Friday 24 June 2011

SCIENCE FICTION REVIEW: Blackout - Connie Willis

Release Date:

SYNOPSIS:

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.


REVIEW:

Whilst Connie has written other titles previous to this one, this was my first “journey” with her and as such I love the concepts, characters as well as overall arc, yes it moved slowly in places but that added to the atmosphere and confusion of the time period which felt to me like it added a touch more authenticity to the piece. Whilst this is the first part of one huge book (the second currently is down for release in October) it does take the reader on a journey of discovery, enlightenment and personal evolvement for the characters concerned who, while they do not all gel together allows the reader to understand as well as discover the full beauty of this title.

It has something for everyone and while a few may claim that it wasn’t quite up to her previous titles, I think judgment has to be held off until the second title is released in order to gain the full picture. I really can’t wait to see what she has in store.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hmm, not my cup, but a lovely review.