Steph, the 2011 Hugo Voter, Reviews: Blackout/All Clear, by Connie Willis (Novel #5)

Blackout/All Clear*, Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra)

Premise: "In Blackout, award-winning author Connie Willis returned to the time-traveling future of 2060—the setting for several of her most celebrated works—and sent three Oxford historians to World War II England: Michael Davies, intent on observing heroism during the Miracle of Dunkirk; Merope Ward, studying children evacuated from London; and Polly Churchill, posing as a shopgirl in the middle of the Blitz. But when the three become unexpectedly trapped in 1940, they struggle not only to find their way home but to survive as Hitler’s bombers attempt to pummel London into submission.

Now the situation has grown even more dire. Small discrepancies in the historical record seem to indicate that one or all of them have somehow affected the past, changing the outcome of the war. The belief that the past can be observed but never altered has always been a core belief of time-travel theory—but suddenly it seems that the theory is horribly, tragically wrong.

Meanwhile, in 2060 Oxford, the historians’ supervisor, Mr. Dunworthy, and seventeen-year-old Colin Templer, who nurses a powerful crush on Polly, are engaged in a frantic and seemingly impossible struggle of their own—to find three missing needles in the haystack of history." - from the Ballantine Spectra blurb for All Clear

Steph's Comments: Connie Willis has officially become one of my auto-reads. And what do I mean by that? Well, an auto-read is an author - like Lois Bujold, for example - whose books I snap up as soon as possible after they are released. Auto-reads, in other words, are authors I trust to deliver a quality story even if a particular work is not the best thing s/he's ever written.

I haven't read Connie Willis' entire oeuvre, so I can't conclusively rank Blackout/All Clear in relation to her other novels; I suspect, however, that it is one of her finest works to date. Here, Willis takes an approach similar to that of Ian McDonald: she picks a setting and populates it with a large cast of disparate characters in an attempt to evoke the spirit of a place in a particular time period. However, unlike McDonald, Willis actually succeeds in her ambitious endeavor in part because she absolutely excels at depicting the decency and bravery of the British people during World War II (whether they be street urchins, upper class debutantes, or the Queen herself) and in part because she has a solid theme to tie everything together. Consider, for example, what is probably my favorite passage in the entire novel:

She hadn't realized that they were in the bay that held The Light of the World. As the light grew, as golden as the light inside the latern, she could see the painting more clearly than she ever had. And Mr. Humphreys was right. There was something new to see every time you looked at it.

She had been wrong in thinking Christ had been called up against his will to fight in a war. He didn't look - in spite of the crown of thorns - like someone making a sacrifice. Or even like someone "determined to do his bit." He looked instead like Marjorie had looked telling Polly she'd joined the Nursing Service, like Mr. Humphreys had looked filling buckets with water and sand to save St. Paul's, like Miss Laburnum had looked the day she came into Townsend Brothers with the coats. He looked like Captain Faulknor must've looked lashing the ships together. Like Ernest Shackleton, setting out in that tiny boat across the icy seas. Like Colin helping Mr. Dunworthy across the wreckage. He looked... contented. As if he was where he wanted to be, doing what he wanted to do. Like Eileen had looked, telling Polly she'd decided to stay. Like Mike must've looked in Kent, composing engagement announcements and letters to the editor. Like I must've looked there in the rubble with Sir Godfrey, my hand pressed against his heart. Exalted. Happy.

To do something for someone or something you loved - England or Shakespeare or a dog or the Hodbins or history - wasn't a sacrifice at all. Even if it cost you your freedom, your life, your youth.

The idea that we will find our greatest fulfillment while loving and serving others is deeply Christian. And this subtextual Christianity is only enhanced by the way in which Willis concludes her story. As it turns out, Polly, Mike and Eileen are trapped in the past because that's exactly where they need to be, as their actions at Dunkirk, in London, and elsewhere help to tip the balance in the war against Hitler. It's a predestination paradox, yes, but it's a predestination paradox with a distinctly spiritual edge because the "continuum" is clearly meant to represent God's plan for human history -- a plan shot through with divine grace.

Steph's Rating: 9.5

This is most definitely my pick for the top prize.

*And by the way, if you're wondering about the slash, this novel was published in two parts. As it clocked in at over 1100 pages in total, I suppose I understand that executive decision, though I think the publisher didn't really pick a logical stopping point at which to make the split.