All Clear: A Novel

Connie Willis

Oct 2010 · Oxford Time Travel Book 2 · Sold by Spectra

About this eBook

Winner of the Nebula Award

Traveling back in time, from Oxford circa 2060 into the thick of World War II, was a routine excursion for three British historians eager to study firsthand the heroism and horrors of the Dunkirk evacuation and the London Blitz. But getting marooned in war-torn 1940 England has turned Michael Davies, Merope Ward, and Polly Churchill from temporal tourists into besieged citizens struggling to survive Hitler’s devastating onslaught. And now there’s more to worry about than just getting back home: The impossibility of altering past events has always been a core belief of time-travel theory—but it may be tragically wrong. When discrepancies in the historical record begin cropping up, it suggests that one or all of the future visitors have somehow changed the past—and, ultimately, the outcome of the war. Meanwhile, in 2060 Oxford, the stranded historians’ supervisor, Mr. Dunworthy, frantically confronts the seemingly impossible task of rescuing his students—three missing needles in the haystack of history. The thrilling time-tripping adventure that began with Blackout now hurtles to its stunning resolution in All Clear.

Ratings and reviews

This was my first Connie Willis novel, and I picked it up because it recently won both the Hugo and Nebula Award for best novel. Not knowing what to expect, I must say that the story was at first very hard to follow. So many characters are introduced to you throughout the entire 1000-page mammoth -- it’s hard to decide at any given moment which ones you should try to remember or not. The novel tells the story of historians from a futuristic Oxford University who travel back to the WWII to do research, but are then stuck in this time because of their return “drops” to the future malfunctioning. Throughout the novel, we are following our main characters in different chronological time zones throughout WWII as they are trying to solve the mystery of why their return drops are failing while carefully trying to avoid altering history. Sounds dull? Well, in principle the story might sound dull, but it is told with such a riveting Da Vinci Code-style fashion that I have already decided half-way through the novel, that this is probably going to be one of my favorite SciFi novels of all time. You see, there are simple time travel stories that you can explain to someone in a few seconds (Christmas Carol) and there are complex time travel stories that require drawing a graph or two (Star Trek’s Yesterday’s Enterprise or Back to the Future Part II). Well, this time travel novel takes it to the extreme. Since the story is told from a multitude of characters from different chronological areas (or shall I say eras?), you sometimes know the effect before reading the cause, while some incident overlap but are just told from different perspectives. The story is told in an nonlinear fashion but miraculously avoids annoying the user. I do recommend keeping a pen and paper handy though to draw your little time charts. ;-) The other thing I love so much about this book is an eye-opener to the atmosphere of Britain during the nine months that Hitler was dropping bombs over London (the Blitz). As our protagonists travel throughout Britain or hide in bomb shelters in London during this period, we learn so much about the daily lives of so many ordinary citizens during wartime, unsung heros, and interesting tidbits of war strategies. I ended up having to look up so many Wikipedia articles to find out whether this was fiction or what really happened. It is quite educating and vivid. So step aside, Ender’s Game, I think I found my new favorite novel.

Like the War, this and its brother before it are absolutely chalk full of detail. Detail that eventually drowns the reader and suffocates any fun or suspense to be had. It can only be described as a reverse Oreo: the cookies (first half of the first book, second half of the second) are great, sprinkled with various timelines. The cream, the rest of it, the bit that usually is equally good, was bland, trite, overly wordy. Great idea, but it really should have stayed as novellas.

Started with a decent premise. But will it ever end? Blackout, the first book in this series, did not. This one rambles on for even longer, before an editor explained to her that books do have to end sometimes. So a gratuitous ending has been hastily glued on with binder twine and duct tape. Thank goodness. The basic problem: there's enough pkot for the first twenty pages or so; and then nothing happens.

About the author

Connie Willis, who was recently inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, has received six Nebula awards and ten Hugo awards for her fiction; her novel Passage was nominated for both. Her other works include Blackout, Doomsday Book, Lincoln’s Dreams, Bellwether, Impossible Things, Remake, Uncharted Territory, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Fire Watch, and Miracle and Other Christmas Stories. Connie Willis lives in Colorado with her family.