- Audio CD
- Publisher: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD; MP3 Una edition (Sep 14 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1441875182
- ISBN-13: 978-1441875181
- Product Dimensions: 19 x 13.5 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 45 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #836,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
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 seventeen-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 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, 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. From the people sheltering in the tube stations of London to the retired sailors who set off across the Channel to rescue the stranded British Army from Dunkirk, from shopgirls to ambulance drivers, from spies to hospital nurses to Shakespearean actors, Blackout reveals a side of World War II seldom seen before: a dangerous, desperate world in which there are no civilians and in which everybody — from the Queen down to the lowliest barmaid — is determined to do their bit to help a beleaguered nation survive.
About the Author
Connie Willis is the award-winning author of Doomsday Book, Passage, To Say Nothing of the Dog and Bellwether. Connie has been awarded 10 Hugo Awards, 11 Locus Poll Awards and 6 Nebula Awards.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Connie Willis Brings the Blitz to Live,
By
This review is from: Blackout (Hardcover)
Connie Willis is a wonderful writer, primarily in the field of science fiction but often in a humourous vein, of which there are few good sf/f practitioners. Her most recent novel, Blackout, is not among her funny stories, however; instead, she returns to future-Oxford, the setting of her earlier novels Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, where time travel has been developed and historians are sent to different eras in order to observe what really happened. There are rules to time travel, including that historians cannot travel back to events that are considered to be "divergence" points, incidents that, if changed, will change the course of history. But when Polly, Merope (Eileen) and Michael are sent to various parts of Great Britain during WWII, in order to observe how people coped during that time, things start going wrong and they wonder if history has somehow been changed by their presence. Especially as they find that none of the "drops" from which they arrived in 1940 are working or available, and no retrieval team has come to take them out of a very dangerous situation....I'm not big on WWII stories, in fact I won't usually read novels set in that period or watch movies set then, but I put that dislike aside for the sake of Willis' writing, and I'm glad I did - this novel as is full of richly observed characters and intense dramatic scenes and, yes, a few moments that come across as keystone-kop zany, as any she's ever written. My only real quibble with it is that the story is unfinished; we must all wait unti the Fall of 2010 for All Clear, the second half, to be published in order to find out what happens to everybody. Recommended.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great start,
By mabel (pte claire, quebec Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blackout (Hardcover)
This is part 1 of 2 (the second part is out in October) but so far so good--I read it in two days. Connie Willis fans, and WW2 fans, won't be disappointed. Great historical detail, likable characters, and a time travel mystery is a-brewing! --> I docked one "star" because the last third of the book bogs down a bit.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
OH TO BE A HISTORIAN IN CONNIE WILLIS FUTURE...,
By
This review is from: Blackout (Hardcover)
...I am a huge fan of Connie Willis books, especially "Doomsday Book", which will always be in the top of my most memorable books I have read. Those of you who have read "Doomsday",(winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Science Fiction) as well as "To Say Nothing of the Dog" and "Fire Watch", will be reunited with Mr. Dunworthy and his team of Time Travelling Historians from future Oxford.In `BLACKOUT', a team of historian's are sent to study/observe the different aspects of the effect WW2 had on the lives of ordinary people who lived through the war in England. We meet Evacuated Children, London Shop Girls, Nurses and many others including the amazing ordinary hero's who attempted to rescue British Troops from Dunkirk, in fishing boats regardless of the Danger to themselves. Unlike Doomsday, this book does not alternate between future and past, but once the time travelling historians leave their present (2060), the story remains fixed in the early 1940's during WW2 England. Regardless of the desperate, chaotic and sometimes very frighteningly dangerous situations the Brits and the time travelling historians find themselves in, Connie Willis adds the needed humour now and then. I felt totally immersed into the story. I felt it was very believable and I learnt how the Brits reacted to the crisis at hand and how life went on regardless. As the famous WW2 poster stated "KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON" and they certainly did. Meanwhile, the Historians are desperate to return back to the future, but because of what seems to be a technical time travelling glitch they are stranded in a very dangerous time and the fear of changing the course of history is forever present. NEGATIVES: Yes, `BLACKOUT' is the first of two books in the series.....Yes, "ALL CLEAR" the second book does not come out till fall....Yes, it leaves you hanging....and sure there are some very "small" flaws in the writing...but hey, get over it! this is a very exciting, suspenseful book which I highly recommend reading. ...I LOVED IT AND I KNOW YOU WILL TOO!... I am pre-ordering the second and last book in the series `ALL CLEAR' right away.
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