In August , 2006 , at the 64th World Science Fiction Convention , in a give-and-take with her audience , Willis described her novel-in-progress : " It 's about World War 2 , and I have four historians ... One of them is with the evacuating children in the North of England ; one of them is doing the Blitz ; one of them is doing the civilian evacuation from Dunkirk , '' of '' soldiers but '' by '' civilians ; and one of them is doing the Intelligence War involved in the lead-up to D-Day , where they fooled Hitler into thinking we were attacking at Calais , instead of at Normandy . And their lives are hopelessly intertwined ; but then they all get in trouble &mdash; you know my books &mdash; they all get in terrible trouble and ca n't get out of it . And are stuck in World War II , for God 's sake ! So : Not a safe place to be . " ( An audience member called , " Better than the Plague ! " ) Willis laughed but replied , " Not necessarily better than the Plague ! In slightly better survival chance because they have the advantage of some knowledge that the locals do n't have , but then again , historical events are notoriously inaccurate , and just because you think you know where all the bombs fell , does n't mean you do . So that will figure heavily in the book ... I have a lot of stuff to tell you about the war ... The Brits were absolutely wonderful ... They '' were '' great and plucky and funny under pressure . " In a February 12 , 2010 interview Connie Willis said : What are '' Blackout '' and '' All Clear '' about ? They 're about Dunkirk and ration books and D-Day and V-1 rockets , about tube shelters and Bletchley Park and gas masks and stirrup pumps and Christmas pantomimes and cows and crossword puzzles and the deception campaign . And mostly the book 's about all the people who " did their bit " to save the world from Hitler &mdash; Shakespearean actors and ambulance drivers and vicars and landladies and nurses and WRENs and RAF pilots and Winston Churchill and General Patton and Agatha Christie &mdash; heroes all . Michael Dirda of '' The Washington Post '' praised the diptych as " as vivid an evocation of England during World War II as anyone has ever written " and wrote that " '' Blackout '' is , by turns , witty , suspenseful , harrowing and occasionally comic to the point of slapstick . " Adrienne Martini of Locus Online called the 1940s Britain that Willis created " richly textured " . A. M. Dellamonica described the story as " an intricate puzzle " and " a celebration , too , of courage and heroism , of perseverance , of ordinary people doing small things to aid in great causes , of devotion , friendship , keeping one 's word . It has funny characters and laugh out loud moments aplenty , but it is no wacky romp , this book , no '' To Say Nothing of the Dog '' . At the same time , I found it funnier and , strangely , cheerier than previous Willis novels with a comparable body count . " Thomas M. Wagner called '' Blackout '' " an absolute monster of an epic , a time-travel saga so rich in scope that it 's taking two volumes to tell , yet so intimate in its observation of character that what you take away from it are not thrilling action setpieces but those moments of bonding people share — warm , funny , confused , trivial , angry , heartfelt — that take on a new and infinitely greater meaning in the shadow of death ... Amid the growing suspense , Willis builds an engrossing work of humanist fiction that avoids pathos and easy sentiment in depicting the quiet practicality and occasional heroism ( and yes , the callousness ) of Londoners surviving the Blitz . Memorable characters abound , and Willis 's gift for natural dialogue brings scenes to life in a way that makes you feel you 're in their presence . And she never pulls the lame stunt of creating a character for you to love just to kill them as an exercise in cheap button mashing . We get to know every one of the people with whom Polly shares a shelter every night , like the blustery , avuncular stage actor Sir Godfrey Kingsman , who quotes the Bard every time he opens his mouth yet whose personality rings true all the same . Eileen finds herself saddled with two of the most ill-behaved children in history , and yet you kind of like them , especially because , as a sort of brother-and-sister demolition duo with an appallingly indifferent and irresponsible mother , you realize they 've only ever had each other . " Julie Phillips of '' The Village Voice '' wrote , " '' Blackout/All Clear '' is neither tragedy nor comedy , but a mystery story with touches of grief and slapstick ... None of the three historians manages to stand by and observe ... The cast of characters is long , but Willis convinces you to care about almost all their fates — and to surprise you about their connection to each other . Willis 's evocation of wartime London sometimes feels romanticized , and it has few moral or demographic complications ... Nor is Willis 's theme , the heroism of ordinary people , especially original . But by the time the three historians and Mr. Dunworthy have unraveled the mystery and arrived at the full-on , three-hanky finale , you 'll no longer be a disinterested observer . " Some reviewers complained of the length of the books and their narrative modes . Christopher DeFilippis , writing for the SF Site , said he thought the books " can best be described by words like ' belabored ' and ' exasperating . ' That 's because the single story told in '' Blackout '' and '' All Clear '' did n't have to encompass two novels . Had it not been marred by endlessly repetitive prose and character actions , the narrative could have fit neatly into a single volume ... Unfortunately , the bulk of '' Blackout '' is taken up by Polly , Mike and Eileen 's individual realizations that they 're trapped in the past , with each caught in a state of seemingly perpetual denial about their circumstances . Instead of acknowledging the blatant truth of their predicament , they concoct endless mental scenarios as to why their gates wo n't open ... Willis goes on for pages with her protagonists repeatedly ruminating about the same " what ifs " over and over ( and over ) again . It may be understandable in the beginning of the story as the characters adjust to the magnitude of their situation . But it soon becomes apparent that this is what constitutes drama in Willis ' universe and it never stops ... It 's a shame that these negatives so overwhelm '' Blackout '' and '' All Clear '' , because despite them the books feature many terrific characters moving in extremely interesting historical situations . " Similarly , Adam Roberts of '' The Guardian '' wrote , " The result is a mildly interesting 200-page novel about the ordinary heroism of British civilians during the war , bloated to 800 pages via an egregiously handled time-travel conceit , eked out with great jellied quantities of historical research , endless meandering conversations , long passages disposed into that tiresome typographical convention by which characters ' inmost thoughts are spelled out in italics , and a string of inconsequential chapter-end cliffhangers/immediate resolutions that got increasingly on my nerves as the book went on . There 's little overall tension , and the time-travelling historians come over as both panicky and amateurish – an undesirable combination , one might think , where timelines are lying about ready to be mucked up . " He added , though , " The aim is a commendable one . Despite walk-on parts by General Patton , Agatha Christie and Alan Turing , the bulk of the characters in '' All Clear '' are ordinary people getting on with their ordinary lives ... And it ca n't be denied that the subject here , the heroism of ordinary people in testing times , is worthy and honourable . "
64th World Science Fiction Convention
64th World Science Fiction Convention
Blackout/All Clear