pawnbroker, a pub, two rows of terraced working class homes, and, at one end, the big house owned by the local brewer. When war breaks out, the lives and fortunes of the families who live in Lavender Road are changed out of all recognition.
-
-
Great story with wonderful, believable characters!
- By Kathleen Bailey on 03-27-24
By: Helen Carey
-
Daughters of Eden
- By: Charlotte Bingham
- Narrated by: Kim Hicks
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Daughters of Eden focuses on the lives and fortunes of four very different young women at the outbreak of the Second World War. Marjorie, left at a boarding school by her emigrating mother; plain Poppy, pushed into marriage with a mean-spirited aristocrat; Kate, despised by her father, but determined to prove herself; and man-mad Lily, who turns out to be the bravest of them all. That all of them are chosen to work undercover for the espionage unit at Eden Park is a surprise, not least to them.
-
-
An amazing book everyone should read.
- By XX on 09-11-05
-
The Tea Rose
- By: Jennifer Donnelly
- Narrated by: Jill Tanner
- Length: 28 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
East London, 1888 - a city apart. A place of shadow and light where thieves, whores, and dreamers mingle, where children play in the cobbled streets by day and a killer stalks at night, where bright hopes meet the darkest truths. Here, by the whispering waters of the Thames, Fiona Finnegan, a worker in a tea factory, hopes to own a shop one day, together with her lifelong love, Joe Bristow, a costermonger's son. With nothing but their faith in each other to spur them on, Fiona and Joe struggle, save, and sacrifice to achieve their dreams.
-
-
Wow. Wow wow wow!
- By I like to shop on 04-26-16